During the early years of the homeschooling movement, in 1983, after our 6-year-old son Matt came down with pneumonia twice in six months, we started homeschooling to give him a break to recover. After that it seemed natural to let our two older children join our homeschool day whenever they got sick and had to stay home from school, I just included them into our homeschool day. They started begging to be homeschooled, too, so I wound up teaching all three, while helping to start El Paso’s first homeschool support group and spending hours on the phone talking to parents wanting information about homeschooling their kids.
I also started writing a weekly parenting column for the El Paso Times, sharing the tons of stuff I was learning while running a household, parenting and teaching three kids first grade through high school.
“Overwhelmed” became my middle name.
I’ll bet you feel the same sometimes, like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, or life has too many moving pieces.
I’d like to share with you one my most important parenting/homeschooling lessons for those times when I started feeling Utterly Overwhelmed. It was this: I’d better stop for an uninterrupted (as if that’s going to happen…) Morning of Prayer.
So, I’d pick a morning when nothing was scheduled and tell the two older kids that they could have a day off from school if they kept their little brother happy, answered the phone and made lunch. And they were not to interrupt me unless someone was bleeding.
Usually this gave me a whole hour or two…
I learned that to begin, I first needed to prepare my heart to think about what I was doing and to Whom I was praying. Otherwise, I would just rush into God’s presence, tell him what I thought He should do, and rush out again, without even waiting to hear what He might want to say about it.
With experience and a couple good teachers, I came to realize that I couldn’t just assume that the way I saw things was the way God saw them.
For He – not Me – He is God.
He knows how I am made, He knows how the world is made, and He knows far more about my situation than I do.
So, I need to prepare my heart and mind to approach Him appropriately and listen for anything He might want to say.
A good way to prepare my heart was praying the Lord’s Prayer thoughtfully:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…”
Who am I coming to? Since Jesus taught us to call Almighty God our Father, that tells me that God will listen to me as any good father would do. So, I can thank Him for being my father, for being completely on my side and for listening to me.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
God’s kingdom and God’s will are the Big Picture. My situation is a small part of that Big Picture. So…am I ready to pray for God’s kingdom to come into my situation? And for His will (not necessarily mine) to be done in this situation…just as it would be done in heaven? If not, I need to confess sin and get my heart right. This has to be done before I can ask for my daily needs:
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Are there sins – debts – I need to confess now, before I go any further? And am I “up” on forgiveness? Or do I need to pray about going through the process of forgiving – or at least being willing to let God help me forgive – someone?
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
I acknowledge that God’s enemy is opposed to His kingdom, and that I want to further God’s kingdom, not the enemy’s. So, I ask God’s protection from the evil one as I pray.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
This is another reminder to Whom I make my prayers.
After preparing my heart this way, I’d write this verse at the top of a page in my journal:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7).
“Be anxious for nothing…” St. Paul said. But I WAS anxious. In fact, I was obsessed.
Do you ever become so totally wrapped up in your worries, that praying is no longer really prayer? It’s worrying in the name of prayer? I began to realize that though I would begin: “Dear Jesus,” as if this was prayer, really I was just anxiously going over and over and over my worries, then ending with “Amen.” And that was not really prayer.
So, I’d make an Anxiety List
I’d draw a line down the center of the page and on the left side I’d list whatever I was worried about, leaving a fair amount of space between each item. Then, since St. Paul said to pray with thanksgiving, I’d go back to the top of the list and thank God for anything I could think of about the first item. Then I’d write my request, still on the left side.
I’d try to be quiet and if any thoughts or any scripture came to me, I’d jot that down. Then I’d move on to the second item, and so on down the list.
Over time, I learned two crucial things from this practice.
First: God answered my prayers in surprising – sometimes astonishing – ways. After a month or so, I’d go back to my left-hand list and then, on the blank right side of the page, I’d write down the answers to my petitions along with my thanks.
Wow, that was a faith builder!
Except.
Except that I also came to see that by the time I came back to write down those answers to my prayers, I often hadn’t noticed God’s answers when they came. And that was because I’d become so focused on a next new set of worries.
So, coming back to write in answers to my anxiety prayers built my faith.
And it also prodded me into greater awareness and gratitude for what God did for me at the time He was doing it.
The second big pattern I began to notice was that the day after setting aside a prayer time like this, I always felt horrible. I’d think, I had all these things to do, and I wasted a morning praying, so I got nothing done, and now I still have all this Stuff to deal with.
But… over time… because I was coming back to my notes and seeing both the answers to prayer AND the depression that came the following day, I began to recognize the depression as a spiritual assault. I realized that when I prayed – beyond my sight in the world invisible – God began moving. And that made God’s adversaries angry. They could see what I could not.
So, I was suffering a spite attack.
As I learned to refuse these bouts of depression, they lifted over time. I would say, “Lord, I refuse to believe that that was wasted time. Someday I’ll see it was time well spent, so now I thank You in advance for Your answers to my prayers.”
After my father's funeral in 2021, I collected and brought home to Texas many boxes of old photographs and documents. Within this treasure store, I found a list written in Dad's tiny, neat print with the title "Problem Solution Method."
My father enjoyed having a good problem to solve. He was a licensed structural engineer who was active in church and civic organizations, a skilled carpenter, inventor, musician and craftsman who delighted in his six children, his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and a lot of neighbor kids as well.
I think Dad’s list is worth sharing, especially during this season when people reflect on their lives in the past year and their desires and plans for the new year to come. So, here it is:
State the problem clearly (symptoms)
History – how did this become a problem? (state the underlying difficulty)
Define the objective (what is the goal?)
Brainstorm alternatives (what paths could lead to the goal?)
Consequences (what results, good & bad, may come from each path?)
What appears to be the best alternative?
Decide
What action to take
What resources are available
Personnel (who will do what)
Time frame (start & finish)
Report & follow-up
Review – then decide to:
Continue
Take an alternative (step 4)
Start over at step 1
What steps must be taken to prevent this problem from coming again?
Note: there’s a difference between a problem and a dilemma. A problem is a situation that must somehow be resolved. A dilemma is a difficult choice between two alternatives, both of them unsatisfactory.
It happened at a holiday gift exchange. We each brought an unmarked gift -- our invitation suggested “the more unique the better.”
I thought it was unique that the Chaplain chose the biggest box only to find it held a six-pack of beer. He spent the night trying to trade it off. Then his wife opened a personal clothing item, meant for a male. She was lucky, though, a kind soul traded with her and she got a year old fruit cake.
That was the other unique thing about this gift exchange
When our number was called we could open a new gift or take one we liked from someone else.
When the Far Side calendar was opened, I jabbed my husband in the ribs, “Get that one,” I ordered.
Ohhh’s and ahh’s went up when the wine with two glasses was unwrapped.
But I didn’t want the wine, I wanted the Christmas mugs holding packages of flavored coffee. “Get me the mugs,” I instructed when my husband’s number was called.
He did and had them for about three minutes before the lady on the couch nabbed them. “Get that Far Side calendar,” I urged my husband. He did and hid it under his thigh.
As the exchange progressed, fewer people opened new gifts as everyone’s favorites were swapped back and forth. It got to the point that we all just stayed seated and passed the best items from one to the other. My hands just touched the mugs when I had to release them again. Drat!
Somehow, during this round robin my husband ended up empty handed. “Something’s wrong,” I warned him. He glanced around looking for the mugs, the popcorn, the calendar. Then he turned towards the unopened presents.
I growled, “No, don’t open an unknown gift.” My voice rose in sharp tones “How’d you lose the calendar? Why don’t you have the mugs?” He glanced at me, then reached for a gift. We got a small pair of plastic elephant piggy banks. I rolled my eyes, disgusted. My husband looked at me, ashamed.
Today, after the party, I’m looking at myself, and I’m the one ashamed.
I yelled at him in front of all those people, just because of a set of mugs. I don’t need mugs. I can’t use the ones I have. I don’t have room on the shelf for more.
Ever notice that what happens to you reveals what’s in you? Jesus said it, “What goes into a man’s mouth doesn’t make him ‘unclean’, but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him unclean.” [Matthew 15:11]
Ouch. Why did Jesus have to say that?
I’d rather think that the problem lies with everything outside me. I don’t like to look inside. To face the truth. And I don’t like what came out of me that night -- greed, pure and filthy. And that’s the truth.
A friend of mine was at that same party, amid the same presents and opportunity. Know what she did when it was her turn? She stood. She walked slowly around the room, searching. “She’s looking for the calendar,’’ I thought.
Nope.
She reached for a box holding a ceramic Christmas tree. The tree was lovely, except it was broken. I watched her gently remove the fractured tree from its box. “I think all the pieces are here,” she said peering into it.
“Do you think you can fix it?” her husband asked.
“I think I can,” she answered.
My friend went home with a real treasure: a heart that sees promise and beauty in broken things.
A prayer for today
Slow me down inside, Lord, during this hectic holiday season, so that I can recognize and appreciate Your hidden treasures and blessings. Amen.
I felt overwhelmed.
During the early years of the homeschooling movement, in 1983, after our 6-year-old son Matt came down with pneumonia twice in six months, we started homeschooling to give him a break to recover. After that it seemed natural to let our two older children join our homeschool day whenever they got sick and had to stay home from school, I just included them into our homeschool day. They started begging to be homeschooled, too, so I wound up teaching all three, while helping to start El Paso’s first homeschool support group and spending hours on the phone talking to parents wanting information about homeschooling their kids.
I also started writing a weekly parenting column for the El Paso Times, sharing the tons of stuff I was learning while running a household, parenting and teaching three kids first grade through high school.
“Overwhelmed” became my middle name.
I’ll bet you feel the same sometimes, like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, or life has too many moving pieces.
I’d like to share with you one my most important parenting/homeschooling lessons for those times when I started feeling Utterly Overwhelmed. It was this: I’d better stop for an uninterrupted (as if that’s going to happen…) Morning of Prayer.
So, I’d pick a morning when nothing was scheduled and tell the two older kids that they could have a day off from school if they kept their little brother happy, answered the phone and made lunch. And they were not to interrupt me unless someone was bleeding.
Usually this gave me a whole hour or two…
I learned that to begin, I first needed to prepare my heart to think about what I was doing and to Whom I was praying. Otherwise, I would just rush into God’s presence, tell him what I thought He should do, and rush out again, without even waiting to hear what He might want to say about it.
With experience and a couple good teachers, I came to realize that I couldn’t just assume that the way I saw things was the way God saw them.
For He – not Me – He is God.
He knows how I am made, He knows how the world is made, and He knows far more about my situation than I do.
So, I need to prepare my heart and mind to approach Him appropriately and listen for anything He might want to say.
A good way to prepare my heart was praying the Lord’s Prayer thoughtfully:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…”
Who am I coming to? Since Jesus taught us to call Almighty God our Father, that tells me that God will listen to me as any good father would do. So, I can thank Him for being my father, for being completely on my side and for listening to me.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
God’s kingdom and God’s will are the Big Picture. My situation is a small part of that Big Picture. So…am I ready to pray for God’s kingdom to come into my situation? And for His will (not necessarily mine) to be done in this situation…just as it would be done in heaven? If not, I need to confess sin and get my heart right. This has to be done before I can ask for my daily needs:
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Are there sins – debts – I need to confess now, before I go any further? And am I “up” on forgiveness? Or do I need to pray about going through the process of forgiving – or at least being willing to let God help me forgive – someone?
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
I acknowledge that God’s enemy is opposed to His kingdom, and that I want to further God’s kingdom, not the enemy’s. So, I ask God’s protection from the evil one as I pray.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
This is another reminder to Whom I make my prayers.
After preparing my heart this way, I’d write this verse at the top of a page in my journal:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7).
“Be anxious for nothing…” St. Paul said. But I WAS anxious. In fact, I was obsessed.
Do you ever become so totally wrapped up in your worries, that praying is no longer really prayer? It’s worrying in the name of prayer? I began to realize that though I would begin: “Dear Jesus,” as if this was prayer, really I was just anxiously going over and over and over my worries, then ending with “Amen.” And that was not really prayer.
So, I’d make an Anxiety List
I’d draw a line down the center of the page and on the left side I’d list whatever I was worried about, leaving a fair amount of space between each item. Then, since St. Paul said to pray with thanksgiving, I’d go back to the top of the list and thank God for anything I could think of about the first item. Then I’d write my request, still on the left side.
I’d try to be quiet and if any thoughts or any scripture came to me, I’d jot that down. Then I’d move on to the second item, and so on down the list.
Over time, I learned two crucial things from this practice.
First: God answered my prayers in surprising – sometimes astonishing – ways. After a month or so, I’d go back to my left-hand list and then, on the blank right side of the page, I’d write down the answers to my petitions along with my thanks.
Wow, that was a faith builder!
Except.
Except that I also came to see that by the time I came back to write down those answers to my prayers, I often hadn’t noticed God’s answers when they came. And that was because I’d become so focused on a next new set of worries.
So, coming back to write in answers to my anxiety prayers built my faith.
And it also prodded me into greater awareness and gratitude for what God did for me at the time He was doing it.
The second big pattern I began to notice was that the day after setting aside a prayer time like this, I always felt horrible. I’d think, I had all these things to do, and I wasted a morning praying, so I got nothing done, and now I still have all this Stuff to deal with.
But… over time… because I was coming back to my notes and seeing both the answers to prayer AND the depression that came the following day, I began to recognize the depression as a spiritual assault. I realized that when I prayed – beyond my sight in the world invisible – God began moving. And that made God’s adversaries angry. They could see what I could not.
So, I was suffering a spite attack.
As I learned to refuse these bouts of depression, they lifted over time. I would say, “Lord, I refuse to believe that that was wasted time. Someday I’ll see it was time well spent, so now I thank You in advance for Your answers to my prayers.”
Then I thanked Him again when the answers came.
©2022 Becky Cerling Powers
Reprint with attribution only www.beckypowers.com
Becky Cerling Powers is the author of Laura’s Children: the hidden story of a Chinese orphanage as well as Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds: quick reads for helping kids thrive. She blogs at www.beckypowers.com “Anxiety List Prayer” is part of a collection of stories describing and explaining the use of the spiritual weapons that the apostle Paul listed in Ephesians 6:10-20. This story describes using all-occasion prayer. To find other stories in the blog series, enter “reflections on spiritual warfare” into the Search Bar.