“Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10
Last week I read Aha!
Moments’ Blog Post and my heart immediately went out to
Christie and every other woman who could identify with her story. If you missed
it, here’s a snippet…
I'm busy working on a ministry, writing a blog, taking care
of my three children, maintaining healthy friendships, trying my best to keep
the house in order, figuring out how to be a help-mate to my husband, and all
the while praying for God to help me keep it all together.
Oh how I know that place! The place where there’s so much
to do and not enough time to do it and hoping God hears me and will somehow
make it all work out the way I need it to so that the craziness will somehow
just STOP…
God
doesn’t work like that though.
He doesn’t want us to live for everything and everyone
else and hope He will jump in and help. He wants us to live for Him and trust
Him to work out whatever everyone and everything else needs.
That’s a huge paradigm shift!
I have lived the crazy
life Christie wrote of and it almost killed me. At
one point I was in danger of entering menopause, having a heart attack, on the
verge of a divorce, and so angry and bitter I couldn’t stand my own children,
much less my life. I couldn’t understand why God wasn’t intervening and making
everything work out “right.” I was 33.
Today, at 43, I have an
incredibly different life.
I am free from any threat of a heart attack, menopause is now naturally
occurring instead of stress-induced, I have an incredible relationship with my
children and I am still married to the same man. But, the most important thing is that amid the regular busyness of
everyday life (and the occasional chaotic season) I have PEACE!
How?
I chose to make the shift from putting everything else first and God last, to
putting God first and letting Him tell me what came next.
Making the choice to live out of my own control was the
easy part. Learning how to do it was the challenge. That’s why I chronicled my
experience and what I learned in a 10-week Bible study called Cultivating
Peace: Revealing God’s Peace within Your Chaos. In
this study I share how out of control my life was and how, little by little, God infused my life with His Truth and cultivated
His peace in my daily life. Using my own experiences, as well as the stories of
the women I have met along the way, I walk through God’s truth in issues such
as:
- How to live out of our own control without everything falling into chaos.
- The lies we believe and how they affect the level of peace we feel.
- What it really means to center our lives on God.
- How to stop comparing our lives to anyone else’s and find peace within our own.
- What personality types and love languages have to do with peace in our relationships.
- What true peace really is.
If you feel like your
life is more often full of chaos than peace, if you feel like God is distant,
if you feel as if at any moment your choices could cause your schedule to come
crashing down all around you, then this study is for YOU!
Of
course, you may still feel like saying: Where
on earth will I find the time to read??
I
hear you! That’s why I have created all kinds of resource tools to help you!
- Each session has its own free Video Teaching segment that you can watch when you need some peace right now in any area of your life.
- Each chapter has Personal Reflection questions to help you discover God’s truth in a few short minutes.
- Each chapter also has a corresponding memory verse to keep you centered on God all day long.
- Our Peace of Mind Ministries Schedule Tracker™ is available any time to track where your time is really being spent in order to see why you feel so chaotic. There’s even a special Video teaching on how to use this tool.
No matter how chaotic
or out of control your life is today, God has a way to cultivate His peace
within it. All He asks of you is to invite Him to take over:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
Stephanie
Stephanie Haynes is the Founder of Peace of Mind Ministries,
a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women cultivate God’s peace His
way within their lives. She and her husband live in the Saint Louis area of
Missouri with their daughter Taylor (15), son Christopher (11), and two crazy
dogs. Stephanie promotes God’s message of peace through her blog, on Facebook
and Twitter,
and through speaking to groups such as MOPS and church women’s events and
retreats. You can contact her with any questions related to this post via email
at Stephanie@peaceofmindministries.com
No comments:
Post a Comment