Faithfully Thinking

Faithfully Thinking: Eating Watermelon with Shirley

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

A friend of our family, of mine, died last Thursday.



I was already having a bit of a down day and struggling with a lot of memories and feelings from past events when I received the news that Shirley had died.

How dare Shirley die on one of those down days I have from time to time. Yes, I can say that with the utmost sarcasm, knowing that it would have cracked Shirley up if she heard me say it.

Shirley and I could exchange sarcastic retorts affectionately and easily anytime we were together, no matter how long it had been since we’d seen each other.

Her youngest daughter, Denise, and I have been friends since I was probably six or seven.

We visited the Davis family often when I was growing up and there was even a short time they lived with us, pitching their teepee in our backyard. Poor Gary, Shirley’s son, was the one who had to tell me when my 14-year-old dog died. My dad had gone to work and my mom was too emotional, if I remember correctly.

When I am down or feeling off kilter emotionally, I turn on either The Andy Griffith Show or The Dick VanDyke Show and on the day I heard Shirley died, I chose Dick VanDyke. I didn’t look at what the episode was about, I just clicked on it. I need laughter, and I needed it quickly.

The episode was entitled “Never Name A Duck.”

It was about Rob Petry, the main character, bringing home two baby ducks and Laura saying they couldn’t keep the ducks but then their son Richie saw the ducklings and begged to keep them. Rob and Laura agree but, sadly, the one duck, Oliver, dies. Stanley, the other duck, lives into adulthood but Laura and Rob notice one day that he is starting to look sick, similar to how Oliver did before he died.

Rob takes the duck to a vet and comes home without him.

Laura and Richie think Stanley has died, but Rob tells them he didn’t die; Rob just released him into a lake to be with other ducks because he was slowly dying in captivity. He didn’t belong in a human house. He belonged in nature with other ducks. It was what the vet suggested.

Richie is absolutely devastated and screams that if Stanley can’t live there, he doesn’t want to live there either. He runs from the living room, to his bedroom and slams the door.

Rob follows him and they have a heart-to-heart. He tells Richie he knows it hurts, but that by making Stanley stay in their home they were actually being selfish. Stanley was sad in their house. He needed to be with other ducks and in nature. That was his real home.

He asked Richie if he would want to take his goldfish out of its bowl and lay it on his pillow next to him at night.

“No,” Richie says tearfully.

“Why?” Rob asks.

“Because he’d die out of water,” Richie responds.

Rob explains that this was what was really happening to Stanley. He was slowly dying in their house.

In a similar way, we humans don’t belong on earth. Not really. This is not our ultimate home and we Christians believe our body is also temporary- a shell to hold our spirit or soul.

As Rob had this conversation with Richie, I immediately thought of Shirley.


Much like Richie didn’t want to let go of his duck, and I didn’t want to let go of my aunts and uncles and my grandparents and won’t want to let go of my parents one day, I don’t want to let go of Shirley.

I want Shirley here with us.

I want to hear her laughter and see her mischievous smile.

I want to watch her eat a whole watermelon drowned in salt.

I want to hear her preach again about the goodness of God despite all her family went through.

I want to hear her saying, “Oh, shut up, you” when I one-up her on the sarcasm level.

I want to hear her tell my parents, again, how much she loves them.


I have what Rob Petrh called selfish-love.

“I love Shirley. I want her here, so am I really being selfish?” I asked myself that day when I thought about this connection.

The answer that came to mind was, yes, I am selfish because Shirley is worshipping Jesus now.

She’s in his arms. Tom, her husband, and her children, Gary and Mechelle, are with her. They have surrounded her, and they are having what my family calls a group hug right now — a very long, very overdue group hug.

One day, a very, very long time from now, Denise will join them, so it is up to all of us to give Denise group hugs here on earth until God chooses to take her home.

It is selfish of me to want Shirley to leave all that beauty, all that glory, all that all-encompassing love and come back to all this pain and sadness here on earth.

She is where she was meant to be, created to be. Earth was never her permanent home, and it is not ours.



I once heard a story about a very young girl dying of cancer and shortly before she died, she took her mom’s hand and said, “Don’t worry, Mom. Heaven is closer than you think.”

Heaven is closer than we all think which means Shirley is also closer than we think.

Shirley is home, her real home, with her family and more importantly her creator. That home is also our home when we ask Jesus to forgive our sins and become our savior.

Shirley would want you to form a personal relationship with Jesus because she wants you there with her. Don’t make her eat all that watermelon on her own.

When it is time for you to leave this temporary home, when God decides it is your time, Shirley and Jesus are waiting for you.

They’ve left a seat for you, for all of us, at the table.



Faithfully thinking: weeding out the bad so the good can survive

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

This post was originally published in July 2017

My son was recovering from an illness on the couch and watching a cartoon on his laptop, my daughter was watching a cartoon on my phone and I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when it all shut off out of the blue.

For ten seconds we sat there and looked at each other bewildered. What were we supposed to do now? With all our devices dark, except the phone which continued to work off data, we were completely lost.

Suddenly I felt excited. I felt a sense of freedom and dashed outside to my garden, over run with weeds thanks to weeks of neglect, and began yanking weeds out by the handful. I felt like a giddy child let loose in a candy store. The smell of dirt and grass and nature was setting my soul on fire.

In the midst of the euphoria I was also disgusted that it had taken the electricity going out to wake me up and break the chains of apathy and digital busyness that I had let hold me down.

Logged on to Facebook I seem to think I have to read one more post, see one more photo, laugh at one more pointless video and then before I know it it’s the afternoon and I’ve accomplished nothing. I haven’t finished the dishes, cut up and put the extra zucchini in the freezer, cleaned up my room, made the beds or weeded the garden.

And I certainly haven’t nourished my soul or connected with God.

Instead I’ve only fueled anxiety that I often call “my anxiety” claiming the state as my own, as if it’s an expected mindset for me to be in.

I’ve found that scrolling past story after story, some positive but many aimed at igniting our fear – fear of cancer, of death, of loss – is damaging my emotional health and in turn my physical health.

Many say “I just ignore those negative or fear based posts” but to me it seems the continuous exposure to these types of stories often permeates our thoughts and perpetuate our fears without us even realizing it. The negative affects of today’s social media are subtle and unassuming.

I’m not saying social media doesn’t have its good points or that it can’t be used to help encourage, connect, and support. Along with the good, however, comes even more counteractive and isolating aspects.

We have never been more connected than we are today, Facebook founder mark Zuckerburg likes to tell us again and again. In some ways this is true but in reality we’ve never been more disconnected or separated.

Satan is never happier than when we are isolated, made to feel alone, and spending our days on Facebook, pretending we are actually connecting with people. When we are on our computer or staring at our phone we are not living in the present or focused on those around us. Our minds are on a digital and virtual plane, trapped in a world of fantasy, antagonistic words, pessimistic views and sometimes fake optimistic ones.

I thought about this all as I yanked the weeds out of the garden so I could plant spinach seeds, seeds of a plant to bring our family nourishment.

I found it pretty pathetic that it took the electricity going out to motivate me to weed out the bad and plant the good. Yet it often takes a power failure in our life to wake us up to the good we have been missing out on.

Philippians 4:8 says: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Sometimes I need to pull the plug on the busyness of life so I can focus on the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely and the admirable.

If I don’t cut off the power sometimes, or let God flip the switch for me, then the negativity, fear, pessimism and anxious thoughts will grow in my life like the weeds in my garden. The weeds are choking out my healthy plants, stopping them from growing. I’m nowhere near a master gardener and I know I have a lot to learn if I want a bountiful harvest in the future.

There are days I feel the weeds of life all around me, trying to steal my joy, my hope, my fervor for life. I put my hands up to push them back, but without the help of the one who is our Master Gardener, I’ll never find victory.

I need Him to help me keep the weeds in check and to remind me they need to be pulled so I can breathe and grow. 

Faithfully Thinking: Do what the person you want to be would do.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

I’ve been reading a book called Do the New You by Steven Furtick for my ladies’ Bible study and the section I read yesterday was about how we can start acting like the person we want to be one day.

This concept struck me as I read about it because so often we read or hear about setting goals and working toward them but not how to get there. We might hear “one step at a time” or “slow and steady wins the race” but the idea of acting now like you want the future you to act is compelling to me. It flipped my thoughts around.

In the book, Pastor Steven gives examples like if you want to be kinder then stop and think to  yourself, “What would future me do in this situation?”

Pastor Steven also suggests not trying to do all you can do to be the future you because that can be overwhelming. Do the one thing in that moment that the future you that you want to be would do.

Whatever that one thing is for you is what the Holy Spirit will bring to your mind or point you toward.

The first thing that came to my mind as I filled out the study guide questions this morning was eating better and losing weight. The future me wants/needs to get the weight off. I do not eat horribly. I don’t eat a ton of sweets or fast food or sodas. I do eat a couple of things that are not good for me – wheat or gluten and dairy.

I seem to feel much better off both of them but both are a temptation to me.

There is so much I could do to lose weight but when I read about the idea of doing what the future you would do I thought, “the future me wouldn’t eat a sandwich or sneak something with gluten because it’s easier or tastes good. The future me would find an alternative that doesn’t include bread.”

So today when I reached for bread to make a sandwich, I found one of my rice cakes instead and put peanut butter on it.

When I thought about pouring a mug of milk to make some hot cocoa, I made tea instead.

This doesn’t mean I’ll never eat gluten or dairy again, but it means that the future me will do so sparingly until the future me finds substitutes that will fill me up and are quick to make.

I can’t do these things, one at a time, on my own. I need God to support me, to remind me I can do all things through his son Jesus.

I need him to help me do that one thing I need to do to become the person not only I want to become but he wants me to become.

I do want to clarify that I don’t mean that God wants us all to look a certain way or be skinny.

I do, however, believe he wants us to not give up on being a better version of ourselves inside.

I’ll leave with this quote from the book: “Do the thing you would do. Don’t wait. Do whatever you can, no matter how small, that moves you in the direction of the thing you would do if you could.”

Faithfully Thinking: It doesn’t matter what they say about you if God already spoke over you

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

Have you ever had someone suggest you can’t do something you want to do?

I don’t mean you are a 4-year-old child and you want to touch the light socket and you can’t.

I don’t mean you’re 21 and you want to drink until you can’t see anymore because you are upset about a breakup and someone rightly tells you that you can’t.

I mean you wanted to be an art teacher and someone told you that you weren’t good enough or smart enough.

Or maybe you wanted to be a writer or a pastor or a church leader and someone told you – “Sorry.  Not possible. You’re a mom/too young/too old/not Christian enough/not smart enough/not experienced enough. You can’t do that.”

I’ve been there.

I was told once that I should be happy and content to be a mother and only a mother. That was all I was meant to be. The idea I could be a professional photographer and a mother was ridiculous to this person. It turned out to be ridiculous to me as well since I had (have) no business sense and the business failed. That’s another matter for another day, though.

During that same conversation, I was told another friend of ours should also be content to be a mother and stop trying to find other jobs to do. Her identity was a mother. Period. That’s where God wanted her and me to be, this person said.

Oddly, though, this person was a mother and teaching art at a private school. Somehow, she could be two things in life but we were only allowed to be one. Not sure how that worked in her brain but . . it did.

I was very confused by that conversation. It never made sense to me. Maybe she thought she was encouraging us and I misunderstood the conversation.

What I do know is that we should do what we feel God has spoken over us, not what someone else says God has spoken over us.

The other person may be well-intentioned. They may very well feel God has told them something about you and they think it is the right thing to tell you.

My advice is to always check their suggestion with what you feel God has spoken over you.

Another friend recently told me she heard the words “put it down” when she thought about me. We both knew she was talking about how hard I’d been striving to grow my social media to promote my books. I felt that advice truly was an encouragement from God and took it is such. I started picking up a book more than my phone and began to feel less stress.

In his sermon this past Sunday, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church said, “What people say about you only has the power over you that you give it. If your father spoke something over you, it doesn’t matter what they say.”

This doesn’t mean that fellow Christians won’t confirm something to you that you feel God has been telling you. It also doesn’t mean that someone really did feel like God told them something about you and your life they think you should know. They may very well be right about that specific thing.

Double check it, though. Don’t just go with it because they said God told them.

Pastor Steven urged those listening to him to remember that it doesn’t matter what someone told you that you couldn’t be. It matters what God has always known you to be.

Furtick says he has to say often to himself, “Christ is in me. I am enough.”

That’s a hard one for me to say, but I’m going to try.

I don’t ever feel enough.

Even writing this blog post I have these constant thoughts running through my head:

“This is stupid.”

“This is going to offend someone.”

“I probably shouldn’t have brought up that story about the former friend. It makes her sound worse than she probably meant it even though it is something that still puzzles me.”

“I’m not good enough to write stuff like this.”

“Someone will probably read Steven Furtick’s name and tune me right out.”

We are never going to be perfect.

We are never going to get it all right all the time.

We are never going to please every person all of the time or even some of the time.

What we can do despite all of that is step into who God says we are – not who we or others say we are.

If we are taking a step that is wrong, God will correct us and turn us on the right path again.

In Jeremiah 1:5, God spoke to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

This was a message for Jeremiah but it can also be a message for us. He knew before we were born what the purpose of our life was and what we are capable of.

Who are we to question what God has spoken over us?

Faithfully Thinking: He did it for his own heart, not a pat on the back.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

A couple of years ago a large church near us sent out an invitation online for people to come be baptized at their church.

My husband decided he wanted to do it.

This church is like a mini-mega church in our area.

I didn’t feel totally comfortable with it because their service seemed more like a show to me than an actual church service. I feel bad saying that because quite a few people we know attend the church and they are very kind, lovely people. Still, it’s the feeling I get when I attend.

My husband wanted to do it, though, so he called the church. The secretary said she’d send him some info and told him to send it back and he’d be on the list.

He filled out some personal information and sent it in, but had to fax it because they’d literally given him one day to have it back by and the church is about an hour from us so we knew it wouldn’t get there in time with the mail.

I thought the pastor would call him ahead of time, chat with him a bit, ask him about his decision, etc.

That never happened. No one from the church called except the secretary to tell him what time to be there.

We all went, including my parents, and he was placed in a line of other people getting baptized.

Still no one from the church spoke to him to tell him they were proud or good luck or how great his decision was or anything else.

Surely the pastor would come to speak to him before he was led up to the baptismal they’d set up in front of the worship team, right?

I didn’t see that happen but I was sure it had before he’d walked up and been dunked while the worship team sang a song from Elevation Worship in the background and right after a man read a small testimonial from my husband.

From my point of view it was like a conveyor belt. People went down and came up and then they handed them a towel and moved them on. They were already in T-shirts with the church’s name emblazoned on it. It was a great marketing opportunity, of course.

There was even a professional photographer.

No one from the church spoke to our family afterward, other than my parents who some of the parishoners knew. The pastor didn’t shake our hands, no staff members thanked us for coming – we just left the church like we just went through the line at the drive in.

I asked my husband in the car if the pastor had spoken to him at any point.

He shrugged. “Nope.”

I was indignant. “Are you serious? So this was just a marketing opportunity for them? What, they needed some publicity shots or something?”

I was angry and disappointed in the people who called themselves Christians.

My husband had at least hoped for a certificate but he didn’t even get that in the mail later.

None of that really mattered to him, though, he told me.

To summarize what he said: It wasn’t about the show for him or a pat on the back from the pastor or anyone else from the church. He did it for himself. For his own soul and for his family

I was sitting there feeling bitterness toward the church while he felt joy at having made a decision for his own heart and his own salvation.

A little background might be needed here. I was brought up in the church. I’ve been a Christian since I was five years old. My husband has been a Christian for several years, but more committed the last four or five. Yet he was the one who had an attitude of what really mattered was why he did it and who saw it and acknowledged it.

His response was a wake up call to me — a reminder to stop focusing on what I see as the failings of the church or God’s people.

People will never be perfect. They will never live up to the expectations I have for them because only God can reach our highest expectations.

In the end it truly didn’t matter that the pastor didn’t talk to him or the secretary never sent the certificate. There may have been very good and plausible reasons for those things not happening but even if there weren’t, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is my husband’s heart and the choice he made that brought him closer to Christ in a way that felt tangible to him.

Faithfully Thinking: When it feels unnatural to not worry and ruminate but you stop doing it anyhow

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I didn’t feel like writing a post about trusting God this week but I did it anyway.

There are times it feels unnatural to let go of a situation and walking in the knowledge that you cannot fix that situation.

Sometimes it feels impossible to let God take care of something, even though we know he is the only one who can.

I’m going through that now.

I have gone through it before.

I will also go through it again.

I believe there are times we have to do what feels unnatural in our walk with Christ.

Natural for me is to lay awake and worry.

Natural for me is to try to fix it – whatever it is.

Natural for me is to manipulate a situation so I can fix it in my own power.

More times than not, trying to fix a situation on my own has resulted in disaster.

This week I am in a battle of the mind.

When I start to ruminate on an issue we are having as a family this week, I have been trying to tell myself to stop and that God will handle this situation. Sometimes it has worked and sometimes (like part of today) it has not.

Instead of lying awake in bed or walking around the house writing my hands, I have picked up a book, taught a kid a school lesson, watched a funny old show, cooked, or made myself a cup of tea and taken ten minutes to slowly sip it.

Am I succeeding in letting God take control of my situation this week?.

Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not.

The last three days I have been anxious and paced, rolled over at night a few times, stared at the ceiling, and overthought a bunch – but I have done all of those things less than I usually have when life is stressful and I call that progress. Slow progress but still progress.

I’m not going to lie — It has felt like I’m doing something wrong by not worrying or ruminating or trying to figure it all out.

It has felt like I am not my normal self.

Sometimes, though, in certain situations, being our normal self is exactly what God doesn’t want us to do.

He doesn’t want us to be our normal anxiety-ridden self.

He doesn’t want us to have a God-complex and think that we can do what only he can do.

He wants us to know that he is in control, even when we don’t understand what he is doing.

All this could change tomorrow, but, hopefully, I will remember that even if it feels unnatural to trust and place my worries in his hands, I need to do that because God is God and I am not.

Faithfully Thinking: In full disclosure, I do not think I can love Judas.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

I read a quote recently about the real test of the Christian faith is not if we love Jesus but if we can love Judas.

Ouch.

That’s something I had never really thought about.

Loving Judas.

Have you ever thought about loving the man who betrayed Jesus to the Romans and whose actions led him to his death?

I mean, if he hadn’t done that then Jesus wouldn’t have been led to the cross and died there for our sins, right?

Or would God have found another way?

Sometimes I wonder why God couldn’t have found another way.

Was it God’s plan or Judas’s free will that led him to do what he did? God gave him free will but he also knows the future so he allowed Judas to condemn himself to hell – I have to be honest that this kept me awake last night because I didn’t like the idea that a man was allowed to go to hell to complete God’s plan.

This is how my brain worked as I thought about it all: Did he walk himself to his doom and direct path to hell or did God help him along?

It is a twisting and turning journey in my brain that I don’t want to take. I’ll never really know no matter how many times I think about it anyhow. Not until Jesus calls me home. Then it will be one of the first questions I ask him.

This past week I thought about who the Judas are in my life. Or who were.

The people who did things to me or those I loved that were so horrible I can’t imagine how to forgive them. I’ve actually come a long way in forgiving those who did things to me or maybe those who were rude and dismissive to family members of mine.

But those who sexually and mentally abused children I know?

To be honest and open — I can’t say that I’ve been able to forgive that person. Not even a little bit. And I don’t know how I ever will. In the Bible it says we must forgive those who sin against us, but how? How do you forgive the monsters in the world? That, to me, is only a forgiveness God can give because as humans it’s too big of a task.

As soon as I read that question a few months ago about loving Judas two people came into my mind. One I’ve slowly been able to forgive but might never fully trust again. The other? I see only red when I think of them.

I wish I could write here, right now, that I thought to myself about that one person when I read that quote, “Yes, I can love the Judas in my life because God has called me to,” but I didn’t think that. Not at all. I thought, “Oof..” like I’d been punched in the gut. I thought “Wow. What a question.”

But at no time did I think, “Yes, Lord, I can.”

Because I can’t.

Not now, and without Jesus supernaturally hallowing me out and replacing my humanness with his holiness, I don’t see how I ever can.

Jesus loved Judas therefore he can love even us when we are at our lowest and darkest.

This is something I’ve read and heard before and the next question is if he could love the real Judas, can I love the real Judas in my life?

For now, all I can say is, “I’ll keep praying about it.”

Because at this point, at least in one case, – even though the Bible says God can not forgive us if we do not forgive others – the answer is no.

As Thomas who asked to be helped with his unbelief, I am asking God to help me with seeing others as he sees them. Maybe one day I will.

Faithfully Thinking: Making Pockets of Jesus’ Peace this Christmas season

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

As many of us know, Jesus may not have actually been born on December 25, but instead, he was most likely born a couple months earlier. No matter the exact date, this is the time of year when we as Christians unite to celebrate his birth, to remember he came as God’s ambassador to us – as a way to bridge that gap between the divine and humanity.

Finding peace in the midst of the Christmas season can be a challenge to those who are planning parties, cooking for family gatherings, or trying to figure out what to buy for gifts.

We may not all be as busy during this time of year but almost all of us find our attention being pulled away from the focus of the real reason for the season.

The gift of Jesus is more important than any gift that can be left under our trees or in our stockings. Through him, we were given salvation – eternal life with God in heaven despite the sins we have committed. We have been shown grace, divine love, and supernatural forgiveness and restoration.

No piece of jewelry, new clothing, good food, or even good company can compare to that gift.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy the celebratory nature of the holidays, but while we enjoy our family time or holiday parties we can pause and reflect on the peace of Christ, which can help bring us our own peace. Jesus gives us peace beyond our understanding.

If we want to have peace during the holiday season, we may need to create moments that will facilitate it. Waiting for small spaces of calm won’t work when the world itself doesn’t wait.

We have to make those pockets of calm for ourselves or they might not happen.

I first wrote about pockets of peace and our need for them in a blog post earlier this year.

In that post, I mentioned that to create small spaces of peace for myself I had to do things like putting my phone down and getting off social media, shutting off the TV, keeping myself away from any news or information from the outside world, and not ruminating on all the tasks I need to be doing.

“They were little pockets of time in my day where I could regulate my thoughts and my soul, even if only slightly,” I wrote in the post. “It helped give my nerves and mind time to calm down, instead of continuing to race and raise my cortisol to dangerous levels. I even made a point to pull a blanket over my lap and make a cup of tea during those times, mentally envisioning myself in a type of comfort zone.”

The idea for Christmas pockets of peace is the same. If you do play music make it sacred Christmas music that will remind you of Jesus’ place in the season. If you read, make it something that will remind you of the birth of our savior. If you watch something, watch something that will also bring you back to the reason we celebrate in the first place.

One way to do this might be to find a devotional you can read during the weeks leading up to Christmas. I didn’t do that this year and I regret that but I hope to look for one on my You Vision app this week.

You could also watch a dramatic representation of the nativity story, such as the ones presented by the creators of The Chosen over the years. I’ll link to those at the end of the post.

However you choose to decompress from the busyness of the season, I encourage you to remember that your pockets of peace don’t have to be long to be impactful. Even five to ten minutes of listening to a calming song or reading an inspirational devotional can be enough to remind you what is really important this time of year.

Faithfully Thinking: Pockets of Peace

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Last week I was really struggling mentally over some situations in my life that I truly have no control over. I kept grasping at quick moments of relaxation to try to steady myself mentally. The mental worry really affected me physically by the end of the week.                 

Throughout the week, I forced myself to put my phone down or stop scrolling Facebook. I scroll through social media when my mind races. I seem to think that doing those things will distract me. They certainly distract me, but they do not calm me down. In fact, my mind races even more when I go onto social media during a time of anxiety.

As you all know, I am an overthinker and I was in full force overthink mode half the week and then much of the weekend.

By Sunday I was at my breaking point – crying over everything, even simple inconveniences. It was like a hormone shift but that hasn’t been happening a lot lately, so I had a feeling it was from me trying to shove all my worries from the week deep down inside, so those worries didn’t spell out onto others. At least one issue is something my husband really doesn’t want to talk about because he knows how helpless we are in the situation so I couldn’t vent on him.

I found a friend to vent to and then tried to pray through my feelings of hopelessness and guilt. I didn’t pray as much as I stewed inside about it all, though, unfortunately. I tried to be a bit better and intentional about praying instead of worrying this week.

Last week, when I felt my most anxious, I had to consciously tell myself to put the phone down or shut off the computer. I would then either go out and take photographs of the flowers starting to bloom in the yard, pick up a book or put on a worship song, even if it was just for 15 minutes or just one song. I started to call these moments Pockets of Peace.

They were little pockets of time in my day where I could regulate my thoughts and my soul, even if only slightly. It helped give my nerves and mind time to calm down, instead of continuing to race and raise my cortisol to dangerous levels. I even made a point to pull a blanket over my lap and make a cup of tea during those times, mentally envisioning myself in a type of comfort zone.

I even imagined stepping inside a type of bubble – or shall we say a pocket made of soft fabric – zipping it closed and making myself cozy down in the corner for that brief moment of time.

Iit’s very important for us all to find those little pockets of time throughout our days to help slow our thoughts and feelings down. Maybe we need to find that time because we are already at the breaking point level or maybe we don’t want to get to that level. Either way, those pockets of time don’t need to be hours of time. They don’t even need to be an hour or half hour. Even 15 minutes of sitting and reading a devotional, listening to music, or reading from a book we enjoy can help calm most of us down inside. There are days where longer stretches of time for peace are needed, of course.

Have you found yourself in need of those little pockets of peace at some point in your life? How would you use those pockets of time if you intentionally made them?