Let It Shake It Off

Shake it off and let it go.

It's funny that the two biggest pop songs of the past year had titles that mean basically the same thing. And if I had a nickel for every time I heard either one of them . . .

It’s also amazing how often I’ve found myself using those same phrases in conversations with friends lately . . . only to laugh that they are, indeed, straight out of pop tunes that have lit up every teenager’s iPod the last twelve months.

Too many of my friends are carrying around too much that they need to be turning loose. Letting go. Shaking off. It’s a common problem among moms, but not just parents. Many folks with compassionate hearts tend to hold onto other people’s problems as their own. We find out that someone we love is going through a difficult time or facing an awful challenge, so we internalize that problem and begin to carry it inside until it becomes our burden too.

Loving them does not mean owning their problems.

We see this problem or challenge as something we need to solve. We worry about what will happen in the lives of our friends and family members, and we own their issues as if they were our own obstacles to overcome. We create internal lists of our many difficulties and add stress to our life as we see all of these problems as our own.

We know how to pray for each other, so that’s not the problem. Many of us are wonderful “prayer warriors” and spend many hours lifting up other people’s lives to our loving heavenly Father. Part of the problem is that when we get up from our knees (physically or virtually), we reach down and pick the problem back up. It’s as if we’re saying, “Thanks for listening, God. Now I think I can really handle this better. I’ll let you know how things turn out.”

But a bigger problem is that these are not our problems in the first place . . . they’re other people’s problems. That doesn’t diminish the reality of each situation, but we should not be considering them our own issues.

A great book came out years ago called Boundaries by Drs. Cloud and Townsend. (I highly recommend this book for everyone!) It is very important to establish personal boundaries and only own those problems that are your own.

One of the biggest reasons to stop owning other people’s problems as your own—even your children’s and your spouse’s and your parents’—is that God does not give us grace for other people’s problems . . . only as they directly relate to being our own responsibility. In other words, if God has called you to counsel, guide, support, or have some other role with another person, God will give you the grace and wisdom for that purpose. But God will not give you the grace to worry about the problem; fear and anxiety will only exhaust you.

Matthew 6:26 says, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Can you imagine if a cardinal started worrying about what a blue jay was going to eat? What if a woodpecker started putting away seed for the nuthatch? Do you see how absurd that would get . . . quickly?

So shake it off.

Prayers gonna pray, pray, pray.

What's Next?

According to John Lennon (or Allen Saunders, depending on whom you ask), “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

I just spent some time visiting with my parents at their house. I’m blessed to still have them around and love stopping by to have chats with them when I’m out running errands. Dan and I are planning to move into a nearby condo in several months, so I was talking with them about the many, many times we’ve moved over the last fifty-plus years. As I was driving home I was thinking about my life, and I thought that I might paraphrase the Lennon/Saunders quote to say, “Life is what happens to you while you’re waiting for the next big milepost to come along.”

That’s how I grew up. We moved an amazing number of times in my childhood (the life of a preacher’s / missionary’s family), but that never really phased me. What I was always looking forward to was the next big milestone: starting primary school in Africa; entering junior high school back in Florida; graduating high school; graduating college; starting my career; getting my first apartment; getting married; having a child. And along the way, I lived for every other first or next step or next achievement. I was always looking ahead at what came next. I was never satisfied with where I was.

Not only have I wasted time looking down the road, but I’ve spent too much emotional energy defining myself by other people’s titles or definitions of me. For example, when my family was meeting someone new, my parents would always introduce me as their “oldest” daughter or child. That registered deeply with me, making me feel a huge responsibility for the rest of the kids in our family. Not a bad thing, but definitely a label that stuck. And through the years I accepted other labels--professional, personal, societal--that defined me, some positively, some negatively.

Likewise, whenever I meet people and they ask, “What do you do?” I have always felt defined by my current job title, whatever that might be. I left my full-time teaching position when my child was three and both of Dan’s children were living at home; I decided that being a full-time mom was the most important thing that I could be doing. But suddenly, answering that question with, “I’m a full-time mom,” began eliciting the most condescending responses from the people asking the question . . . “Good for you; I’m sure you find it rewarding.” “Well, aren’t they lucky to have you there all the time.” As if all I was doing was sitting in the living room, waiting for them to ring a bell to call me to bring their toast. Seriously.

I have a friend who is a full-time mother and homemaker. I was delighted when I heard someone ask her a few years ago, “So what do you do?” She beamed as she responded heartily, “Oh, honey, I do LOTS of things!” And she does! (Don’t we all!?!)

Here’s my point: Life is too short to be waiting for something else to happen or for someone else to approve you for you to find fulfillment in life right where you are.

It’s that simple. There is nothing worth waiting for—no certificate, degree, or title—before making a difference in this world. Every one of us is valuable right this minute, and right this minute is a good time to get started with whatever it is that you want to do.

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:7-8).