From my mom: Overcoming discouragement
My mom spoke to a small group of women a few weeks ago on not giving up. She gave me permission to post the following which was taken from what she shared:What is courage? It is a condition of the mind that enables us to encounter danger and difficulties without fear or depression. Courage is determined by what we are thinking upon.My mom, Barb, has been helpmeet to my dad for over 30 years and is the wonderful mother to seven children ages 29 to 9. She's my hero, my role model, and one of my closest friends and biggest cheerleaders. She's by no means perfect, but if I can be half as great of a wife and mom as she is, I'll be more than fulfilled. I'm hoping she'll have an opportunity to write some guest posts here in the future; if you have a question or topic you'd like her to write on, email me and I'll pass it on to her for her consideration.
Many of you have probably read Created for Work: Practical Insights for Young Men. The author, Mr. Shultz, has a chapter titled "Sidestepping Discouragement" from which I've taken some of the following thoughts:
Discouraged people (those whose courage has been taken away) think too much about themselves and too little about God."
When discouraged, we get behind; when behind, we get discouraged. A discouraged man doesn't have to wait until he feels joyful to accomplish his work. When you are committed to a job that you don't feel like doing, do it anyway.
Go to work, do a good job, and you emotions usually follow. Discouragement is allowing your mind to keep your body from doing what it ought to do.
Thoughts of disagreeable projects run round and round in the procrastinator's head, getting heavier with each lap.
"I'll write that note some time, make that phone call another day, write those lesson plans when I'm not so tired, start my new diet on Monday, get up early tomorrow, clean out that closet next week."
We can spend more time thinking about what we don't want to do than the time it would take to just do it.
Once allowed into our mind and permitted to stay, one discouraging thought opens the door to others that enter in declaring, "By all means work any other day but not today!"
Ignore your excuses. Ignore your emotions. Pick a disagreeable task on your to-do list and begin to work. Just do it! Often finishing a project is just the thing to overcome discouragement.
-Written by my mom
Graphic from AllPosters.com
Labels: From my mom
posted by Crystal Paine at 9:55 AM
14 Comments:
What wonderful insight your mom has. Thanks for the encouragement!
Juli
I am presently going through radiation therapy for skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, the "best" kind to get) and this post really helped.
What a sweet heart your momma is! What a blessing and great encourager! If she would ever like to to write on home management or keeping little ones on a schedule, I know it would be a huge blessing to all of us newbies at this homemaking thing! :) Thanks Crystal for sharing your Momma's kindness
What a wonderful snippet from your Mama..these are things that I have been thinking about ALOT as of late..thanks so much for sharing :-)
Hi Crystal,
I wonder, if during your parents' marriage, your mom ever internally disagreed with a major decision your dad made - and if so, how was she able to rise above her own feelings in order to support him and submit to him in a Godly manner? Especially if her own parents also disagreed with the decision? I know this seems a bit "out of left field," but being in a "young marriage" myself, I'm still learning how to cheerfully agree with my husband, instead of looking to my parents for guidance. I hate when I hear my husband being criticized, and when I AGREE with the criticisms . . . it's a terrible feeling, and I wish my family members would understand how they're making a difficult situation worse for me.
Anyhow, if it isn't too personal, I'd be very interested to hear your mother's thoughts on such a matter. Thank you!
That was a blessing. Thanks so much. Looking for to hearing more from your mother.
Edwena
I read this post with total conviction and laughing, because of God's great kindness and love to gently 'rebuke' me! :) I need to be working on organizing all our tax information and preparing to have our taxes done when we return to Iowa in a couple weeks and I've been dragging my feet because I hate working on that. Details, paperwork, numbers -- all that stuff is my least favorite task of being a homemaker! :) But, it has to be done, right? So, I was 'taking a LOOOOOOOONG break' from doing those and decided to check my e-mails and a couple sites and then came here and read this post from your Mom and chuckled and was like, "ok, God -- back to the taxes I'll go." So, I'm off to keep diligiently working on those!
Thanks Crystal's Mom! :)
Debi
Thank you for sharing a bit of your mother's wisdom. I would love to hear more from her!
Valerie
This was really what I needed to hear today. Your mom sounds like such a wise lady.
My husband is on his way back to Iraq for 6 months after a wonderful 18 day midtour leave at home. 9 months down . . . 6 more to go.
What your mom said about one discouraging thought leading to another is so true. Over the past few days, fearful thoughts have multiplied in my mind. I'm staying busy and trying to push ahead, but it is hard to push those thoughts out of my mind.
I hope that prayer, caring for my daughter and home and spending time with friends over the next few days will help ease me out of the discouraged mood I am in.
If your mom (or you:) have any advice on dealing with fear and anxiety from a biblical perspective, I would love to hear it. :)
Mrs. H
I appreciate your mom's words today. It's one of those days that I am feeling down. Seems as if I start each day with great hopes and I feel like I am failing and cannot get my act together. I had insomnia last night & I know that doesn't help. I'm going to take a quick nap and then start on something, even if it's small.
I would love to read articles from your mom about approaching later years in life. Such topics as perimenopause or menopause if she can relate, or persevering through losses & difficult times. Also, anything dealing with health as we age. I know many of your readers are younger, but there are some older women here, and eventually all of them will be older like us. Thank you.
Loved reading that! The article was just the thing I needed to read at 7:20PM, knowing that I should get up and go make my husbands' lunch for in the morning! Thanks Mom!
~Michelle
I needed to read this today!!
If you have time...I've just tagged you on my blog...I THINK I'm supposed to let you know...I'm not for sure...I'm still fairly new to this blogging thing :) !!
I would LOVE to hear more from your Mom. Maybe she could even do a podcast? (Please! Please!) I would be interested in anything that she would like to share. I could tell from listening to your audio about "What My Parents Did Right" that she is such an inspirational woman, and one that I could really learn from. My mom worked outside the home, and although she was (is) a great mom, I am always ready to learn from the Titus 2 ladies who stayed at home.
Valerie S.
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