Pressure, like a drip, drip, drip…

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about dealing with pressure lately. It started when my middle child developed an obsession with the Disney movie, Encanto. In it, there is a daughter who is part of a magical family, and her gift is super strength. At first, it seems awesome, but then as the movie progresses, we learn that Louisa feels the pressure to always be strong, not just physically, but emotionally as well. She sings about how the pressure to be strong is unrelenting, like a drip that will never stop. She worries that her whole identity is tied up in her strength and that if she is not strong %100 of the time, she will be worthless.

This past year has brought some incredibly difficult experiences to both my immediate and extended family. The struggles and heartbreak have felt relentless. Several of these experiences have come from my kids and the pressure I have felt, as their mom, to help guide and teach them has been immense. I’m talking about eating disorders, attempted suicide, sexual identity, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and past traumas rearing their ugly head. And it has been absolutely exhausting. I have lost track of how many times I have stumbled into bed at night, with tears streaming down my face, begging God for help and telling him that I was exhausted in my very soul.

The Struggle is Real

I have always felt a certain amount of pressure as a mom, to teach my kids how to be successful adults, and develop personal relationships with Jesus Christ. But the intense pressure to keep one of my kids alive was like nothing I had ever felt before.

What if I said the wrong thing when she needed help? What if I didn’t notice signs that I should have? What if I left her alone too long? What if I thought she was eating and she really wasn’t? What if I forgot to remove all the razors and knives from our home? What if I made her go to school on a rough day when I should have let her stay home? But what if I let her stay home when it would have been better to make her go to school? What if I wasn’t paying enough attention to my other kids while putting out fire after fire with one of the others? What if? What if? What if?

Reaching the Breaking Point

I felt I was crumbling and falling again and again under the constant drip, drip, drip of pressure. I felt so tired, so exhausted, so afraid of failing because the consequences were so potentially devastating. And every time I faltered, I hung my head and felt so ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to deal with the pressure.

This past week I have been praying and praying for help to know what to do to help one of my daughters. All week I have been begging God to tell me what I need to do to help her. Again, the pressure. Every single day I begged God to show me what I needed to do to help her. What should I do today? Should I say this? Should I say that? Should I talk with her about it at all or wait until she brings it up? And on and on.

Then, yesterday, we had yet another difficult experience, and in a fit of frustration, anger, and exhaustion, I told Heavenly Father that I was too tired to deal with it all and that He would have to take care of everything from now on because I just couldn’t do it anymore. I told Him that I was there, and happy to help, when He needed me, but that I was just going to go about my daily life without worrying about it and He would have to let me know if and when He wanted me to do otherwise.

Worrying Doesn’t Mean Caring

At that moment there was this huge release. The thought that came to my mind and the accompanying feeling was something like, “Ah! Yes! You finally understand!”

“What?!” I thought. I can’t honestly ask the Lord to take all my burdens and responsibilities and make them His, can I?” I know He has told us we could lay our burdens on Him, but it still felt like cheating, somehow. They were my responsibilities, right? I mean, isn’t that why I am their mother?

If I turn it all over to the Lord, then what do I do? Just enjoy life without worrying and without stressing? YES, the Holy Spirit said in reply. But if I don’t worry and stress, doesn’t that mean I don’t care enough? NO, said the Spirit. Letting go of your worry does not mean you care about your kids any less, it just means that your trust in me is stronger than your worry for them.

Effort not Outcome

Wow, did that hit me hard! I realized that I thought I had been trusting God’s ultimate outcome for me and my family, but I was actually still clinging to the belief that getting there was all in my hands. It was the spiritual equivalent of trusting someone to drive you somewhere but insisting that you get to control the steering wheel.

“I trust you,” I would say to God. “But I am going to keep my hand on the steering wheel, just in case.”

But the Lord does not ask us to make sure our kids never get hurt, or even to make sure they get to heaven. He only asks us to do our best to teach them. He does the rest! He does not ask us to make sure nothing in life goes wrong. He doesn’t even ask us to never make mistakes. God only asks us to trust Him, to do our best to follow Him, and share our faith with others. He literally does everything else! We are only responsible for our effort and He is responsible for the outcome.

Jesus, Take the Wheel!

The scriptures tell us to “cast your burdens on the Lord.” They don’t say to let Him share your burdens, or to hand them to Him sometimes when you need a little bit of a breather. Nope, they literally say to give them all to the Lord, all the time. He will carry them for you if you let Him.

But He will not force you to give your burdens to Him, we must willingly turn them over. And that is the hard part. We must have the faith and courage to take our hands off the wheel. We must give our burdens to Him completely, trusting that He will take care of them better than we ever could on our own.

My friends, we can find joy and peace even amidst extreme difficulties if we let go and truly allow God to be in control. This does not mean that things will never be painful or difficult. But it does mean that we don’t have to bear the crushing weight that can come by refusing to let the Lord carry the worry, pressure, and stress for us.

And that is the secret to dealing with pressure! Jesus Christ has already born the pressure of worry and fear so that we don’t have to! Because, unlike Louisa, in Encanto, the Lord really is strong enough to carry the weight of everyone’s struggles and burdens, and He will never crumble under the weight of our needs.