Looking for Peace in all the Wrong Places

I believe I’m carrying burdens I wasn’t meant to, but I don’t know how to let them go.

People are always advising me to just trust God and let go of the worry.  I’m trying to…I truly am.

I know I can trust God.

I think I can let go of the worry.

But somewhere in all that trust and letting go, I’ve got decisions to make.

And decisions stress me out so much…soooo much.

I really struggle with the whole process.

Especially the 2^nd guessing part of the process – which is definitely a part of my processing process.

When my husband left and I became a single parent, one of the first things I really really found challenging was all the decisions I had to make.

I’m not good at decisions.

I have a very clear memory of a conversation with God during my first year of single parenting, “Lord, really?  (all my prayers seemed to start with that phrase) I felt like I finally understood the whole submission thing…the whole let my husband lead thing…and now I’m the leader of the family?  Honestly God, I prefer the helpmate role much better.”

God reminded me that He would equip me for whatever He called me to and apparently He had called me to single parenting.

Ugh.

I was and still am up to the challenge…but I don’t like the challenge.

For me the biggest part of this challenge is that my thought processes truly are like mental spaghetti.

Everything gets all tangled up together in my head.  I mean I just don’t know what to do…everything impacts everything else, at least in my head.  And every decision has a thousand repercussions – and each child is impacted differently by each decisions…some for the better, some not.  And every decision makes me bonkers…and even after I finally make a decisions, I second-guess like a crazy woman.

I want to make decisions and find peace. But is decision-making just about being at peace?

Peace.  Oh how I want peace all the time.

A friend recently shared that maybe I need to not worry about making the right decisions and instead make decisions with the purpose of doing something to glorify God…doing something for God.

That thought has rocked my world.

I’m still pondering but I thought I’d share because maybe you’ll share your thoughts with me.

I have to trust that God is going to work in all my decisions.  When my oldest was choosing a college I told him that it didn’t matter where he went because God would use him wherever he was.  As long as he didn’t go to The Cult College (which doesn’t exist to my knowledge) he should be just fine.

I think that’s true.  If my desire is to honor God wherever I am, does it matter where I go?  Or what I choose to do? As long as whatever I do or wherever I go honor God and His word.

This reminds me of Jeremiah 29:4-7

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

The Israelites were in captivity when God said this to them.  They were absolutely NOT in the perfect situation by any stretch of the imagination.  Except…except that it was where God had them and where God told them to make lives!  They weren’t to wait for perfect.

I think I’m looking for the perfect situation and it just doesn’t exist.  That is the stress in my decisions.  I’m assuming that there is a perfect situation, a best answer.  I’m forgetting that we live on this planet…which is decidedly not perfect.  I will not find perfection.

I just have to make decisions based on the God’s guidance in His word, a lot of prayer, the facts I have, the best things I know how to do, and godly counsel.  But sometimes the Word of God doesn’t exactly address my situation.

Like right now the biggest decision I need to make isn’t covered by Scripture.  So what do I do?  Pray, seek counsel, make an informed decision, and trust God!

I almost put the word “just” before that last sentence.  I know I’ve used it already in this post, but “just” seems like a word that signifies something easy and the whole decision-making process is not at all easy!  At least not for me.

But I’m pretty sure I’ve established that point already!

I guess what God is showing me is that the burden I’m carrying is to provide the perfect scenario for all my children, to choose the perfect employment situation for me and the perfect education situation for my children, to give my children the perfect opportunities, the perfect home, and the perfect single parent family I can.  But I can’t make things perfect – never have been, never will be.

And my decisions don’t have the power to provide perfection.

My decisions can honor God though.

My decisions can glorify Him.

My decisions can bless us.

I’m going to try to develop a whole new way of approaching decisions.  There is a lot of stress I can leave behind when I realize there isn’t going to be a perfect answer, and there might not even be a best answer.

Unless the questions is, “How and where do I want to glorify God?”

And that question isn’t a burden at all.  The answer is however I can and wherever I am.

So I will plan and dream and pray, and I will let God lead the way.

 Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.  Proverbs 19:21