The To Do List

 1 Samuel 4:1-7:17 (the computer is being finicky today, to go to the reading you can click the Word of the Day logo and it will take you there.)

I just spend half an hour laying on the floor pouring my heart out to the LORD on paper. And when I looked down and saw what I had written I realized that it was my to do list!!! Do you ever feel like that? Where your to do list is so large and so long that it’s going to come to life and swallow you up and leave nothing left but ink stains?

The burdens of my heart today, were all the things that I need to do and simply don’t have the time to do them all. I’ve been so frustrated lately with the work load I’ve given myself that I’ve gotten downright depressed about it all. So, finally, I took it to the Lord and you know what He told me? One of the things He tells me more than anything else, “It’s not about YOU!” One of my most difficult struggles in this life is when I get wrapped up in me. I get so inwardly focused and critical of myself that I end up tearing myself apart. And it’s rarely in a woe-is-me way and usually more like a shame-on-me way. I get hypercritical of my lack of ability to be super woman. I am not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound or even small ones for that matter! I’m not always able to get the kids in my class to behave the way I want them to. I’m not always able to get all my homework done in the time frame I want to get it done in. I’m not always able to get a freshly homemade meal on my kitchen table every night, some nights it’s processed store-bought junk. I could go on, but I don’t think I should because I can feel myself spiraling down into that dark place again.

But I think there is at least one of you out there that can relate to what I mean when I tell you all this. I don’t really know if men do this, but we women expect so much from ourselves that we don’t expect from others. We allow others to be human, but when we’re less than superhuman we get angry and frustrated with ourselves. Well guess what sweetheart, it’s not about YOU! Did you know that there are millions of stars and planets rotating around a fixed point in the universe and you are not that point. So it’s OK to stop beating yourself up when you drop the ball. The stars and planets will continue spinning, the sun will continue rising, the birds will keep chirping and all will continue on as it did before you dropped that ball. It’s OK to be human.