I'm Rachel.
I’m so glad you’re here.
All tagged trauma healing
Parents love and nurture their children, provide and lead to the best of their abilities. Then all of a sudden the clock strikes some magical tune between the ages of 5-7 and a child is launched out into the real world. Alone, children without the full ability to navigate the prefrontal cortex, emotions, or fight and flight instincts are asked to trust and follow a complete stranger.
Every single day, I ask God for wisdom and strength to get me through the hard days of temper tantrums, sensory meltdowns, sibling rivalry, harsh words, dirty bathrooms, discipline, and foolish behavior (there's and mine).
As Easter draws nearer and my days continue to contain mile-long to-do lists, I focus on what matters most. The party and presents don’t matter. The time spent with my children that I’ll never get back matter more. The perfect way the cake looks or whether I remember the party favors won’t be remembered but the ways in which I encourage my boys, bring them up in righteousness and lead in gratitude will resonate with them for the rest of their lives.
Some fears are founded with validity and deserve cautious proceedings and wisdom to navigate. Other fears are purely irrational, nothing threatening exists where you wander but you cannot help but remain paralyzed there.
This threw a wrench in my writing as I planned to be getting published right now, not to expound and revamp. But my plans do not often work out perfectly.
Rest didn’t look like a good night’s sleep or a weekend getaway to restore my faculties and gusto. I felt pushed to pull away from ministries I spent years of my life serving. I felt inclined to turn away from the stress and anxiety of social media. I even reexamined the structure of my homeschool.
So, here’s what I try to do when I am feeling overwhelmingly anxious. (I say try, because I’m human and fail at about every single thing I do.) In times when the weather dampens my mood, politics feels like a loss, or the world seems to be falling apart altogether, I take the Lord’s advice and I become still. Here’s what that looks like:
A spoken word poem about the power of identity and the reminder that nothing is permanent in this life. What happened yesterday can be made new.
While at an appointment for his brother, James read “appendix” on the chart of the digestive system and proceeded to ask what the organ did. I did not have an answer and was a little busy trying to wrangle a new toddler and undress his big brother to research an answer.
This did not stop him from asking the doctor when she arrived in the room. Her response was “We don’t really know what the appendix is for.” James’ little shocked face was amusing.
Have you ever had one of those days where you're approached by a good friend while yelling at your husband in the parking lot of church? NO? Well, I must be alone in this because that totally happened to me.
