Yeah, I get it. From being worn thin and overbooked schedules or just feeling irritable because I don’t seem to get a second to myself – I know what it feels like to feel out of control. I see you, mom who says she going to the bathroom but it’s really to just sit alone for 10 minutes on the floor of the toilet room.

I recently felt so overwhelmed by the things I once loved that I strongly considered quitting everything. Like, sell the company and be simply a mom who has time to actually make homemade pies and play dough. That’s a thing, right? But, after some serious soul searching and rewiring of priorities, I realized my job and the things I once loved aren’t what was stressing me out. It was my priorities and stewardship of time to them. So, though being a mom who bakes pies and makes homemade play dough truly sounds so fun [despite the fact I am actually a not so great baker or DIY-er], it’s just not who God designed ME specifically to be in this season. However I do want to become a better baker and attempt a DIY now and then… perhaps 2022. But my priorities, regardless of my passions, should be my calling. And my calling on this earth is to leave a legacy behind and children who love God. My kids don’t experience God if I am frazzled and working all the time. They don’t experience God if I don’t have time to stop and play or hug their dad. I want to be the mom who DOES have time to stop and play for an hour on the floor, and that means knowing I can close the laptop throughout the day. Everything won’t burn to the ground if I play Spiderman with Knox for an hour. Know what I mean? But, there was a season I thought it would. I genuinely felt if I stopped, so would the blessings on my work and our life that was seemingly “awesome.” In that tight grip of false control, I found myself so anxious and awake at night thinking of more things I need to do and, well, long story short something needed to change. Was it selling my company? Was it letting go of leadership and taking a back seat? Was it staying as is and sucking it up? I didn’t know. I genuinely didn’t. But I realized I just needed a priority shift. I needed to rearrange some things and reorder the way I do some stuff. I needed to pitch some bad habits and I needed to let go of some things for a season. So I did. And know what? I feel creative again. I feel refueled. I sleep at night again. I am more patient. I speak kinder. I can stay calm when my almost 4 year old is telling me he doesn’t want to do something for the 10th time this morning. I AM being the mom I want to be, but it came differently than I thought! I thought I had to quit everything and lay all my passions aside in order to walk in my calling. But, truth is that God gives us passions for a purpose. But our passions cant be purposefully executed if we forget our ultimate calling. What’s your calling? LOVE GOD. LOVE PEOPLE. TELL PEOPLE ABOUT GOD. From that, you can decipher what your calling looks like in your life. For example, mine specifically is: LOVE GOD, LOVE MY HUSBAND, LOVE MY KIDS, LOVE OUR CHURCH, SHARE THE GOSPEL ON ALL PLATFORMS GOD HAS GIVEN ME. Make sense?

We can get so hung up in passions that we forget the purpose and our ultimate calling. Passions must fit within healthy boundaries of our calling or it’s not Godly. Passions are good – but like all “good” things on this Earth, aside from Jesus, when we don’t healthily approach them we can find ourselves quickly not good. When our priorities are whacked up so is our heart. Our soul was designed to worship, but if it’s worshipping work rather than God… then you’re going to see the ramifications of that in your life. For me, it’s anxiety and shame. What is it for you? What can you pinpoint as a potential ramification for getting your priorities out of order?

I hope you can take a step back and assess your current situation. What if it isn’t WHAT you do but rather HOW you’re doing it that’s causing you distress lately?