Responding to Stress

As promised I have pulled from my stack of old devotionals a typed sheet of paper from a program given by Dr. Larry Freeman, CSAC at Parkway Presbyterian Church one Wednesday night in the early 1990’s.

Since I have no desire to type the paper in full, I thought I would respond to his ideas as to how they relate to me and my response to stress. He begins by stating that there is no simple or universally effective solution to the problem of stress management. What works for one person may be totally ineffective for others. But all of his ideas have worked for someone somewhere.

On the subject of becoming knowledgeable about stress, my first really stressful time was meeting the deadline for my book in 2008. Never before had I experienced such stress and not known it. I actually thought I had a handle on things but the closer it got the sicker I got until I was in so much pain I went to the doctor, my dentist, as the pain was in a tooth. For weeks we treated it as stress, then finally we discovered by tooth had abscessed and it was not stress after all. I actually felt relieved. But within those few weeks my family and friends were a huge support giving me the tools I needed to stay on the course and concentrate on completing the book without losing it at the same time.

When I do find myself in a stressful situation I take a systematic approach to solving the problem which is the second technique Dr. Freeman suggests. Years ago I took a six-week workshop on Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) which turned out to be one of the most life-changing workshops I ever attended. Being able to actively listen to another person and then work to solve any problem that might arise without making matters worse not only worked with my children but with others as well.

Dr. Freeman suggests coming to terms with your feelings for example learning to be flexible and adaptive. I can’t imagine two more perfect words to describe a mother – flexible and adaptive. If I didn’t have a good handle on this, then I probably couldn’t have survived raising four children. Acknowledging how I felt and expressing it to my family, however was not always easy. Nobody likes to admit defeat or lack and as a mother, wife, and homemaker, failure was not an option. Needless to say, I bottled it up at times and of course paid the price for that….grinding my teeth at night, for example. (That’s how my dentist was the first to diagnose my stress.)

The fourth technique on the list is to develop effective behavioral skills with the most important thing to remember to do is to learn to say NO. That was a hard concept for me but over the years I found that when I said yes to something I could not or was not prepared to do, it made matters worse. I felt like I failed the person or organization I had said yes to. Today, I’m not afraid to say NO. In fact, I’m not only doing myself a favor but also the person who is asking me.

Developing a lifestyle that will buffer against the effects of stress is the last and to me the most important technique Dr. Freeman listed. For me it is meditating every day. It is stopping and breathing in and out whenever I feel that a stressful moment is approaching and finally I maintain an optimistic attitude about my life. I believe in myself and expect to succeed in all that I do. I celebrate my successes and reward myself with thoughts of how good my life is.

My way, may not be your way but it works for me

A Prayer/Pledge of Responsibility for Children

We pray [accept responsibility] for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray [accept responsibility] for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an x-rated world.

We pray [accept responsibility] for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray [accept responsibility] for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray [accept responsibility] for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray [accept responsibility] for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray [accept responsibility] for children who want to be carried
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don’t get a second chance.

For those we smother….and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Adapted from Ina J. Hughs

Back in the early 90’s it was my responsibility to organize the programs for the Wednesday night meetings at our church. Dinner and program for all ages, the evening was called “Omnibus.” One evening I asked another member of the church, Dr. Larry Freeman, CSAC, to speak to us on stress. He gave a wonderful lesson on a variety of ideas for responding to stress which I kept and drew from my stack of devotionals to write about this morning. However, paper clipped to Larry’s list was a handout he also gave us that night. The poem I printed above. Tomorrow I’ll touch on ways to reduce stress but today I’ll take time to thank God for the abundance in my life and the lives of my children and grandchildren. I will pledge to never take for granted the people in my life and pray that my eyes are not closed when I see a time where I can make a difference in the life of a child who does not have what I have.

No Separation

Today’s devotional is a postcard that I pulled randomly from my file. It has a simple poem printed on one side and a place for a personal message and address on the other side. It was meant to be framed, not mailed, I presume as it came from a company called “Be Creative!”

I asked Jesus, “How much do you love me?”
“This much,” He answered, and He stretched out His arms and died.

The other day, my husband asked me if I considered myself a Christian. I said yes and he said please explain. I said that I center my life in Christ, therefore lead a balanced life; that I like to think that I would live my life as Jesus would do; that my actions would reflect what I say. You know, “If you’re gonna talk the talk then you gotta walk the walk,” as the saying goes.

Years ago I read In His Steps by Sheldon Leonard, the classic book written in 1896 about a town that pledged to live their lives as Jesus did which of course changed the course of life for everyone in the town. And it is still changing lives as the book continues to be adapted and published. I was quite young when I read the book but I remember the impact it had on my life for it was the first time that I realized that Jesus and I were one; that is to say, that as I lived so did Jesus. And since I believe that Jesus and God are one, it followed that I realized that God and I are one as well. Of course coming to this realization took years.

The conversation with my husband continued when he asked me if I was offended by a recent cartoon in the newspaper depicting Christians as intolerant. The cartoonist is getting publicity from letters to the editor complaining about his cartoons. I told him no, I am not offended. Two reasons, one being that having met the cartoonist I am able to separate the man from his cartoon. The second reason is that spending time being offended by anything is a waste of time. Would Jesus sit down and type a long letter to the editor to complain about something he read or would he spend that time giving of himself at a homeless shelter, food kitchen, or calling an old friend? It’s all about the choices we make and standing tall and proud after we make our choice.

When my children were little, they argued about lots of things, from who got to sit in the front seat to who was right and who was wrong on any particular subject. At times the arguing would lead to fists flying and I would have to call a truce. My mother suggested an activity that I used many times over the years. She would remind me to tell you that she got it from Ann Landers in a “Dear Abby” column. Find a window or glass door (in my case the sliding door to the patio always worked) and give each child a bottle of window cleaner and a roll of paper towels and make them clean the window facing each other. It did not take long to see the two laughing and making faces and forgetting the anger and subject of their disagreement.

So I can look at the cartoons and see the cartoonist through the glass reflecting back to me and not be offended. I may not agree with his opinion but why should that make me be offended? If I say I love God and I seek to live my life as Jesus would, and did not love my fellow man in kind, then my quest would be in vain. I believe there is no separation between me, my neighbor and God. I am one with all, regardless of appearance or opinion, including my own. And if Jesus could open His arms and love me, then so too must I open my arms to my fellow man and love them for there is no separation.

A Mother’s Prayer

It’s been so long since I wrote on my blog; I almost forgot how to log into it. Yesterday, I found a box of files and inside one file was a stack of devotionals; some I wrote, some I collected from over the years and used at various times. I decided to write something about each one. As my cousin Mandy Marshall said on my Facebook page, “If you saved them….then they must have something for us all.”

A Mother’s Prayer

O God, help me always to remember that you have given to me the most important task in the world, the task of making a home.

Help me to remember this when I am tired of making beds, and washing clothes, and cooking meals, and cleaning floors, and mending clothes, and standing in shops. Help me to remember it when I am physically tired in body, and when I am weary in mind with the same things which have to be done again and again, day in and day out.

Help me never to be irritable, never to be impatient, and never to be cross. Keep me always sweet. Help me to remember how much my husband and my children need me and help me not to get annoyed when they take me for granted, and when they never seem to think of the extra work they sometimes cause me.

Help me to make this home such that the family will always be eager to come back to it, and such that, when the children grow up and go out to their own homes, they will have nothing but happy memories of the home from which they have come.

This I ask for your love’s sake. Amen

Jill Tritton, 1982

It was 1982 when this poem came across my desk. There are no notes written beside it to indicate how I came upon it. I was 32 years old and we had just moved our family to Kingwood, Texas. My husband’s commute to his office was forty-five minutes to an hour in the mornings and up to two hours returning home. He would leave the house around five o’clock in the morning and return around seven-thirty in the evening. It made for a long day for me and the four children.

But the next nine years were some of the best years of my life. Between homeroom mother, Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout den mother, team mom, Sunday School teacher, director of the Mother’s Day Out at church, Elder, and active in my P.E.O. chapter, I barely had time to breathe much less wash the clothes, clean the house, cook our meals. But somehow I did it.

My sister-in-law Margaret, whose family lived in Kingwood, is an excellent housekeeper with an eye for decorating. I always admired her ability to make her home so beautiful and yet accessible. Moving to Houston meant for the first time in our married life, we would live near family, and only a few blocks away. It was heaven. But I did not have Margaret’s skills at housekeeping so I hired a cleaning service about the time Margaret and family joined the country club. One day, my daughter asked Margaret why we were not members of the club and Margaret told her that I would prefer to have a clean house then join the club. There was some truth in that. The real reason we did not join the club is that my husband does not play golf or tennis and he thought it a waste of time and money. I on the other hand would have given up the cleaning service in a heartbeat to be a member of the club. But there was some consolation that although my house was always a cluttered mess, it was clean underneath, thanks to the service, and for that I’m grateful.

Those were formative years for my children and as they were growing up, I too was maturing both spiritually and chronologically. I look at this prayer and am reminded that my in life in those days was to be and do all things for everyone, no matter what. I cooked, I cleaned, I sewed, I carpooled, and I volunteered at the schools, church and community. And I did so without regret or complaint (for the most part.)

And now that my children are grown and have homes of their own, I see them following in my footsteps building a life with their own families around the memories they have of the life we built. I know this when I’m in their homes and see them using the parenting skills I used. I know this when I see the love they have for their children as a reflection of the love I have for them. I see this when they share with me how they feel about being parents.

My daughter paid me the best compliment the other day. She called to tell me that her two-year-old daughter was acting out at the grocery store so she took her outside and sat with her on the bench. Trying diligently to express how her behavior was inappropriate, her daughter got worse until, my daughter yelled at her saying, “I’ve had it.” And then she said she thought to herself, “I’m turning into Mamma.” You would think I might be offended by this, but the real honor is that she didn’t hesitate telling me this story, not that it happened at all.

To make a home, to raise a family, to be the person God wants me to be; that was my Mother’s Prayer.