ConversionDiary on Not Being Overwhelmed

Reading Jennifer Fulwiler's post on The Secret to Not Being Overwhelmed came in excellent timing for me--although last night when I was near tears would have been better--and maybe it will be for you.

Yesterday should have felt like a Life Well Lived. I had carved out time to enjoy people--both adults and children. I had attended a baby shower in the morning and we had hosted the boys' basketball gathering in the afternoon. As a family, we had cleaned up after nine boys' whirling about the property and kitchen. I had completed two loads of laundry, cooked a great dinner, and done all the regular chores to keep a family of six going.

But I didn't finish my list. This was my list I considered "minimal," that there was nothing to cut from the list.

And I was collapsing into bed with fatigue at the end of the day and the list wasn't done, plunging me into a slough of despond. We can't predict when the baby randomly takes two hours to fall asleep instead of the normal fifteen minutes (and then he's awake most of the night, making a wreck of a mama the subsequent day). I felt I couldn't just push last night's unfinished chores to the next day because the next day had its own proper work and the next day and the next.

I try so hard to keep our life simple, to avoid many outside commitments, yet still there is never enough time.

Cue Jennifer with her wit and wisdom . . .

It occurred to me that Mother Teresa must have had more demands on her time than she could ever even come close to addressing — and considering the type of work she did, serving the poorest of the poor all over the world, she must have often felt daunted by how many important things needed to be done compared to how little she could do.

So I asked Fr. Langford: What did Mother Teresa do when it seemed that there was more work than she could possibly handle?

His response was simple and wise, and it marked a turning point in my life. In his reply to my email, he wrote:

"The [work she could not get to] she did not think twice about, nor should you or I, since God is not asking you to do what He does not give you the time (or health, or resources) to do. So be at peace."

Jennifer describes when we are in survival mode--"If you don’t have at least a few blocks of time per week that are both predictable and uninterrupted, where you can prayerfully get your priorities in order, you are in survival mode."--and when we can rise above survival mode, at least for a time.

She shows us the goal for what we need to rise above the drowning feeling we experience while in survival mode:

I finally had space in my schedule. Thanks to some babysitting help and a couple of tweaks to our routine, I had a few hours per week — predictable time that I could count on and plan around — where I could do nothing but think and pray and get my priorities in order.Once had that, everything changed.. . . . When you look at Mother Teresa’s daily schedule, you see an extraordinary amount of time for prayer and reflection. I used to wonder why she didn’t cut some of that to do more work since she was so busy, but now it all makes sense. The more demands you have on your time, the more time you’re going to need to connect with God so that you can receive his guidance as you make the extremely difficult choices about how you use your time.

I am reminded that I am home from retreat and am still mulling things over, but haven't yet made any changes to our routine to try to pull myself out of survival mode. Back to the drawing board . . .