by Barb Roose | Feb 12, 2018 | Joshua & Winning the Worry Battle
by Barb Roose
One Sunday afternoon I received a Facebook message from someone asking for help.
This sweet lady, whom I’ll call Leah, lost her father recently. If you’ve lost a parent or any loved one, you know that the grief runs deep. Dealing with the grief requires time, rest, and lots of self-care. Yet, she was unable to care for herself because others had pushed the worries and cares in their lives from their life onto her.
Leah was overwhelmed, except the worries weren’t her own. She was drowning in the worries of loved ones around her. I’ve known Leah almost my entire life. She manages her personal affairs well and plans for the future. Yet, she felt ensnared because of her fear of uncertainty and worries about her adult children. One was experiencing a second, unplanned pregnancy and another had neglected taking care of some serious legal issues and was looking at jail time. Leah told me that she promised money, time, and energy to help her loved ones get through their situation. But she also admitted that this cycle of being stressed out and bailing out had been going on for years. In fact, before Leah’s father passed away, he gently warned Leah that taking on other people’s problems would destroy her. He was right.
I diagnosed Leah’s condition as “Secondhand Worry.”
You might be suffering from Secondhand Worry if someone tells you about his or her problems and then, you end up suffering physical and emotional worry symptoms. Another symptom of Secondhand Worry is when worry drives you to assume responsibility for someone else’s problem. (If you’re familiar with recovery principles, that kind of Secondhand Worry is worry-driven enabling.)
Here are some practical examples:
• Your spouse has trouble with a manager, and you begin to worry about his job loss.
• Your child struggles with a subject at school, you worry that he or she will end up living on your couch well into their adult years.
The problem with Secondhand Worry is that we experience all of the symptoms associated with worry like sleepless nights, stressed out feeling, lack of appetite or overeating, frayed nerves BUT the situation isn’t even about us.
If you can relate to Leah, it’s a difficult place to be. Life is hard enough trying to fight in faith for our own victory over worry. It’s not possible for us to fight someone else’s battle, too.
For the past few months, I’ve been studying Old Testament book of Joshua and there is a situation where Joshua ends up with a case of secondhand worry. God prohibited the Israelites from making treaties with the inhabitants of Canaan, yet Joshua and the leaders were snookered by a group of Gibeonites with a fictitious story and some deceptive visual aides (Joshua 9:9-13). Instead of consulting God for wisdom, Joshua and the leaders made a treaty with the lying Gibeonites, whose deception was driven by fear. As a result, the Israelites ended up being responsible for a group of people that God warned them against.
Are you feeling responsible for people in your life who should be responsible for themselves? Do they keep coming back to you over and over again with endless excuses and sad stories?
If you’ve been caught in Secondhand Worry, you know what it’s like to hemorrhage money or spend sleepless nights because someone in your life didn’t manage his or her business. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, don’t let someone else’s worry wear you out!
Years ago, my friend and licensed therapist Tim challenged me to admit that I was struggling with Secondhand Worry. In fact, we had a few heated sessions because I told him that he just didn’t understand! What if I didn’t intervene and something horrible happened? Then, Tim made this powerful statement: We have to let the people in our lives discover their own need for God.
Is there someone in your life that you love, but you realize that it’s time to step back and let them discover their need for God?
It’s not my role to advise you not to help, but realize that your helping has the potential to hurt both of you. It’s hurting them because instead of allowing their consequences to push them toward God, you might be putting yourself in the way. It’s hurting you because you’re carrying a heavy load of someone else’s mess. Perhaps the person will see God more clearly once you get out of the way…
I recognize that the answers to the questions of how to handle your situation might be complex. No doubt there will be emotions involved. That is why prayer is so important. When you pray, God’s wisdom can cut through your emotions and deliver clarity. Furthermore, in prayer, God’s Holy Spirit may reveal or remind you of something that wasn’t present during your conversation with that person.
If you determine that it would not be healthy to aid someone, saying “no” is difficult, but you’ve got to do it — both for their sake and yours! Here are a few things that you can say instead:
- I’m so sorry about your situation, but I am unable to help you at this time.
- That is so difficult! Can I help you put together a plan that you can use to deal with this situation? (Only if you can plan without taking responsibility!)
- I know that you can figure this out. Keep me posted on how you are doing.
It feels bad saying “no” to helping someone, but remember, you aren’t saying that they aren’t worthy of help, only that you are no longer getting in the way of God helping them.
SHARE A COMMENT BELOW: What’s the hardest part about stepping back and letting your loved ones and friends take care of their own problems?
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by Barb Roose | Jun 26, 2017 | Women's Topics
by Barb Roose
Fifteen years ago, I lived on empty. Stressful job. Small kids. My issues. Marriage.
If I was a car, my gas gauge warning light was ALWAYS on.
Don’t you hate it when that warning light is on? My gas gauge warning light always comes on when I’m in the middle of doing other things – buy groceries, running errands, picking up kids. That warning light pressures me because fuel is important, but so is everything else in our lives.
How often did I keep around pushing the limits of a near-empty gas tank in order to keep continue trying to accomplish other things?
I used to live the same way.
My “warning-light-life” (say that three times fast) had become a painful and pitiful way of life.
When I ran out of energy at the end of each day, everyone in my household knew about it. Short temper. Snippy Words. Poor listening. Fitful sleep filled with nightmares about unfinished to-do lists and often dreams of running away from it all.
Yes, I was a Christian and I loved my family. I knew that I was blessed. But I for a long time, I was an-empty Christian. Instead of being filled with the Fruit of the Spirit, the only thing that I was full of was exhaustion.
I’m pretty sure that someone out there can relate to what I’m saying…
If your well-being or energy could be measured like a gas gauge, how much gas do you have today?
If you’ve got a full tank, you’re giving thanks right now. You know that it’s not easy keeping a full tank, but bless you to being out there as a beacon of hope that other women can see.
But, if you’re riding your warning light or if you’re out of gas, you may feel a combination of guilt and desperation right now. You feel guilty because you don’t have any more to give, but everyone seems to need you. You feel desperate because you don’t want to live this way anymore BUT you also aren’t sure if you can change (and you aren’t even sure what change is.)
Sweet sister, I know your kind of tired. I know your tears.
I may not know your circumstances, but I know that you don’t want to let the people down in your life. I know that you believe that if you fill in all of the gaps, then that’s how you show you love them.
I know.
I thought that I was supposed to be the gap-filler, too. If there was a gap between someone’s need and their ability, I thought that loving them meant that I should fill in that gap with my energy, my money or time. After all, if I loved them, then I should be there for them no matter when they called or no matter what I was doing, right?
Here’s something that I want to share with you, but not all of you will agree with me. But, keep reading anyways:
Love may mean sacrifice, but love isn’t suicidal.
Love IS sacrificial.
But we’ve got to know the difference between loving sacrifice and killing ourselves when caring for people.
Jesus didn’t run after people wearing himself out trying to fix their problems. We never read about the Savior of the world worn out after serving people. Jesus let people be responsible for themselves. When we show love through sacrifice, our effort is to bring hope to others, but it also should bless us, too. Our sacrifice should satisfy us, not suck us dry.
What do I mean when I say that love is suicidal? Talking about suicide is a tender conversation. If you’ve lost someone to suicide, my heart breaks for you. It’s devastating when a loved one reaches a place where he or she comes to believe that there was no hope left.
Have you worn out, ruined or even killed your health, career, emotional well-being or financial security to try to rescue someone who refuses to be responsible for themselves?
You’re trying to help people, but is it wise to ruin your health, finances or well-being to try to save someone else’s? Only Jesus saves. We can’t. But, without meaning to, you may be sending the message that if you don’t step in and fix their lives, then they have no hope.
When there are gaps in someone’s lives, those are the spaces for God to fill in, not you.
If we’re always filling the spaces for people when they have a track record of not paying their bills, can’t maintain a job, often need bail money or always running short on the rent, then we’re filling the space that just might be keeping them from seeking God. Stop filling the potholes dug up by the irresponsible decisions of others. Don’t kill yourself trying to save someone from their bad choices and decisions. Only Jesus can save them.
Here’s the spiritual implication of it all: Are you praying that someone will come to know Jesus? Keep praying, but make sure that you aren’t filling the spaces in your life that keep them from running into Jesus open arms.
Best advice that I ever received from a friend and therapist, Tim Butler: “We have to let people discover their need for God.”
Most of us came to Jesus because we didn’t have anything left in the tank. That’s why we ran to Jesus. Let’s give our adult children, wayward siblings and parents or friends – give them ALL a chance to run to Jesus, too.
Now some of you are wondering if you stop fixing someone else’s life, then what do you do with yourself? How do you fill your tank back up again? Here are some questions that you need to answer for yourself:
What do you need to thrive spiritually?
What do you need to thrive financially?
What do you need to thrive socially?
What do you need to thrive emotionally?
What do you need to thrive in your relationships?
Thriving means that you are maturing and growing. It’s knowing how to fill your tank and live without draining your tank.
Just because you are thriving doesn’t mean that you don’t love the other people in your life. In fact, when you take care of yourself, you model the right kind of behavior you want for them one day.
Here are three ways that you can begin to focus on how to stop filling the gaps for others and begin filling your tank instead:
- Memorize 1 Peter 5:7: “Give all of your worries and cares to God for He cares about you.” Make sure the first thing you do each day is tell God about all of the situations in your life. Stop carrying those burdens around. When people try to give you their burdens, look them in the eyes and say, “Hang in there! The answers will come. I will pray for you.” Then pray for them, but clamp your mouth shut before you say the phrases, “I can…” or “Would you like me…” or “Let me…”
- Say this: “No is not a bad word.” If you struggle with saying “yes” all of the time, make it a goal to say three “No’s” this week. Are there things that you know that you shouldn’t be doing to fill the gaps in someone else’s life? It’s time to let them do their own #adulting. But be kind: As they say: “Say what you mean and mean what you say, but don’t say it meanly.”
- Check out my list of 101-ways to take care of yourself. Pick one thing to do for yourself each day for the next seven days. Self-care is not selfish. CLICK HERE to access the list.
LEAVE A COMMENT! Is your tank on full, half-tank or are you running on empty? How has God spoken to you through what you’ve read today?
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