by Barb Roose | Mar 14, 2018 | Joshua & Winning the Worry Battle
By Barb Roose
Over the past 15 years, I’ve learned a lot about how to allow God to give me victory over fear and worry. I created the C.A.L.M. Technique for myself to reduce my physical distress so that I could pray. This easy-to-use tool works to slow down my heart rate, break the pattern of negative thinking, and relax my body. Then, I can invite God into my distress and ask Him to fight my battles for me. The C.A.L.M Technique isn’t just a neat idea – I use it! (I used it last week.) Recently, I had a chance to teach it to the folks at my church and that was pretty cool. Would you like to learn it?
C.A.L.M. Technique
- Count to 10 (Inhale on the number; Exhale the word MISSISSIPPI)
- Acknowledge God’s presence by saying: God, I know that You’re here with me right now.
- List – Tell God what you are afraid of or worried about
- Meditate – Keep repeating the following: God is here and He will take care of me/this.
When it comes to the counting, you will need to boss your emotions so that you can push your count to 10. Those supercharged emotions will definitely fight the technique. But, stick with it because it does work! This is one of those tools that becomes more effective the more you use it. Your body will calm down. I love this tool because it equips us to walk in the blessing of God’s promise in Joshua 1:9:
The point of this exercise is to reduce your physical distress and open up a conversation with God. I love this tool because it equips us to walk in the blessing of God’s promise in Joshua 1:9: “This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
I don’t know what’s on your mind today. But, if you’re prone to meltdowns like me, practice the C.A.L.M. technique a few times so that you can use this tool to help you calm down during anxious times and connect with the God who promises to take care of you.
*Looking for MORE tools? Order my new book, Winning the Worry Battle releasing next month for even more practical tools to help you fight your worry battle! Click here to find out where you can order your book today!
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by Barb Roose | Feb 21, 2018 | Better Together Podcast
“I read Bill’s words as he confessed that he had lied to his family and had stolen, and spent, $1,000,000 from his aunt’s trust fund. It was obvious he confessed at trial to get a reduced sentence. I was numb and in shock. I had asked God for the total truth but had never dreamed that the truth would be so painful.
How could my husband and best friend, who I had known since I was five, be a liar, a thief , and a convicted felon? It was excruciating.” -from Lynn’s Story: A Journey of searing, Inspiring Growth and Ultimate Healing
For over 30 years, former corporate trainer Lynn Kampfer lived what most people would consider the American Dream. Married to her childhood sweetheart and raising two kids, Lynn and her family enjoyed the best that life had to offer.
Yet, as Lynn began to search for God the outer edges of her lovely life began to crack and crumble. In this episode of the Better Together podcast, Lynn shares not only her dramatic story but more importantly, incredible lessons learned about God’s faithfulness, provision, forgiveness, and hope. Lynn will definitely inspire you as she shares about surviving breath-taking heartache and how to thrive even as life takes an unwelcome left turn.
As you listen to today’s podcast, I want you to draw hope and encouragement from Lynn’s story especially if you feel like your life is falling apart.
What you’ll hear from today’s podcast:
- How God plants seeds in our lives, even when we’re unaware;
- Even after rock bottom, things can always get worse;
- When you don’t forgive, you’re in a prison doing hard time with the person who hurt you;
- Two important things to know and do when beginning the journey toward forgiveness;
- How God never abandons us when the unthinkable in life actually happens.
Forgiveness is a difficult and often misunderstood concept.
There’s not enough space in this post to properly cover the topic, but I hope that you listen to Lynn’s podcast because you can learn a lot from her journey to forgiveness. It wasn’t easy, but she is so wise in how she journeyed through it.
POST A COMMENT BELOW: Can you tell us about your forgiveness journey? What was hard? How did God help you? If you’re still struggling, how can we pray for you?
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 | Apr 28, 2017 | Better Together Podcast
Do you ever battle insecurity?
We all do! Even if usually you feel like Confident Connie on a good hair day, there are times when our inner critic pipes up and whispers, “You’ll never pull that off.”
Some of us grew up in homes hearing “You’re useless” or “You can’t do anything right.” Those words planted seeds of insecurity in our hearts. For others, a big mistake or a crushing failure planted a powerful seed of insecurity in our hearts.
Insecurity whispers “You’ll never be good enough, no matter how hard you try.”
When we’re insecure, we’re always second-guessing ourselves, even when we know we’re doing the right things. When we’re insecure, we’re afraid to look toward the future in hope because we fear pain and failure.
But, what does God say to us and our insecurities? I love the words of Jeremiah 29:11 – some of you already know these words by heart:
“I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
God is not planning disaster for us. He’s not planning disaster for you, my friend. Yes, we’ll encounter hardships and tests to grow our faith, but through faith, we can walk with confidence in God’s plan for our lives.
If you’re always second-guessing yourself, but you want to dream big dreams, I want you to listen to my interview with award-winning author, Catherine West. I met Cathy a few years ago at my literary agency retreat and she’s real and lovely and someone that you can totally relate to!
On this episode of Better Together, Cathy and I will talk about her battle to overcome worry and insecurity. All of us will benefit from Cathy’s five life lessons about how to get off the ledge of insecurity as well as having the guts to go for our dreams. If you don’t have time to listen, click here to access those five life lessons on Cathy’s website.
By the way, Cathy’s new book The Memory of You just released a few weeks ago – it’s amazing! Click here to find out more about this story of a woman who deals with PTSD after the death of her sister. She discovers the freeing power of forgiveness, confession and faith.
About Catherine West…
INSPY Award-winning author Catherine West writes stories of hope and healing from her island home in Bermuda. When she’s not at the computer working on her next story, you can find her taking her Border Collie for long walks or reading books by her favorite authors. She and her husband have two grown children. Catherine’s novel, Bridge of Faith, won the 2015 Grace Award. Catherine’s latest novels are The Things We Knew (July 2016) and The Memory of You (March 2017), Harper Collins Christian Publishing.
Catherine loves to connect with her readers and can be reached at Catherine@catherinejwest.com
Website http://www.catherinejwest.com
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GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4715219.Catherine_West
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Google + – https://plus.google.com/u/0/108781711729974539211/posts
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by Barb Roose | Oct 7, 2014 | Scripture Devotional
There are few movies that have transcended the generations. The “Wizard of Oz” is one of those movies. While my kids weren’t swept away with the same sense of awe that I experienced in my younger years, I could tell they enjoyed it just the same. Seriously, who wouldn’t enjoy the snappy, happy songs, and exciting pre-CGI moments like when mean Ms. Gulch morphed into a witch and the movie switched from black-n-white to Technicolor. It’s like a retro-thrill for us.
Each main character in the movie had a specific need and they believed that there was One who could fulfill that need:
The Scarecrow wanted a brain.
The Tin Man wanted a heart.
The Cowardly Lion wanted courage.
And Dorothy wanted to go home.
(Frankly, I think Dorothy should have been happy enough with those sparkly red shoes. Holla.)
Anywhoo, after the group sashayed down the Yellow Brick Road and crashed the gates of the Wizard’s Emerald City, they had a chance to make the big “Ask.” Yet, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion all wimped out, instead pushing Dorothy to the forefront to present their needs.
For all of their intent to obtain their heart’s desire, the characters let fear and worry strip away their opportunity to make the “ask.”
And we do, too. Too often, we pass on making the “ask.”
A few days ago, I sat in the bed with a deep pit in my stomach – a deep pit filled to the brim with acidic worry. It wasn’t a life or death situation, but something serious enough for a deep, dark crater to open in the center of my being and fill with burning, bubbly anxiety and fear. The pit seemed to whisper “doom and gloom” over and over again. And, the longer I felt worried, the bigger the pit seemed to get.
You know the feeling?
Luckily, I realized that the pit didn’t own me. I remembered that I didn’t have to listen to the lies from that pit.
Neither do you. We don’t have to let it grow out of control. Here’s some encouragement for you today:
Give all of your worries and cares to God for he cares for you. -1 Peter 5:7
We give our worries to God when we pray. Prayer is talking to God. You don’t need fancy words. My friends, prayer is the only way to combat that horrible doom feeling inside. Prayer fills in the pit. But, you can’t pawn this off on someone else. You have to pray. Even if you are praying for someone else and you are afraid, only you can give your worries to God.
How can you do this today?
1. What specifically are you worried about? Clarify your thoughts as well as your feelings.
2. Tell God about it. Use regular words. Be honest. If you haven’t prayed in awhile, today’s a good day to start!
3. God’s not your magical genie and prayer isn’t an “Easy Button.” The purpose of prayer is to connect yourself to God’s heart and eliminate worry, not to have God give you exactly what you want. The Bible tells us to boldly make our requests known to God, but trust in God’s sovereignty for the outcome.
4. Once you give your fears, worries or anxieties over to God, don’t try to take them back!
Thanks for reading today! What do you worry about? Do you struggle with praying? Tell us about your experience – you can leave a comment here or on my Facebook page. Also, if you think that others would find this post helpful, I’d love you to share it with them. God bless! Barb
