A few weeks ago, I started a series, Ten Things I Would Tell My Younger Self. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here and Part 2 here.
Today I’m going to share with you the final five things I would tell my younger self.
6. Even Achievers Need Rest
This last year has been filled with more rest than any of my years before- partly due to moving to South Dakota where I knew no one and had nothing to do and partly due to Covid-19.
At first it was hard and strange. I like to be active. I enjoy keeping busy and having lots to do. But after a few weeks, I realized how much I needed rest. My body was tired. My mind was tired. My soul was tired.
God did not create us to keep going and going and going. He created us to need rest. He created us to need time with Him. Rest isn’t just taking a nap or binging on movies. Yes, there are times where that is needed, but true REST comes when we cast our cares on Him and allow God to refill our souls.
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7
7. Seasons of Waiting are Actually Seasons of Preparation
Most of my life I have felt like I’m waiting. Waiting to hear from God. Waiting for an opportunity. Waiting for the next thing. Waiting for the promise to be fulfilled.
The problem with waiting is we often waste those seasons. We sit and do nothing. Instead, seasons of waiting are preparation. Don’t waste them! Look for opportunities to learn and grow. What books can you be reading? What classes could you be taking? What relationships could you be building?
This is true not just in the big things, but the little things. When you are waiting in line, who could you talk to and encourage? When you are waiting for the appointment, could you be reading a book on your phone or talking to someone else that is waiting? When you are stuck in traffic, could you use the extra time to pray?
God does not waste anything. He will use everything you learn. He will use the patience you develop. He will be Faithful.
“The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” Lamentations 3:25
8. The Ability to Learn is a Gift from God
I did not appreciate school when I was in school. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t maximize the opportunity I had. I wish I had paid more attention in Spanish class. I wish I had taken the opportunity to take harder classes and push myself to learn. I can now see the value of learning.
Never stop learning. Keep reading. Keep listening to podcasts. Keep having deep discussions with all types of people. Surround yourself with a mix of people. Find people who are not like you and learn from them. Be humble. You do not know it all. There is someone who can do it better than you. Find them and learn from them.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7
9. We Reap What We Sow
What you do now, matters later. What types of seeds are you planting in your life? Are you planting generosity, kindness, a teachable heart? If so, these are the things you will harvest later in life. However, if you are planting jealousy, anger, or greed, you will also harvest these things later in life.
Are you investing in learning and growing, or have you become stagnant and complacent where you are? Are you investing for your future financially or do you spend every penny you make? Are you putting the work into building relationships or are you too busy with work to care about people?
You will reap what you sow.
The older I get, the more I can see this is true. In your 20’s everyone is sort of at the same level, but by the time you get to your 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s plus, you can start to see who planted what. You can point out the person who planted bitterness and refused to forgive. You can see the person who invested in learning and growing. You notice who put the work into a healthy marriage and who did not.
“Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” Galatians 6:7
10. Put God First, Always
It is so easy for things to creep into our spiritual life. Often times, we don’t even notice. We think we are doing the right things: reading our Bibles, praying, going to church, but we don’t notice when those things become just habitual actions and not pure motives of the heart.
Has something taken over the first place in your life? Is there something you run to when you are stressed or overwhelmed before you run to God? If you’ve had a hard day, do you choose to pray or do you choose food, alcohol, exercise, binging out on tv or movies, or video games? When you’re having a problem who do you talk to first, God or your friends?
We might have lost our first love and not even noticed it. Take time to pause and reflect, is Jesus the great love of your life or is something or someone else sitting in his place?
“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4
We cannot go back and change the past, but we can make changes today that change our future. What things would you tell your younger self? What changes can you make today to change your future self?
Kelly Joy's Blog
Advice, Learn, Rest, Wait, Younger Self
Last week I started a series, Ten Things I Would Tell My Younger Self. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.
Today I’m going to share with you the next two things I would tell my younger self. (I was going to do more, but these two ended up being a little longer. )
4. Take Time to Grieve
Life is hard. There are seasons of deep loss and unfathomable pain and brokenness. Our tendency can be to cover the pain with external fixes- food, tv, alcohol, busyness- our list of options goes on and on. Unfortunately, all of these external fixes will only leave us more broken in the end. We can only cover our pain for a time. Someday, we will reap the results of not having processed our grief.
Almost sixteen years ago, my eighteen-year-old brother-in-law was killed in a motorcycle accident. It was instant. We didn’t get to say goodbye. My last conversation with him was tense. He was in a bad mood, and I remember driving out of the driveway and saying, “Wow, Jesse, Uncle Diaperbutt is cranky today.” (He called my two-year-old Diaperbutt and the favor was returned as my two-year-old called him Uncle Diaperbutt.)
In one moment, our lives were changed forever. I didn’t get a phone call that he had been in an accident. I got a phone call that he had died. It wasn’t until about an hour later that I learned how he had died. The grief was unbearable.
I wish that was the only time in my life I had felt that type of grief, but it hasn’t been. I felt that heavy grief when we miscarried our second child. I felt that grief when we packed up our lives and moved to South Dakota last year- leaving everything and everyone I had prayed so hard for. I would like to hope that I’ll never feel it again, but I know that’s not true. Grief will come again.
It is tempting to stuff grief down. To hide it beneath a fake smile. To look for ways to feel better. But the only way through grief is to feel it. Allow yourself to feel the loss. Allow yourself to cry, to sob, to feel all the emotions. Give yourself freedom to pause life.
But do NOT do it alone. Take your grief to your Heavenly Father. Allow Him to walk with you through the pain. God can handle your grief. He doesn’t back away from the pain. Jesus came to save you. Not from your pain, but from having to walk through it alone. He is with you. He will be there. You can tell him everything you are feeling. Don’t leave anything out. You can ask Him questions. You can yell. You can cry. He will not leave you. He will comfort you.
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” Psalm 34:18
5. Communicate
Before Brad and I were married, we went through a pre-marital counseling class. In that class, we had to take an assessment. This assessment told us that we needed to work on our communication. I was SO mad! We talked all the time. How could we need to work on our communication?!?
It turns out that being able to talk about the day’s events and being able to carry on hours of conversation is not actually communicating. Ha! Granted, it is a level of communication, but a very surface level. In order to have a successful relationship with someone, it is so important to learn how to communicate not just facts, but also feelings and emotions.
The trick to doing this is that we have to actually know what is going on inside of us in order to communicate it effectively. I might know that I’m mad, but just telling you I’m mad doesn’t actually communicate anything or fix anything. Why am I mad? What needs to happen in order for it to change? Often times, our initial emotion is a reaction to a much deeper need, it is rarely about the actual event taking place.
For example, I might feel angry that I was cut off in traffic. But lots of people get cut off in traffic and just let it go, so why did it bother me so much? Was it really about getting to my destination two second later? Probably not. For me, I realized that I would get frustrated when people did not zipper merge correctly- when a second car tries to sneak in when it is not their turn. The real reason I was frustrated was not because one more car went in front of me, but because someone was not following the “rules.”
Rules are important to me. Why? Because rules reveal a level of truth and lies, and my core value is truth. Truth is what I base almost every part of who I am on. I care about the truth. I operate based on truth. I get frustrated when someone else does not care about what is true. I hate lying!
This sounds good, but it becomes a problem when someone else’s core value is honor- for example. They desire honor above all else. They might lie if it will bring either themselves or the other person honor. They would rather bend the truth than risk bringing dishonor into the situation. This can cause conflict with someone like me who operates with a core value of truth.
The solution is communication. I need to recognize what is going on inside of me and then communicate it clearly to the other person. I can say, “I’m sorry if you felt dishonored in this conversation. Truth is very important to me and I felt unvalued when you didn’t tell me the truth. In order for me to feel valued in this relationship, I need you to tell me the truth. And I commit to speaking to you in a way that is honoring to you.”
Communication is knowing what is going on inside of me so that I can effectively share with you what I need. It is also learning how to listen and hear what is going on inside of you so that I can give you what you need. Although learning to communicate effectively takes a lot of time and effort, it is worth it! Your relationships will thrive, and you, personally, will thrive as well.
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29
** 10 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self will continue on next week’s blog post. **
Kelly Joy's Blog
Advice, Communicate, Grieve, Younger Self
Last January, I turned forty. It was a hard day. My life did not look like I wanted it to look by the time I turned forty. I was living in a town I didn’t want to live in. I had moved away from all my friends and from the job I loved. I was thankful for my husband and my kids and my health, but I felt like something was missing. Life just didn’t look like I expected it to at forty.
Over the last year, I have spent a lot of time analyzing my life. Why do I do the things I do? What would I go back and do differently? What have I learned over the last 40 years? What can I change and what do I need to accept?
We are in the middle of a series at church called, Dear Younger Self: A Letter from Your Future. The idea is to imagine what advice your future self would give you that you could apply to your life today.
Since I’ve spent the last year processing and analyzing, I thought I would share my list of 10 things I would write to my younger self.
1. It’s OK to Make Mistakes
That one is hard to even write. I have spent most of my life trying to be perfect, trying not to fail. I took easier classes in high school and college because getting an “A” was more important to me than pushing myself. But I can see now that I was only robbing myself. I could have learned more, stretched myself more, accomplished more. I was so afraid of making a mistake, of disappointing someone, of failing.
I would tell my younger self; it is ok to make mistakes. It is ok to fail. Failure doesn’t need to be an ending, but a beginning. We can start fresh and begin again. Failure is an opportunity to learn. It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. It shows that we tried, we stepped out, we took the risk. Maybe we didn’t get it right this time, but we can learn and grow and change and next time, that might just be the time we succeed!
“Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.” Proverbs 4:13
It is not success that is our life, it is instruction. It is the things we learn and the wisdom we gain. Sometimes these life lessons come through failure and mistakes. Hold tight to the wisdom that is gained, and do not be afraid to step out and try again.
2. Life is Made Up of Seasons, Don’t Get Stuck
There have been many times in the last forty years when life was hard. So very, very hard. I have suffered great loss, walked through many days of grief and pain. There have been days and weeks that I have questioned how I was going to make it through.
I have walked through seasons of depression, through anxiety and panic attacks, through rejection and betrayal, through heartbreak and death. But there have also been seasons of joy, seasons of rest and renewal, seasons of happiness and abundance, seasons of life and growth. The key is to not get stuck in a season. You might be in a winter season, but I promise you, hold on and spring is coming! It always does.
“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
3. We Can Choose Our Attitude
Early in my marriage, I told my husband that he was making me mad. He replied, “No one can make you mad, you choose to get mad.” That did not help my anger! At the time it only made me more frustrated. But now, I can see that he was right.
We get to choose our attitude. We do not have to be controlled by the actions of those around us. We can choose joy even in the midst of sorrow. We can choose to be grateful in every situation. We can choose to forgive. We can choose to praise. We can choose to pause and process instead of reacting and lashing out. We have a choice.
God created us with a free will. He gave us a choice. No one has the right to take that away. Jesus died so that we might be set free. That includes the freedom to choose our attitude.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
When we allow our attitude to be controlled by the actions and circumstances of those around us, we become a slave to those people and circumstances. But it doesn’t have to be that way! We have the freedom to choose, no one can take that away from us.
** 10 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self will continue on next week’s blog post. **
Kelly Joy's Blog
Advice, Younger Self