Lessons I am Learning….

I was sitting next to my husband when it happened. We were watching a video tonight with our church group on setting personal boundaries in our lives when I finally heard the message that God has been trying to tell me for the past six months. “Busyness is the enemy of intimacy.” Before the speaker had the chance to extend his statement beyond our familial relationships, I immediately thought of my relationship with my Heavenly Father. Busyness is something that I know all too well.

I grew up in the church and had many seasons of intense involvement in youth organizations and retreat groups, but that involvement significantly decreased upon entering college at LSU. I was too busy being on my own for the first time and experiencing life. Later, as an adult living in North Carolina, life seemed to always have a way of keeping me too busy to make time for church or even really praying. It is not that I didn’t want to go to church or that I didn’t believe in God, I just had my priorities all mixed up.


After giving birth to my oldest, my husband and I took an inventory of where we were in our Christian walk and decided that if we wanted to set the right example for our children, we needed to make some changes. We started visiting a few churches and were beyond blessed to find a church home in our neighborhood. It was full of kind, godly people who encouraged and inspired us. We grew tremendously in our personal relationships with the Lord at that church, both joining a small group and my husband joining the praise team. However, we soon learned that God was blessing us with another addition to our family. Facing a future of having two children under the age of two, and being twelve hours away from any family (or babysitters!), we made the difficult decision to leave our wonderful church family to move closer to home. We prayed that we would be able to find a church home in Texas where we could continue in our growth and that we wouldn’t fall into old patterns.

God does provide abundantly more than I could ever dare to dream sometimes! We did find another church home, and this one really took us to a whole new level. We were now leading Sunday school classes and taking bible studies - a real accomplishment having lived a life in the church yet never actually reading the Bible for ourselves! I was so hungry for knowledge that the one bible study led to more, and before I knew it, I found myself, at one time, taking two bible studies, following my Bible-in-a-year plan, reading Christian books with women’s circle groups at church, leading and preparing Sunday school lessons and trying to be super mom at home! Complete and utter busyness! But all of this had to be pleasing to God because it was for Him, right? Every study I did and every book I read taught me something new about my Lord and Savior and I felt myself growing by leaps and bounds in my faith, but at what cost?

A few months ago, a dear friend suggested that I attend a leadership training weekend in Dallas. It is not a religious retreat, although it is run by amazing Christian men, but she strongly felt that I needed to go. I didn’t know much about the training, but did know that it made you take a hard look at yourself, and made you examine your life. I went in ready for God to show up in a major way, but was scared of what He might reveal. What if He wasn’t pleased with me? What if I wasn’t doing enough?

Through that training, I learned that fear is a major factor in my life. Fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of only being liked if I am the best at something or stand out in some way. Fear of not doing all that I could, whether it was for my husband, my children, or the Kingdom of God. All that busyness had led to severe feelings of constant guilt that I wasn’t doing enough and caused me to completely forget that we are saved through faith in Christ Jesus alone!

They helped me to see that while I was doing many wonderful and good things, they were for all the wrong reasons. What started as a means of learning became a way of pleasing others, often at the expense of my family, and finding self worth in what I was able to do and not who I was – a Beautiful and Confident Princess of the King!

I would love to end by saying that I found complete balance in my life, but that’s just not reality. What I can say is that since completing that training, I have stepped back from many obligations and realized that my first ministry is to my family – namely the amazing husband and beautiful girls He has blessed me with. It’s still a daily battle to not feel like I didn’t do enough around the house, or with my girls or even with Him. I constantly have to give myself grace to make mistakes and not be perfect. But now, when I start to feel guilt taking over, I remind myself that things are only as important as I want them to be . . . and I take a nice bubble bath! Sometimes, if nothing else works, pampering yourself gives life a whole new perspective!


Tonight, God showed me that we still have work to do, but I’m learning to trust in His unconditional love for me. My personal covenant with Him this year is that I will crawl into His lap and LET Him love on me daily. That is the step and lesson that I hope I master by the end of the year, because what better example could I set for my girls than of being completely secure in His love? My prayer is that everyone reading this masters that same lesson.

Love in Christ,
Rachel