The Things That Matter

SNAPSHOT: My eighth great-grandfather, Charles LaPierre, was a Huguenot minister who traveled across France preaching with a bounty on his head, even after his wife and her entire family were martyred. After watching a fellow minister tortured and killed on the rack, he finally fled to England in 1698 with his son, John, who later came to America as an Anglican minister.

SNAPSHOT: My grandmother’s grandmother, Caroline Stephens Franklin, raised her children (and later my grandmother) in a log cabin her husband built around 1866 in Wake County, North Carolina. Before they dug a well, they carried water from a spring some distance down a hill from the house. In my grandmother’s words: “I heard grandma say when she had a baby and a ‘knee baby’ and went for water, she would set the baby down about halfway down, pick up the knee baby, run to the spring, get a bucket of water, and run back and change babies, and on to the house.”

SNAPSHOT: My grandmother, Edna Smith Howell, taught school until she married. Her husband died about three months before my father was born in 1927, and she never remarried. She told me once that people greatly discouraged her from raising her son alone. According to her, she was expected to get another husband quickly or send the boy away to be raised by relatives. She refused to do either; instead, she worked two jobs, running the lunchrooms for both schools in Apex and traveling around the county teaching proper canning methods to farmers. My father said that although they were poor, they never went hungry.

Why have I shared sketches from my ancestors’ lives? A glimpse into their lives can give us perspective on the difficulties and stress we face today. Stress is not new to the times that we live in. What may be unique is that we have come to think that it’s up to us to keep the world spinning. We have difficulty focusing on one thing—the task before us, the person in front of us—because our brains are spinning with all the things that we feel certain we must accomplish.

When it was suggested that I write about stress management, my first thought was this: What can I possibly add to the conversation? I’m retired and in good health for the moment, so my stress level is, no doubt, less than many of our readers’. That’s exactly the point, though. The stress anyone experiences will vary depending on the season of life they’re in. Here’s an example: during the season when I was young and balancing a heavy workload with trying to be a good wife and mother, one friend was struggling with infertility and another with finding a suitable career. Another example: while we were building our house and wondering how we were going to make a $314.69 monthly mortgage payment, my sister was a single mom working two jobs to pay the rent and keep her kids fed and clothed. Each life season carries its own stress.

And each person has different stress triggers. You might be terrified of public speaking. Stand me up in front of a crowd to speak, and I’m a whole lot more comfortable than spending fifteen minutes in Costco. You might fear being alone. I fear being cornered by someone who talks incessantly. Think about your stress triggers and notice how closely they may be tied to your fears.

And what can I say about managing stress? All you have to do is watch a talk show, or ask your doctor, or ask Google, and you’ll be told that to manage stress, you should take a nap, exercise, play with the dog, take up a hobby…all of which can sound stressful when you’re already overwhelmed with making the world go around.

I had been pondering these things, when, in the middle of the night, I was awakened from a deep sleep with a single sentence reverberating through my mind, as plainly as if it had been spoken aloud: Don’t let the things of this world distract you from the things that matter. 

Let’s break that sentence down. The things of this world. What might that be in this current age? Politics—the divisiveness and suspicion that has permeated our lives from allowing our political beliefs to define us. Perfection—trying to do it all perfectly or pushing our children to be perfect in school, sports, whatever. FOMO—fear of missing out—if we dare to miss a social event, will we be left out of the next one? Consumerism—it’s easier than ever before to spend more than we make, thanks to credit cards and the internet. Broken homes, a broken health care system, broken churches—it all seems hopeless. 

The things of this world. Could that include the “new normal” that we live in? Has there ever been a time in history when insomnia and exhaustion were considered normal? Or when bullying and violence were part of everyday life? Or a time when it was so difficult to discern truth from pretense? Or when we felt so powerless to change things?

Don’t let the things of this world distract you. What distractions are unique to these times? Social media—again, FOMO. The news media—constant tragedy. Busyness—we keep spinning, keep juggling, and, as a result, we can’t focus. Entertainment—it’s so much easier to watch a movie than have a conversation, right? Think about the things that distract you.

Don’t let the things of this world distract you from the things that matter. I have a friend who lives with numerous health challenges. She has good days and bad days, yet I’ve never known anyone who lives with such gratitude, such openness, as she does. She expresses delight in the gifts that each day brings, and she offers encouragement and love to me and everyone she meets. One day at a time, one challenge at a time is the way she moves through life. Tomorrow, she knows, is in God’s hands. My friend understands the things that matter.

The other day, I was in line at the dollar store, minding my own business. In front of me at the checkout was a white-haired lady, a little bent, a little slow. The cashier complimented her customer on her pretty fingernails, which led to a discussion on people’s fingernails, followed by laughter. Next thing I knew, they had drawn me out of my cocoon into their laughter, and the customer left the store smiling, with a bit of spring in her step. Now, did two minutes of kindness pay that cashier’s light bill? I doubt it, but for certain, she knows the things that matter.

Kindness, gratitude, laughter, connection—these things matter because they lift us out of our spinning thoughts, out of ourselves. When that happens, it can allow our mind to relax and sort through possible solutions for our stressful lives.

You may or may not be on speaking terms with your Creator at this point in your life, but it’s almost certain that some of your ancestors were. I know mine were. In Scripture, in the book of Revelation, we’re told that all those generations of prayers are in a bowl before the throne of God, still rising as incense to the only One who is in control. We’re told in the book of Hebrews that our life is like a race with “a great cloud of witnesses”—those people of faith who have gone before us—surrounding us. And we’re told in Zephaniah that God Himself, even now, sings over us with joy.

Relax. Focus on the things that matter, because you, my friend, are not alone.