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The low-grade stress has slowly been clawing its way out of my body lately.

Stress does that, you know. It makes itself known to you privately first, masquerading as a private issue you think you can hide. As it festers and grows, which it most often does, it always exits your personal, private world and makes its presence known in the public spaces you share.

It may manifest itself in the short answers you give co-workers or the tongue-lashing you unleash on your spouse. It may show up in the headaches that keep you withdrawn or the paranoia that causes you to question people you love.

Stress, though? It always shows up, and it always comes out.

For me, lately, the stress hasn’t been debilitating. It’s been present, for sure, but as I’ve walked with God and learned to invite Him into it, it’s been more manageable.

But manageable, low-grade stress can quickly compound and grow into something more sinister. It’s been trying to do that in me.

And as I’ve tried to understand why I’m facing constant, low-grade stress, it’s become remarkably clear that it’s because I’ve been subjecting myself to constant, low-grade pressure. I’ve been exposing myself daily to expectations I can never meet.

In the simplest of ways, I’ve invited Satan into my life by allowing him into my phone. I don’t want to be a person who paints with a broad brush, coloring everything with a single hue, so I’ll be deliberate here.

Social media is not always bad. Right now, for me, though, it is not good.

The internet is not always Satan’s playground. Right now, for me, though, it is a tool Satan uses to distract me from the presence of God.

Seeing others’ lives is not always a great sin. Right now, for me, though, the envy and comparison I feel when I see others’ lives is a great sin.

So for this season, this time of Advent anticipating the coming of Emmanuel, God with us in flesh, I’m choosing to quit what is distracting me from seeing and celebrating my Savior.

I began this spiritual discipline December 1st, before Advent officially began, because I had simply had enough. The low-grade stress of seeing everyone else’s everything was clawing its way out of my body, and I knew something had to give.

It has been only three days, and already I know it was right. The constant, low-grade stress has begun to dissipate, and I am regaining clarity. I don’t find myself reaching subconsciously for an anesthetizing hit of whatever was posted recently. I don’t have a voracious need to know it all or have others validate my all.

I am making room for white space and down time, disconnected from all but God.

Here’s what I am re-remembering about God. He comes when and where He is invited. He listens for those saying, “Meet me here,” and He does. When He sees His people serious in pursuit of Him, He seriously shows His glory.

I’ve seen it already, and I’m ready for more.

What does this season look like for me, specifically?

No scrolling. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. I will post my writing if God prompts me to post, and I will respond to personal messages and notifications. But my interactions will be limited and focused, not mindless and wasteful. My goal is to steward both my time and my thoughts well.

Will this fast continue past Advent? I don’t know. I’m leaving that up to God. I don’t know what else I’ll learn or how God will show Himself in this time, but I know this for sure, today:

I’m leaving room and making space in the expectation that the same Emmanuel who came first without fanfare on a silent night and in an unexpected place will come again to me.

 

 

I know the exact moment my heart broke. It was a cold Friday night in February, and my children were sleeping upstairs. Cozy in their footed pajamas, they had no idea their lives were changing forever below them.

Their father — my husband — was leaving.

I could not have understood before that night how everything can change in one moment — that a stable and content life can be ripped from you, leaving indescribable destruction and heartache behind.

But one moment can change everything. It did for me.

That moment changed my physical realities — I needed a new place to live and a new job that would provide financially, and I had to learn how to parent my children as a single mother. The new physical realities were nothing compared to the new emotional realities, though.

In the moment my husband said he was leaving, something shifted in my beliefs about myself and my God, and I fell into a darkness that consumed me for years.

Satan began whispering to me in that moment of vulnerability that I was profoundly unlovable. He told me I was so deeply flawed I was destined to be alone, so unworthy of acceptance I would always be rejected, and too broken to ever be healed.

He told me God did not have great plans for my life and that He chose not to protect me from this hurt. The enemy deceived me as He did Eve, asking me, “Did God actually say…?” He led me to doubt the goodness of my God, and I fell for it all.

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The droplet of sap on my van’s windshield is smaller than a dime. It’s not huge, but it’s on the driver’s side, right in my line of vision. We just repainted our garage floor, and while it was drying, I had to park under the cedar trees at the end of the driveway. One of the days I parked there, a glob of sap dripped right onto the windshield.

I noticed it immediately when I got behind the wheel, but I couldn’t do anything right then to get rid of it. As usual, I was jumping in the car to run from one place to another, and I was in a hurry. Turning on the windshield wipers would only smear it, so I told myself I’d take care of it later.

And you can guess how that went.

That was weeks ago, and the glob is still there. Only now, it’s crystallized and feels like a permanent fixture on my mom-van.

The funny thing is that I’ve learned to look past the glob as I’m driving. It’s in the exact same spot it has been, and it never disappears fully from my line of vision, but I have learned to ignore it. I’ve learned to work around the obstruction.

And it seems like such a metaphor for my life.

Globs of mess fall into our lives, hitting us in places we can see. We notice them and tell ourselves we’ll do something about them, and we really do have good intentions. But life gets in the way. We rush around, trying to keep everything else going, and we push aside what can be pushed aside.

We learn to ignore the globs.

They’re not life-threatening, and they don’t demand our attention, but they’re not insignificant, either.

They obstruct our vision. And when we don’t make the time to deliberately remove them, they stay — and they crystallize. They become permanent fixtures blocking our vision. 

I think for people following Jesus, small globs are more dangerous than we realize. We become pretty adept at recognizing outrageous sin, and we learn to anticipate the overt ways Satan attacks. But we forget that our enemy uses distraction as well as destruction, and we forget that the globs he throws at our windshields obstruct our vision just enough to make a difference.

I don’t want to be a glob-ignorer. I don’t want to procrastinate dealing with the easily removable sap and be forced to scrape it off after it’s crystallized. I don’t want to have my vision obstructed.

But I also don’t want to do difficult things.

Left to my own ways, I naturally choose the path of least-resistance. It’s really easy to ignore a glob and convince myself I’ll deal with it later. And later becomes never — or at the very least, much too late.

I’ve been learning more about the fruit of the spirit lately, and one of the fruits (are you singing the song in your head yet?) is self-control. Unless we are people under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we will not be people of people of self-control. And people of self-control are people who deal with globs of sap when they happen — because they can control the desire to put off what’s uncomfortable.

Procrastination is, at least for me, an indication that I’ve not surrendered fully to the Holy Spirit. Ignoring globs — whatever they are — shows me there’s more of me to give to God.

That’s walking with Jesus, isn’t it? Realizing there’s more selfishness and sin and brokenness to relinquish? The closer I get to Jesus, the more desperately I need Him.

Needing Him looks a lot like glob removal.

And I’m ready.