577: How to Thrive When Your Life is Just too Overwhelming with Author Jennifer Cowart
What happens to your time when you have a rare moment, and nothing is scheduled on the calendar? Does it immediately get full of all the things that aren’t on your to-do list, but could be? Jen Cowart, a pastor, Bible teacher, and author, recently experienced a season with extra margin, and she chose to be intentional with her time instead of letting others fill up her calendar. (Can you even imagine?)
In today’s episode, Kathi and Jen discuss how to thrive when your life is just too overwhelming. They talk about:
Jen has two copies of the Thrive Bible Study to give away to Kathi’s listeners. For your chance to win, answer this question in the comments: What area of your life would you really like to get practical about creating margin in?
You are meant to thrive. You may need to get still before the Lord and do a little work, and that work may be to embrace who He created you to be.
*This episode is sponsored by United Methodist Publishing House.
Thrive Women’s Bible Study: Living Faithfully in Difficult Times
Walking in Faith…even when times are tough. In Thrive, author and teacher Jen Cowart helps women develop the habits and attitudes necessary to thrive, whatever their circumstances. Leading readers through the Book of James, a letter written about enduring hardships, she lifts up six characteristics of mature Christians. From endurance and humility to controlling our words, Jen helps participants find the divine and the practical in living faithfully.
Jen’s teaching has inspired thousands of women across the country. Her authenticity inspires others to open their hearts and minds. One reviewer wrote, “Her ‘realness’ and her vulnerability just work together to open your heart to dig deeper and deeper.”
Components for this six-week small group study include the book, leader guide, and DVD.
For your chance to win a copy of the Thrive Women’s Bible Study, answer this question in the comments: What area of your life would you really like to get practical about creating margin in?
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Jennifer Cowart is the Executive and Teaching pastor of Harvest Church. Jen is a gifted Bible teacher and speaker and the author of four women’s Bible studies, Thrive, Pursued, Fierce, and Messy People, and several studies co-authored with her husband, Jim. She and Jim love doing life with their kids.
Kathi sits down with friend and coauthor of “Overwhelmed,” Cheri Gregory to talk about performancism. It’s important to know when to put an end to your day and stop working for the night.
Cheri shares some personal stories about how she was able to shift her thinking from one of shame and blame to one of, it’s okay to rest.
This is a great episode on how to spot performancism, call it out and find a better balance in your life.
In this Episode You Will Know:
What the word performancism means.
How to know if you suffer from performancism.
Why it’s important to stop and listen.
Why it’s important to be both comforting and practical.
Grab a copy of You Don’t Have to Try So Hard-
Releases September 4, 2018
Ditch your feelings of inadequacy and finally come face-to-face with the bold, balanced woman God created you to be. Grab your copy from your favorite retailer and join our book club in September. All the details can be found here.
WIN A COPY OF YOU DON’T HAVE TO TRY SO HARD!
Enter to win a You Don’t Have to Try So Hard gift pack from Harvest House by commenting below: What is one way can put a healthy boundary in your life this week?
• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
• Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe now.
Special thanks to Cheri for joining me this week! Remember to enter in the drawing for our “You Don’t Have to Try So Hard” gift basket and for your free download, “The 3 Most Important Things You Need to Know If You Suffer from Performancism and All the other Bad Behaviors” and “The 3 Most Important Things to Know If You’re Dealing with Somebody Who Suffers from Performancism.”
Meet Our Guest
Cheri Gregory
Cheri Gregory is a teacher, speaker, author, and Certified Personality Trainer. Her passion is helping women break free from destructive expectations. She writes and speaks from the conviction that “how to” works best in partnership with “heart, too.” Cheri is the co-author, with Kathi Lipp, of The Cure for the “Perfect” Life and Overwhelmed.
Cheri has been “wife of my youth” to Daniel, her opposite personality, for twenty-eight years and is “Mom” to Annemarie (25) and Jonathon (23), also opposite personalities.
Cheri blogs about perfectionism, people-pleasing, highly sensitive people, and hope at www.cherigregory.com.
Summer’s here! Time for fun, right? Well … maybe, but work keeps right on going. Kids are home, laundry’s piling up, and that car doesn’t pack itself for vacation. Finding rest in summer might seem out of reach.
It’s hard to carve out time for rest, even in the summer, but God gives us some rich encouragement in His Word. Amy shares a scripture that will feed your soul and an action step that will help create your best, most restful summer yet.
Do you need to find whispers of rest and love from God?
Life gets overwhelming fast, doesn’t it? Our hearts and bodies and mind and souls are designed by God to rest at times. We all need to take a break at times. But more than just a day off, we need time to restore our souls and to rest in the presence of our God who loves us more than we can ever know. That is why I am excited to share with you my friend Bonnie Gray’s new book and book club – Whispers of Rest.
If your heart needs to find a place of rest and wonder at God’s love, join a Whispers of Rest book club this summer. Check out Bonnie’s invitation to you here. And visit whispersofrest.com to learn more about joining the book club and to get free bonuses!
Win a free copy of Whispers of Rest
Would you like to own your own copy of Bonnie’s new book? Comment below with how you hope to find rest in God this summer for your chance to win one of three copies of Bonnie’s new book.
Today: Schedule in times of real rest in your day, week and month as you are working toward your goals.
I sigh as my husband Roger and I are driving over highway 17 heading towards Santa Cruz. Driving over the mountains toward the beach and the boardwalk, surrounded by redwoods and local farms and state parks. “Do you realize how blessed we are to live where we do?” “Yes.” Roger replied. “And if I didn’t, you saying it every day of our marriage would remind me.” I didn’t realize how deep my love for the Bay Area ran until Roger pointed out that I commented on it every single day. (He should be doubly grateful – I was born in Northern California – he moved here from Indiana where digging his car out snow before driving it during the winter was a common occurrence.) But how can you blame me? We live less than a half a day’s drive almost anything you can think of: the beach during the summer, the mountains during ski season, San Francisco when there is a musical coming through, great ethnic restaurants, and not once have I had to dig my car out a blanket of snow. There is only one thing missing from our little corner of paradise – a Chick-fil-a.
If you have not experienced the perfection that is the Chick-fil-a Chicken Sandwich, let me describe it for you. It is a chicken patty that is breaded and then deep friend in peanut oil (trust me, it works) it is served on a buttered bun with two pickle slices (they say that you can add tomatoes and lettuce, but why ruin it with healthy stuff.) Chick-fil-a also has a healthy menu. Whatever.
I love Chick-fil-a and what they stand for and their chicken sandwiches so much, that at one point, I had a Google alert for articles about how they run their business. (I’m not just a fan, I’m a super fan.) As I started to read more and more about how they run their business and the values that they have, I fell in love with them for more than their deep-fried chicken breast. This is an amazing company that values their employees and customers. Chick-fil-a is very selective about who gets to sling that chicken. “It’s easier to get a job in the CIA than to own a Chick-fil-A franchise,” is a favorite saying at the corporate office. They have one of the highest employee retention rates in any service industry. Part of that is the careful screening they do before hiring someone. Another reason? No Chick-fil-a is open on Sunday.
While visiting our friends Steve and Shannon in Colorado Springs, they introduced us to Chick-fil-a and then told us the closed on Sunday policy. I know that Steve and Shannon are intelligent people, but I honestly believed that they had to be mistaken. Fast food restaurants are not closed for a whole day. I had worked in the service industry enough to know that Sunday was a major money-making day. Industry experts were baffled as well. But listen to this response that Dan Cathy, president and Chief Operations Officer of Chick-fil-a, gave to talk show host Dave Ramsey when Dave asked the question about the business sense of closing on Sundays. “My younger brother and sister and I signed a covenant of agreement that we gave our parents about five years ago that said that long after they’re gone, assuming that we survive them, that we’re going to continue to be closed on Sunday. To be honest with you our corporate purpose is to glorify God by being the faithful steward of all He has entrusted to us and have a positive influence on people.
But I would share with you that as a business person it really does work for us. It makes a difference. We are more rested on Monday because you’ve been able to take the day off to rest and renew ourselves. Our smiles are bigger and I think even our Drive-thrus run a little faster on Monday because we had Sunday off.
We are not built 24-7. God built our body to have eight hours of sleep and to take some time off. And we found that we pick up on that productivity. Any business we lose on Sunday we more than make up for a better service and better atmosphere on Monday.”
Sabbath – Not Just for Old Testament Folks
OK there is some stuff in the Bible that doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense to me:
Leviticus 19:19
Don’t let cattle graze with other kinds of Cattle
Don’t have a variety of crops on the same field
Don’t wear clothes made of more than one fabric And I have to admit, that observing a Sabbath was one of those rules that felt a lot like the instructions not to mix a cotton-weave with a poly-blend – a bit antiquated. Observing a Sunday off is a hard thing. I was talking about the concept of a Sabbath with my agent, Rachelle. She said, “If I want to observe a Sabbath, I need to prepare for six hours on Saturday to be able to rest on Sunday. If my husband wants to observe Sabbath, he takes a nap.”
But the more that Roger and I were intentional about having a day to rest, a day to put away our computers, not plan work, and focus on God, our family and restoring ourselves physically, emotionally and spiritually, the more we feel we are able to slide back into work having taken our stress down a level or two.
I have definitely discovered in my own life that when I indulge in the false economy of trying to get more done by work seven days a week, not only do I suffer, but my goals suffer. That is why I want you to rest your way to success.
• Make sure you have some “down time” every week where your focus is not getting things done, but getting deeper with God and with community, and getting rest.
• Make sure you have a beginning and an end to each week.
• Make sure you have a beginning and an end to each work day. (No spreading work from eight in the morning until ten at night). I know the last project you would expect is for me to say work less. But I do want you to make sure that you don’t burn out. I want you to be living a life that is full of God-adventure for years to come.
So tell me in the comments below below – when are you going to rest.
