To say I’m overwhelmed this week might be an understatement.

You might be thinking, “Didn’t you create a course on overcoming overwhelm?”

If you are, you’re right. I did! What you might not know is that I state in the course that overwhelming life situations will always come. We can’t obliterate ovewhelm once and for all. We must face each overwhelming life situation as it happens and face each one well.

So, that’s my goal this week!

As I prepare to leave on a trip for two weeks, I face some challenges. Our air conditioning broke down and we had torrential rains that literally wiped out about 200 feet of our gravel road. These events caused me to cancel surgery for our three cats. This kept me from carrying out important tasks scheduled so that we can leave on our trip soon.`

Thankfully I have a husband that is always looking at the bright side of life when I’m not.

We are thankful that our air conditioning went out during a week when we were experiencing lower temperatures than normal. We are thankful that the road didn’t get ruined while we were gone, keeping the people who are supposed to watch our home and animals from helping us. We are thankful that God provided rocks in our creek that we could use to fill up the deep trenches in our road.

A new challenge has reminded me of all of the things I’ve learned over the past year about facing overwhelming moments in life. Our faith plays out in how we respond to God and others. It plays out, too, in how we respond to life. And in this day and age, when more and more of us feel overwhelmed in life, perhaps this is our daily struggle. To patiently trust God when we’re tempted to act out of our overwhelmed fleshly state rather than our state of being alive in Christ.

It has been said that worry is practical atheism.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?”-James 2:14

At some point, if we are truly Christ followers, we will reveal our faith by how we face overwhelming life circumstances.

What if you, like me, struggle to do that at times? I’m not perfectly executing graciously facing the challenges of life!

An idea that I share in my course, Overwhelmong Overwhelm, is to make two lists.

•  A list of hope that lists areas where we hope and pray to show our faith more clearly than before.
• A list of celebration that lists praises to God for those places where, by his grace, we’ve demonstrated the reality of our faith.

As we faced our challenges this week, I could feel emotions welling up that tempted me to respond in fleshly ways. I made a list in my mind of how I wanted to show my faith in this situation. Now that we’re moving past the initial struggle to face this challenge, I can record praises to God for the places where, by His grace, we were able to demonstrate the reality of our faith; where we trusted Him in the midst of great challenges that seemed insurmountable.

Over time, these lists are helping me be aware, prayerful, and thankful.

Do you think you could benefit from making lists of hope and celebration?

You can get printables for these lists as well as videos, action items, and the course in written and audio form now right here:

This course is normally $47 but it’s on sale throughout September for $17!

Blessings to you as you grow, hope, and celebrate!

Linking up this week with these lovely bloggers: