the bird on your shoulder

via pinterest

"I tell the bird on my shoulder that today is out of my hands, acknowledge the tough things, and ask for God to bring me peace, patience and faith to make it through.- J.T. Fisher

Life and work have been extremely stressful lately. And with stress comes the need for stress management. Sigh. It's been a tough challenge for me to remain peace-seeker when everything around me seems to be a bit upside down and backwards, all the while I'm trying desperately to walk forward, right side up. Life is usually topsy turvy, to and fro though, no?

Luckily for me though, my boyfriend (Jared) has been so great lately! I honestly don't know what I'd do without him. He's prayed for me when I've been moody and stressed beyond belief. He's been patient with me when I was being a complete and utterly horrible snot. He's talked to me about things that I enjoy, like reading and writing, until I've calmed down, put a smile on my face, laughed and then cheered up. He's remained calm when I wanted to pick a fight with him (shameful, I know) and managed to keep his whits about him.

Jared's also been speaking words of wisdom to my restless soul, and showing me how to love greater than I ever thought I could. We've been studying through the book of Ecclesiastes together lately, which has proven to be quite interesting, what with everything being meaningless and all that jazz. I really do love discussing scripture with my guy. It's amazing to me just how much God has been speaking to both of us through our devotion times together recently, especially myself. God's timing is impeccable (I need to remember this more often!) and He truly does say exactly what we need to hear when we need to hear it.

The very quote you see up there ^^ (yeah that one at the top of the post) is what my love said to me the other night. I had just come home from work after a long stressful day, and I'd gotten into bed, cranky, tired girl that I was. Then we chatted on the phone for a while and God decided to do some talking through my love. Jared said those words to me and it strummed a mighty chord within me. After hearing those words I knew that I could either choose to live seeking after daily renewed faith and peace at the forefront of my mind and heart every day, or I could decide to let my stress rule me, eat me, and ruin my usually chipper demeanor by letting that twerp of a bird (named "life") peck at me until I became a useless decrepit holey worry filled young woman. 

Jared is SO RIGHT (but please, don't tell him I said this, okay? ;-) about how our attitude and perspectives should be for each new day that the Lord has gifted us with. Some days (and even nights, when worries begin to eat at our minds) we have just got to tell that restless bird on our shoulder that the day is out of our hands, and then we must ask God to bring us peace, patience and faith to make it through another day.

I really do believe that God will help each of us conquer that bird of fear, the one that perches on our shoulder, whispering worrisome matters into our ears, that wriggle their way down into our hearts and burrow holes therein, when we lay down ourselves in surrender and choose peace, patience and faith over everything else that's going on in our lives.

I'm so very thankful for this new bird on your shoulder perspective that's been given to me, graciously and lovingly, by my Lord and my love this past week. 

Now I've just gotta tell that bird on my shoulder what for each and every day, right? 

4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for sharing! I've been fighting this bird for the last few days, except I didn't know exactly what it was that was bothering me. Now I know. :)

    You put it well when you wrote, "It's been a tough challenge for me to remain peace-seeker when everything around me seems to be a bit upside down and backwards, all the while I'm trying desperately to walk forward, right side up. Life is usually topsy turvy, to and fro though, no?" That's been my week!

    But tonight that bird is going to shut its beak so I can get some rest! ;)

    Have a great day!

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  2. Yes, Laura, make that silly bird shut it's sqwuaky beak! I hope your week gets better soon! =)

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  3. Hi Sarah! I awarded you on my blog! :-)

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  4. just found your blog, so lovely!

    looking forward to reading more :)

    XO
    erin

    sweetnessitself.blogspot.com

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