Be a Warrior, Not a Worrier

Are you a worrier?

I never really have been. In fact, the verses in Mathew 6 have always meant a lot to me, so much that I named my first miscarried baby "Lilly" after them.

But all this past month and a half, I’ve been really stressing about something, and now matter how many times I have tried to lay it down, it kept creeping up on me again and again.

It was Nutcracker.

My family has been a part of Nutcracker since 2015. My daughters dance, I help out behind the scenes and with costuming, and my husband helps by running the lights. The past few years I have also taken on the role of Nanny, who was created to help stall in between scenes so dancers can make costume changes. When I had my baby this summer and it became apparent that he could not handle the 3-6 trips a week to the dance studio for my girls to practice (it’s an hour drive 1 way), I told the director that my girls could not be in it and I could not help with costuming, but I would still play Nanny and my husband would still do lights for the performance.

This was a hard decision for me, but I made it. Then I worried and worried about it.

Part of my anxiety was because I remembered how painful acting in Nutcracker was last year, and my pain has been raising again recently and I didn’t want it to get that bad again. But I think the biggest part of it was because I have a little PTSD from leaving my babies to return to work. This may seem silly to you because millions of women go back to work after having their babies, but for me it really was traumatic and heartbreaking (even though I only worked part time and was leaving my babies with someone who would love and take good care of them). For me, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. And the thought of my baby being sad because he was away from me, even if it was for only 45 minutes at a time (he would have a grandma and big sister with him while I was onstage and I would have him during intermission) really stressed me out.

So I prayed. And asked others to pray for me. And I tried hard not to stress. And guess what? Even though I was still a bit anxious, it all worked out.

Little Man getting ready for his stage debut.
One lady told me that he was her favorite part of the show.

It was kind of amazing how it all worked out. He was getting his first teeth and he could have been really fussy the whole weekend. But it turned out that he would nurse and take a little nap 30 minutes before each show, then wake up and I was able to take him onstage with me during the first ¼ of the show (nothing suspicious about a Nanny with a baby during the party scenes). Then I passed him to grandma and got him back again even before intermission. He enjoyed watching a good part of the show. There was only one time he became inconsolable, and that was near the end of the third show. His sitters tried to give him some pumped milk in a bottle and he wouldn’t take it, but I was able to rush right out after bows and nurse him and he went right to sleep. It was probably his teeth that were driving him crazy.

I once heard a pastor say that 90% of the things we worry about don’t even happen. So why are we wasting our time and energy doing it?

As parents there are so many things we could worry about. Am I doing this right? Is my child behind? How am I going to afford these groceries?

The list goes on and on. And while we should carefully think through the decisions we make, fretting about them doesn’t help. I even gave myself nightmares about Nutcracker. I lost sleep over it, and if you have a young baby like I do, you know how foolish it is to waste even an hour of sleep!

Life is hard, and it is full of challenges, but don’t stress and worry over them, mama. We are more than conquers. Have faith.

 

Lots of love,

Lee