Calm My Anxious Heart By: Linda Dillow

Many women today are nearsighted, not in their eyesight but in their life focus. They don't know why they're here or where they're going. They drift like a ship without a rudder. Dr. Swenson, author of Margin, says that aimlessness is common: "Americans are notoriously shortsighted. We live in a state of myopic (nearsighted) mania that blurs the future. The horizon is never visible in the middle of a dust storm. But we must have a vision that extends beyond tomorrow. Living only from week to week is like a dot-to-dot life."

Often women without direction live not only dot-to-dot but on hold, waiting--for the right job, the right man, a baby. Waiting for the baby to grow up and leave home--waiting for something to give their life meaning. Their faulty focus makes contentment an impossible dream.

Psychologist William Marston asked three thousand people, "What do you have to live for?" He was shocked to discover that 94 percent were simply enduring the present while waiting for the future. Because I desire to be a woman of purpose, I often ask myself, "Linda, are you living life with a myopic focus? Are you in a waiting mode?"...

It was spring but it was summer I wanted; the warm days
and the great outdoors.
It was summer but it was fall I wanted; the colorful
leaves and the cool dry air.
It fall, but it was winter I wanted; the beautiful snow
and the joy of the holiday season.
It was now winter but it was spring I wanted; the warmth
and the blossoming of nature.
I was a child but it was adulthood I wanted; the freedom
and the respect.
I was twenty but it was thirty I wanted; to be mature and
sophisticated.
I was middle-aged but it was twenty I wanted; the youth
and the free spirit.
I was retired but it was middle-aged that I wanted; the
presence of mind without limitations.
My life was over but I never got what I wanted.

(written by a 14 yr old boy; quoted in message by Dr. Charles Swindoll, "Who gets the glory?"; quoted from Calm My Anxious Heart by: Linda Dillow)

That's the opposite of what God envisions for us. The Scriptures exhort us to walk wisely through this life.

Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility,
not as [women] who do not know
the meaning [and purpose] of life but as those who do.
Make the best use of your time, despite all the evils
of these days. Don't be vague but grasp firmly
what you know to be the will of the Lord.
(Ephesians 5:15-17, PH)

We must live as women who know the meaning and purpose of life. As Goethe, the German philosopher, put it: "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least". If we haven't chosen what we are living for, we're living life by default, acting out the scripts handed to us by family, other people's agendas, and the pressures of circumstances. This is not living as a woman who knows the meaning and purpose of life. But it's never too late to change your faulty focus.

From: Calm My Anxious heart by: Linda Dillow