Looking for encouragement to keep pressing on, when things are hard? Read this list of 11 things that are helping right now and be inspired.
It’s been a minute since I have shared a little bit (or a lot) of what’s really rattling in my mind.
The truth is.
We all have stuff we’re dealing with.
Stuff to navigate, all while living in a world where the goal posts keep moving and crises keep hitting closer and closer to home.
I recently listened to this podcast episode which made me take pause and reflect on the thoughtful question that the host, Emily P. Freeman of The Next Right Thing podcast posed and shared with her audience.
(PS- The Next Right Thing is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to.)
The question posed in the podcast is a question that has been carried forward through the ages, pitched out, caught, held and turned over.
And rightly so.
It’s one that I personally have been tracing over in my mind for the last few days, ever since I found myself listening and leaning into the question:
What is saving my life right now?
My pondering of this question, inevitably led me to the question and list on the other end of the bookend.
What is hurting my life right now?
Now, that is a list I could more quickly rattle off.
My guess is that it might be similar to a list you could mentally jot down in your own head rather quickly.
It can be easier to pin down what the not so helpful things are.
At the top of what is not helping my life right now list?
Certainly, scrolling social media, Instagram Reels and highlights from strangers living around the globe could be at the top of my list. Watching people I have never met before…bake, clean, vacation, etc is not exactly helping me so much. Maybe social scrolling is one of the things you might include and say “YES, social media is saving my life right now.”
But me?
Not so much.
And that’s just the honest truth.
Too much social can make us sick.
All that to say, it’s no secret that screen time is elevating our anxiety as a culture.
Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised when we come face to face with the realization that the seemingly harmless scroll to “wind down,” is in fact, anxiety inducing.
And that anxiety trigger?
Has the dangerous potential to change your trajectory or worse?
Stop you from moving at all.
Because?
When we look up from our phones, we often don’t feel so good do we?
Be honest.
When we look up, we often feel more stressed, become less productive, perhaps discouraged, doubting our self worth and inevitably distracted and dis-engaged from the good and better REAL LIFE, right in front of us.
Therefore, our trajectory gets off track.
(Need a little encouragement to help you reclaim your inspiration and get back on track? Read this post.)
And so?
In this post, I am determining a far better use of my time and your time, is to take a bite out of the carried forward question:
“What is saving my life right now?”
A question that requires more thought and one that has the power to push my trajectory into a more fruitful and focused direction.
Now, that sounds like a place I want to go.
How about you?
Here’s what’s saving my life right now friend, in no particular order.
I hope this list helps you pause and peel back the layers to help you find your own answers as you discern and decide what it is, that is saving your life too.
Because, everyday, we are making decisions that are positioning our hearts to flicker and flow, inside of the things we are doing.
And the things we do on the daily are informing our minds…of our flow…a flow that is on the way to either saving us...or hurting us.
Let’s look inside this question together.
11 Little Things That Are Saving My Life Right Now
1. Holding my daughter’s hand in the car, while I’m driving.
You may remember, from this post, that I have two rules for our daughters, when they “graduate” to riding in the front seat of my car.
The first rule?
1. Do not touch my radio.
And the second rule?
2. Hold my hand.
Growing up, my Mom would have to drive me to school, because we lived outside of the school district.
And during that 20 minute ride to and from school?
I would hold her hand.
That connecting point was a way she demonstrated her gentleness towards me and I received her offer.
The “offer” being?
Connection.
And so?
I have carried on that small moment of connection with our girls, while I drive them all over the land to all the things.
Turns out?
Those small minutes of hand holding…are no small thing.
Holding hands with our daughters is one of the little things that is saving my life right now.
2. My Favorite Radio Station
My favorite radio station is why “Rule #1” exists above. 🙂
I love my Christian radio station, 95.1 SHINE-FM.
Music has been helping me along for a very long time now. I love not only listening to the music on my favorite radio station, I also love learning from the prayerful hosts who share encouragement and uplifting words to their listeners.
Even better?
Our daughters love the worship music that pays on the station also and usually sing along with me.
Do you ever notice how most Christian music song lyrics are often taken directly out of Scripture?
I love that.
Music and my favorite radio station is saving my life right now.
Speaking of songs.
3. This Song.
It’s so good friend.
And then?
Listen again.
Life-giving song lyrics, that save me and remind me of what is pure and true, every time I take the time to listen.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Philippians 4:8 ESV
4. My Morning Ryhthym
I love being the first one up and going downstairs to “wake up the house.”
Opening up the closed curtains, flipping on the soft lights, feeding our squeaky guinea pig and taking our Willa pup out, making lunches and brewing my coffee in the quiet…
All so that?
Shawn can come downstairs and steal the first sip of coffee out of my mug.
Not always, but on most weekdays, Shawn and I have a chance to pray together and “armor up” for the day in efforts to “Win The Mind Game Of Our Every Day.” before we head our separate directions for the day.
It’s a simple rhythm that leads me to my favorite spot on our sofa where I have a personal and silent exchange with the Lord.
“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything”
–Gordon Hempton
Honestly, it’s this silence….this quiet prayer time of surrender, that is holding me together most days.
Because?
I can begin my day through the lens of what I know is true, which sets me up and sends me into a direction of proper perspective for processing the day ahead.
God sees, God knows, God cares and God loves.
5. Working In The Yard & Watering My Flowers
Over the weekend, we weeded, mulched, weeded, mulched and weeded ad mulched again.
My fingernails STILL have dirt in them, even though I was wearing gloves.
It’s the kind of work that grinds out a simplicity that can’t quite be caught when we are holding our phones or driving our cars.
Working in the dirt, planting flowers, beautifying our homes…it can be an expression of gratitude if we allow ourselves to see it that way.
Thanking God for the blessing of our homes and our physical bodies being able to do the work to make it better.
And the flowers I took the time to plant?
They are the gift that keeps on giving, because every time I realize they need to be watered?
It makes me slow down and water what I have planted.
6. Bringing The Outside Inside
You may remember this post from a few weeks ago, when just a simple walk around the block, lifted my mood. You can read “7 Little Ways To Lift Your Mood” HERE.
While taking a walk around the block could certainly be listed as one the things that is saving my life right now…
It is more in the simplicity of being aware of what I am walking past that is saving me right now.
Wanting to bring in a few branches from Mother Nature’s storefront inside my home, is causing me to be more mindful about the trees and the green I am passing by, that perhaps were not green or blooming the week before.
Stopping and bending a branch to bring home with me to place in water is reminding me:
Sometimes, it doesn’t need to be complicated, to be beautiful.
Easy still works.
7. Walking With Shawn – creating opportunities to connect, good or bad.
We are blessed to live both near a community trail and also within walking distance of our small town Main-Street.
While most evenings are filled with my Mom über responsibilities, there are small windows of opportunity that Shawn and I try to capitalize on and take a walk, in the evening, just the two of us.
I would be lying if I told you we were always happy on these walks.
Just recently, we wound up in a disagreement while on our walk.
Because?
Wer’e human.
We’re humans that are married.
We’re humans that are married and living out this hard but beautiful life together.
Sometimes it’s messy.
But even on the night, when we had that disagreement?
That walk saved us from letting something fester longer and grow bigger.
So really?
That walk, the open space of communication and that disagreement, is all together, one of the things that is saving both of us right now.
Getting things out in the open, going there, and speaking the truth in love?
Is life saving and relationship saving.
8. Calling out Unreasonableness…IN MYSELF.
Recently, after reading this devotion I was convicted that much of the disruptions, bumps and blunders that pop off in our home…can be traced back to a little bit or a lot of unreasonableness.
My own, sometimes unreasonable expectations can lead to relational destruction with the people whom I love the most.
Putting down the microscope I sometimes pick up and magnify, turning a small thing into a big thing, is helping me to learn a new way to live…a lighter way.
And, LIGHTER is saving my life right now.
“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.”
Philippians 4:5 ESV
9. Silliness & Laughing At Bed Time
I get it.
Bed time is not always a fun time if you have small children.
But now that our daughters are ages 13, 10 and 8…bed time for the most part has become easier.
Which means?
There is less crying and way more laughing.
Our girls love to have their backs scratched at bed time. And, no – it does not happen every night.
But what started out as back scratching has somehow turned into a back tracing game.
They like me to “write words” on their back, one letter at a time and then they announce what they think each letter is and try to spell out the word as I trace on their backs.
Recently, our youngest daughter, Livvy was announcing the letters:
“S-U-M-M-E-R” and instead of saying the word “Summer,” with a short “u,” once all the letters had been traced on her back, she was sounding out the word and saying “Summer” with a LONG “U.”
So, it sounded like “Suuuuuuuumer”
I could not stop laughing.
She just kept saying it over and over, she was not getting it.
Until, I told her.
And then?
She started cracking herself up.
I am laughing now as I type this just recalling the whole silly scene.
Silliness is saving my life right now.
10. Snuggling Our Daughters
This evening snuggle time, turns out, is the book end to my silent time in the morning.
These seemingly small rhythms hold together my days and all that they pack inside, possibly more than I have ever realized or given them credit for.
Our ten year old, Maci is my REAL snuggle bug.
Often, at bedtime, after a few minutes of laying quietly side by side, and chatting about her day, I will start to get up after a goodnight kiss, to which Maci will follow up with:
“Mom lay down for just two more minutes.“
And while my mind races with the list of things to get done before my own bed time?
I lay back down on her comforter and hold her for two more minutes.
Because I know the time is coming when her little pink cheek won’t seek out my Momma cheek to rest on and sit in silence, for just two more minutes.
So I stay and snuggle and stare up at her ceiling and think about how this snuggle is saving my life right now.
And last but not least on the list of what is saving my life right now?
11. Taking the time to ponder this question & make this list
Honestly, this has been such a great exercise for me these last few days.
The self-awareness that it has spurred on to recognize what is helping and what is not, in the day to day grind is life-saving.
In making this list it made me realize how many MORE small things, that seem like no-thing…are actually all BIG things….building blocks to what collectively saves my life in the minute to minute walk of this forward paced faith walk of life.
From things like:
Calling our Willa pup to hop in the car and “go for a ride,” rolling the window down just enough so that she can stick her mug out and I can watch her ears flap in the wind, all while I pat her furry mane…
To the shells that sit on my desk from our Sanibel vacation that remind me of such a beautiful blessing that trip was for our family.
To my weekly dance lesson…
To letting my eyes leak a little bit with my best friend in a parking lot and just knowing that she is a “safe space” to let go.
All of these things and more are saving my life every minute.
And it was in the making of this list that I am reminded of this truth:
Jesus in Me, is always greater than anything else outside of me.
And so?
If I want the benefit of shade from a tree in the middle of the scorching sun?
I have to move closer to the tree.
If I want the peace and joy that saves me every day?
I have to keep moving closer and closer to Peace and Joy Himself.
Oh friend…do not be fooled…we are in the fight for our lives every single day…but?
We are never ever in it…alone.
Stay in the fight.
Living on a prayer,
Heather
Jan P. says
I recently found your blog thru a reference from KariAnne of Thistlewood Farms blog. Now I plan on catching up on reading your beautiful words and posts. On your item 8 above, Calling out unreasonableness in myself, I gasped! It is exactly what I recognize in MYself. However, the link is not working for me, and I MUST read the devotion to which you mentioned. Please, send a link for me to access it. Thank you in advance, Heather.
Heather Krout says
Hi Jan! Thank you for joining me here on my blog from KariAnne at Thistlewood. So glad that you shared that this post connected with you, specifically on the note about “Unreasonableness.” I am so sorry that the original link did not work, I believe I have edited the link and it is working now – to take you to the devotion that I found to be so convicting. I will link it here also for you. Thanks so much for reading and commenting! So glad to have you here! XO, Heather
https://club31women.com/devotional/cultivate-a-life-home-permeated-in-beauty/
Brie says
I always look forward to your posts … I love the aesthetic of your home, and I also admire how beautifully you weave words of inspiration together. Thanks for offering a few quiet moments for solitude and reflection.
Heather Krout says
Thank you so much Brie. I am so glad you enjoy my posts. It made my day to read your comment. XO, Heather
Heather Krout says
Thank you so much Brie for this very kind comment. It makes my day to read comments like yours to know that you look forward to my blog posts. Thank you so much for sharing and for reading! XO, Heather