Has the unexpected knocked you off course and disappointed you?
You lost your job to the latest round of layoffs. A relationship you thought would last forever, didn’t. A health challenge is disrupting your life.
What do you do in these times of disappointment?
Valorie Burton deals with the challenges of unexpectedly changing course in her book, Where Will You Go From Here?
Being anxious about nothing, as Philippians 4:6-7 instructs us to, isn’t easy or automatic, it takes practice. We must continually give our cares to the Lord and cast our burdens on him. The verse also instructs us to talk to God when we’re anxious. Communicating with God is another important element of learning to trust him.
She also suggests having a go-to statement to cry out to God when we are facing anxiety. Her statement, which she says out loud, is, “I trust you Lord.”
“Just saying it out loud can be a very powerful thing. Having a ready statement for when you’re feeling that anxiety can help to shift your thoughts and that can be very very powerful.”
Valorie explains that it was the process of going through divorce that led her to write Where will you go from Here?
“I had to muster more courage than I’ve ever had to muster in my life”
She compares the experience of suddenly being pushed of the course she thought she was on to being sideswiped into a ditch.
“That process of landing in the ditch you get sideswiped into and finding your way out of the ditch… I learned it’s a process and many of the feelings we experience, regardless of the setback, are very similar.”
In the rest of her interview with Susie Valorie discusses the main thing she sees holding us back, keeping us in the ditches of our lives: fear.
Key Scriptures: Philippians 4:6-7
