Hey gals! I hope you're doing well! Today I'm honored to introduce you to Stephanie, who runs a super beneficial organization for women - Peace of Mind Ministries.
I hope you're blessed by her words and
I know you'd be blessed by checking out Peace of Mind!
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Hello! :0) Let me introduce myself. My name is Stephanie Haynes and I am a recovering Wanna-Do-It-All-Perfectly Superwoman.
If you are a type-A personality too we might share a few commonalities, like the need to be in control over all that goes on around us, or the need to plan out everything to the Nth degree (Yes, I actually planned the perfect time to get pregnant so I could have the maximum time off from my teaching job. My husband “loved” our scheduled “meetings”…), but not much else about my neurotic behavior I hope!
Trying to be in control of everything in my life resulted in a stress-induced heart murmur (a common precursor to a heart attack), and a marriage in serious distress. I was 32 and had been married for only 5 years.
Then things really got bad.
Trying to be in control in familiar surroundings was, obviously, tough enough, but just after the birth of our second child (we’re talking 6 months, tops) I found myself leaving my California home and everything I had ever known for the completely unfamiliar town of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. That’s right, South Carolina…Across the entire US of A. I had never even considered living ANYWHERE outside of California and here I was practically in a different country!
My control-freak-self went into hyper drive. I spent that first year trying to figure out how a California girl could flourish in the south and it almost killed me, literally!
Within our first month in South Carolina I rolled our SUV into a ditch with both my kids and my husband in it because I didn’t know not to pass a tractor, on the highway, when the roads were slick. Yes, I know it seems obvious now, but remember, I was a California girl who hadn’t dealt much with tractors on roads! Need I say that it was completely the tractor driver’s fault?
I flew back and forth to California at least once a month with both kids each time (Can I get an AMEN from any one that flying with an infant and a 4 year old across the country and three time zones is one of the hardest thing to do?)
Then, my father died of lung cancer
Add all that to the heart murmur and marriage in distress, AND then throw in an elevated hormone level that sent me into peri-menopause complete with night sweats, weight gain and HUGE mood swings, and you can see the complete disaster that was my control-freaked
life.
Thankfully, however, this is NOT a Shakespearean tragedy.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Jesus touched my heart and my current way of life was no longer comfortable. With His calling came a message:
“Be Still and Know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)
“Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-7)
“Let the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7)
These verses became prominent in my daily living, seemingly all on their own. Everywhere I went they either popped up in front of me, or were brought to mind. For a control-freak like me these verses were terrifying.
Today, almost 10 years later, I am a completely different woman, a new creation in Christ.
How? I decided to listen to God. I chose stillness in my mind and body over constant planning and implementing. I chose God’s ways over my own, trusting that He would provide what I needed. I chose to seek out peace in every decision I made.
And Peace of Mind Ministries was born.
It was more than enough to be given the gift of a new, health-issue-free life from Jesus, but to have been given a life-saving message to share with other women too, overwhelms me.
There is a way out of the Type-A, control-freak, Wanna-Do-It-All-Perfectly Superwoman mentality.
Be still. Yes it’s hard, but so worth the struggle!
Trust God to schedule your days. He’s NOT human, and will not act like a Human. He CAN be trusted with every detail of your life.
Seek peace when deciding how to live each day.
In the 5 years since I began sharing this message to hundreds of women, one thing remains constant: We could ALL use more peace in our lives.
If you would like step off the control-freak merry-go-round, and instead begin a journey toward peace with Christ let me know. I would love to help!
I’ll be praying for you!
Stephanie
@stephhaynespomm
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