Monday, April 17, 2017

A Reminder Not to Let Worry Steal Your Time



Ladies do you remember when Christ told his disciples they could not change anything by worrying? Well, I found out it is true.  Now that I can look at history, I see there is always going to be some kind of fear or worry produced by the world, which usually does not happen. Getting you to worry produces a kind of reaction: what you buy, how you spend your time, where you live, etc. 

 About 40 years ago I remember a constant story on the news about the safest, healthiest place to live.  Young people were breaking the hearts of their own kin, leaving their parents and grandparents to go to utopia.  That news was broadcast to mobilize the youth and change the dynamics of the population.  It separated generations of families that were interdependent and edified one another.  Many old people lost the one thing they loved the most. The youth suffered too, as they lived without their grandparents.

Today the housewife is terrorized by the news. There is going to be a shortage of something. Remember the rice shortage? Remember Y2K when everything was supposed to break down? Whatever happened to the other scares, where people were supposed to leave their houses and go to a big gathering center? Remember the scare about living near the ocean with all the poison gas? People left their homes and fled into the mountains where yet another "disaster" awaited them.

If you are raising children, your moods and your tension may be very detrimental to their sense of well being. They deserve to feel safe and have a happy, carefree childhood. You need to focus on them and your home. If you feel you have to have news, make your family and your life your news.  We used to write our own newspapers with home headlines cartoons, photographs, stories, weather and seasonal information, things to do, menus for the week, and good news of things being accomplished.  

When you decide to quit following the news, your friends will accuse you of living in a bubble. I say you should make your home a bubble and live in a different world. The home is like Noah's Ark, made as a shelter from the rain and wind and storm. Keeping the upheaval of the world outside is what makes the ship a place of refuge.  If you let the winds and the waves inside the ship, it is no longer a refuge.  I would suggest keeping it all out. Your home is a place where you can enjoy your family without the world's help. When Grandparents come, turn off all outside distractions and concentrate on your love for each other. This is your current event. This is your history in the making. This is your spiritual development, and your education.

With the Ark plan, you will soon understand how you don't need the upsetting news in your children's lives. I have learned it is  all obsolete information by the time the children are grown. It will not have any relevance, and you will have wasted a lot of time worrying about it.  

General Douglas MacArthur said, 

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real."

Such news was designed to change the way people live, to undo their contentment and make them feel insecure. A friend said, "For myself, I wish I had not known half the worrisome stuff on the news. My children never knew me as a happy, relaxed mother in her element of home and marriage."

When you read the old fable called "The Sky is Falling" about Chicken Little who was afraid of everything, you will realize the-sky-is-falling technique has gone on in every generation to keep people in fear.  Later, they learned that many of the broadcasts they heard were manufactured by the news media and could not be proven, but the reports did their intended damage: to make people feel insecure and to keep them in a perpetual state of anxiety. Many people left their countries and their homes, to move to better places, only to be followed by the same terrorizing news. 

I grew up with parents who were born in the 1920's and they regarded all the fearful news with skepticism, and went on with their own personal interests.  I was talking to one of my friends about this, and she said, "The best thing we can do to alleviate all this fearful news is to start writing our own news." We could also write stories about real life, where  the good people actually accomplished their goals, invented things, and made towns prettier.  

What is so debilitating about the news is how it replays in your mind and controls your thoughts, robbing you of your concentration on your children, parents and family members who love you and need you.  

Ladies you do not have to add worry about the world while your children are young. You can create a world of love for them in your own home. Have you ever wanted to be in a different era, a beautiful era and a more gentle time? You can have that in your world at home.

13 comments:

Miriam said...

What a good reminder!

I was in my late teens during the time of Peace Marches, when nuclear war and destruction seemed to be just around the corner. I was very frustrated and anxious about my future and I asked my father what good it is to plan for the future or even live if everything is going to explode. My wise father answered: What if not? This little sentence has served me so well ever since.

Just focus on the task on hand.

The fact that we has an easy access to news hasn't done us any good. I wouldn't be surprised if some day we get to know that worry and fear are the causes to current epidemic of cancer.

Unknown said...

Oh, I feel as though I am always telling you this when I comment, but thank you!!
I have been guilty of accesing news more than ever since the election. I believe it made me just sick this past winter! Worry, worry, worry. I could see in my families faces they just had enough of hearing this.
The past month or so, I have just left it behind. Much better living!!
God bless
Mrs.O

Jane said...

Excellent post! I wish more ladies would just turn off the TV, this twenty-four hours a day of news does no good for anyone.

Hugs
Jane

Lynn said...

Tasha Tudor lived her life on the 20th and 21st centuries in the 1820's...we should emulate how she lived...I really appreciate your essay .....

living from glory to glory said...

Good Day! Worry here, worry there... before you know it the day is done!
I do watch the news, but I just pray about what I do hear about. I only watch it a few times a week! But as to worry about my kids or the world or things I have no control over I really try not to do anymore. Yes, it does hit me once in a while.
We are to continue in all that is before us daily!
My kids must make their own choices and I get to enjoy my later years in some joy of creating a little slice of heaven here in my own little home and my world. He said He will set us in our own borders, so I guess we are all where we should be until He moves us or our children!
Thanks for a good thought provoking post!
Always, Roxy

Rebecca said...

Dear Lydia,
What a wonderful, comforting letter to us. Thank you so much for writing this and sharing this timely wisdom. These words minister to my heart. God bless you!

Christine said...

Dear Lydia,

You don't have to be a young mother with children still in the home, to make your home a "bubble".
I turned off the NEWS about a year ago and I'm a grandma. I'm so content to NOT know what is going on. If I do have a question, I ask my husband and he'll explain it in a gentle manner, for me.
I appreciate him for doing that for me.

Lisa Sadler said...

I wish that I had heard this when I was raising our children. Already predisposed to a more dark view of life, the news about health, physical dangers and the state of schools and the Church .... almost led me to a nervous breakdown. I was a convert to Christianity, new to homeschooling, new in a small rural town with no extended family, no like minded people and worry and fear was my daily portion which I doled out to my family as if it was their nourishment. What a terrible waste.

Thank you Lydia for staying on the sunny side of life. It's so important.

Lydia said...

MonicasDaughter: very good analysis and excellent quote. Please keep your comment on record somwhere.

Lydia said...

Yes we really needed our parents and grandparents to be in the same vicinity. We each need our own people for a sense of belonging and for our love to be shared with them first . No on can substitute for parents and grandparents.they help buffer our tension and stress in our busiest time of life.

Lydia said...

Yes we really needed our parents and grandparents to be in the same vicinity. We each need our own people for a sense of belonging and for our love to be shared with them first . No on can substitute for parents and grandparents.they help buffer our tension and stress in our busiest time of life.

Lynn said...

It is a sad and bad time when one's parents and grandparents move away to the resort areas or Canada...as mine did.

Jaclyn Juliette said...

This is so true. I try hard to remind myself to tune out the news and focus on the GOOD in the world and the good in my own home. It is timeless advice: whatever is good, noble, pure and lovely....think on these things. (I paraphrased, of course!)