“I’m Not Stressed!”
“You are very sick. Are you under a lot of stress?” The doctor leaned over my hospital bed, waiting for my reply. I responded, “I don’t think so.” At 28 years old, I had – in six months time – lost my grandmother, with whom I was very close, and my father-in-law, who died in our home. The mother of two toddlers, I was also the caregiver for my mother-in-law through her aortic bypass. I was in graduate school while teaching full time. My husband’s health was failing and we were losing his business. That’s when I was hospitalized. Self-awareness is an essential leadership competency – and I…
Lessons in Rest and Renewal from My Walk by the Lake
I first shared this blog post back in 2019. Life looked a lot different then. The kinds of busy and stressed I felt that year look a lot different – though not necessarily milder – than they do 7 years later. The lessons I learned that day at the lake have clung on during the years, with God gently reminding me to heed their wisdom. I hope they speak to you today, too. I like to see a lot happen in a hurry. I’m wired for productivity. An ordinary walk for me is usually spent multi-tasking – phone calls, podcasts, audiobooks. Today’s walk was different. I was reading…
Too Blessed to be Stressed
As I sat impatiently in my car, internally begging the red light to change to green, a bumper sticker on the Subaru in front of me caught my eye. Too Blessed to Be Stressed For some reason, it annoyed me. After all, I’m a Jesus-loving woman from the South U.S. We eat, drink, and breathe blessed! I knew I was blessed – because God made me and Jesus died for me and I have so many wonderful things to be grateful for. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t also totally stressed. At the time, I had lots of blessings that were also “stressings.” Here are a few: The…
10 Ways to Make Time for Rest in Less Than 10 Minutes
Want to learn how to make time for rest and rejuvenation like a pro? Whether you need rest when you are recovering from being sick, exhausted, or just looking for a healthier routine, here are ten ways to make time for rest in 10 minutes or less. In my global organization, we know that the spiritual practice of rest and refreshment is key to personal and missional growth. We were created to do our best work out of God-ordained rest. As a leader, I want to always seek to nurture and steward our staff, our strategic volunteers, and our global mission well. That’s why we offer a full-month sabbatical for…
Discovering the Treasure of Rest
[Guest Post by Nancy Reece]What if you could accomplish ALL you need to do and feel rested – even refreshed – while doing it? What would it feel like for your coaching, your leadership, your parenting to be described as calming and energizing? We’ve got the tools you need for a refreshing, calming, energizing year. After decades in executive leadership and then executive coaching, Nancy Reece has discovered how to accomplish more by doing less. Now Nancy mentors and equips women leaders to choose well, lead well, and love well. Nancy will unpack her treasure box of tools for us at iCON, July 1-6, 2019. I frequently talk with people about rest…
Real Rest. Really?
Featured in the Christian Leadership Alliance’s Spring Outcomes magazine! Laughter. The sound emanated from the mobile phone speaker, filling my office. This was the eighth phone conversation and the eighth response of incredulous laughter. Though I hadn’t expected it, I knew I had earned this response to my proposal. I was proposing an organization-wide Rest and Renewal study. I called strategic team-leaders in my organization to pitch the project and to enlist their support. My objective: to complete the required research for my last doctoral course on the assigned topic, “Rest and Renewal,” and, of course, for my team to experience renewal in the process. My colleagues did not mean…
