"Learn to Relax and Stop Worrying"

The title of today's post came from a text I received from my hubby Johnny last night.  It was his response to a text I sent him while visiting a good friend last night.  I was only supposed to pop in, drop something off, and pop out.  But she and I sat and talked for about an hour - it had been a while since we had time to just catch up.  So while there, I sent a text to my hubby just to check in on things and ask if he and Little Johnny were OK, and his response was, "Learn to relax and stop worrying".

I was enjoying my time at my friend's house already, but the text message from Johnny relaxed me even more.  It was a little wake-up call I guess.  And I really needed it.  Especially yesterday.

Yesterday morning, I was off.  All wound-up.  Something just wasn't right with me.  I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I couldn't put into words.  And then we went to church - me and the Johnnys - and our pastor did an altar call (which he rarely does).  I decided to go before God (which I never do when there's an altar call) and had Johnny come with me.  Before I could drop to my knees, tears were falling, and as many of my friends have heard me say, I was 'snottin' (You know when you cry so bad that no amount of sniffling will bring the snot back up your nose?).  It felt good to let it out - I really needed that.  (That's why they call Him an "on time" God.)

I realized - after listening to my pastor's words, talking with my friend, thinking about my life as a wife and mother (and those of my friends) - that a lot of us ladies need to heed my husband's advice.  We stress ourselves out about being a good wife, and world's greatest mom, all while trying to do our best at work.  We troubleshoot all day long (I think even more so at home).  We do, do, do for our immediate and our extended families.  And we feel like we don't have a minute, so we don't take a minute for ourselves.  Then everyone (the blogs, our daily devotionals, the magazines, our friends, you name it) tells us to slow down before we kills ourselves.  And they're right, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here.

Instead of slowing down, I plan to release some of the load (which I guess will ultimately make me feel like I'm slowing down, right?).  I'm going to try my best to let my hubby do more of the troubleshooting in our house.  If something goes not-quite-as-planned with my son, I'm going to try my best not to blame me (or what I ate or didn't eat while pregnant, or the fact that I allowed him to watch one hour too many of Sprout today, or that he cried when I said "no").  I'm going to try to be the best wife I can be for my husband and love him as best I can, God's way.  And I'm going to spend more  time doing me - whether that's purposely planning dinner with the girls, or taking a trip home by myself, or sitting at a friend's house running my mouth for hours.  How else can we keep on Living Black Love?  Our husbands can't do it by themselves, and our children won't know how to love if we're not here to show them.

It's moments like this that make it hard for me to NOT want

to do everything for my boy.  But I guess he can have these moments 

with his daddy, too.

So tell me, what do you do to make time for you?  Or, what will you try your best to do starting today?  Please comment below.