LOSING YOUR MIND IS A GOOD THING?

Have you ever had a day where you thought you might truly be losing your mind?  During those crazy unexpected calamities, have you yourself ever gasped, hung your head low and uttered that probable phrase, “I think I am about to lose my mind!”?  I can’t say that there’s ever really a dull moment around our home, but last weekend tops off any other stressful event in my recent memory. It has actually been awhile since anything extraordinarily catastrophic had taken place in our home so I knew something was bound to happen soon.   I know that God definitely allows some of these situations to help me learn valuable insights that I would not discover any other way.  Although I sincerely appreciate these lessons and even pray for them at times, I must admit that in the midst of dealing with some of these ordeals I definitely feel as though I am about to lose my mind.  

I will spare you with the nitty gritty details of each seemingly earth shattering incidents from last weekend, so I will summarize this word picture with a few short but descriptive phrases.  Our latest indoor upheavals involved mud, vomit and overflowing toilets.   I usually tend to be a “go with the flow” kind of person (no pun intended) with these sort of situations, but when they come in groups of three within a 24 hour period, my mental state seems to become a little more fragile.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the mud ordeal would soon seem the least of my concerns. Once that mess was cleaned up, I thought we were home free until our youngest, unbeknownst to us, had secretly gorged himself with half a tray of brownies while we visited with our large group of company. All was well for several hours after our friends departed, but the amusement was only about to begin.

The gallons of vomit that soaked our sons bedding didn’t even win the prize. The throw up that was trailed throughout the downstairs, onto the carpets and into our main floor kitchen were NOT even the most disgusting occurrence. I knew the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse but I was sadly mistaken!  

Just hours later we began to realize the serious consequences of our third floor toilet overflowing.  May I add that this was not CLEAN water!  It was UNCLEAN water that ended up leaking down through to the main floor. I'm sure you get the picture.  We discovered the leakage dripping down on us while sorting clothes in our laundry room, which is located beneath the upstairs bathroom.  Our enjoyment did not even stop there!  When we found toilet water all the way down in our finished basement, it was almost enough to finally throw me over the edge! If you know me, anything to do with bodily fluids being outside the realm of where they belong is NOT my cup of tea.  This is precisely the reason why I gave up aspirations of a nursing career years ago. The tears began to flow freely as I was convinced I had definitely lost my mind.

 I can honestly say that cleaning up the huge unsanitary messes were not even the worst part of the whole ordeal. The mounds of smelly laundry that resulted from these catastrophes were the most stressful part. Our washing machine is not large enough to properly clean all of the vomit and other matters out of the sleeping bags, comforters, pillows and towels. Out of necessity, we had to take our not so pleasant laundry to our local laundromat.  Might I add that it was a balmy -13 degrees below zero as we hauled all of these baskets in and out of the cold.  Three hours and thirty dollars later, we were finally finished cleaning and sanitizing all of our soiled bedding, clothing and towels.

I must admit that I was frustrated at the fact that we had to spend so much extra time, effort and money to clean up everything when all of these situations could have been totally avoided.  One of my daughters, who had noticed my not so positive attitude, pointed out that I should probably deal with my sin of frustration which is actually anger.  She was so right but it took me a few minutes to agree with her assessment.  The Holy Spirit began to prick my heart through her words.  I had been feeling sorry for myself and chose to be frazzled and anxious instead of asking God what He desired to teach me in allowing these things to happen in the first place.  I certainly wasn't viewing my circumstances in proper light. 

As my heart was convicted of the several times I mentioned how I was going to “lose my mind”, I was reminded of the fact that God wants us to lose our mind.  What?  Yes, God actually desires for us to give up our own mindset and selfish attitudes and trade them for His mind and His attitudes about the situations that He allows us to go through.  God reminded me of Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”  We MUST replace our mind and attitude for Christ’s. 

We must always have His outlook on our circumstances, whether we see it as good or bad. 

In Phil. 2: 5-11 we see Christ’s attitude and mind described for us and how He is our ultimate example of humility.  He left heaven to come to earth to serve us.  He made Himself of no reputation and came in the likeness of men. Verse 7 tells us,”… He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”  This passage shows us that our mindset, our attitude, our temperament and our disposition ought always to be the same as that of Christ.

 

God never intended for me to be stressed out during the mud, vomit and overflowing toilet issues.  He used those unpleasant situations to remind me once again to “lose my mind” and take on His, to be thankful that I have a precious son that I have the privilege to model the love and patience of Christ to.  I can be grateful that I even have a toilet that can be flooded.  I should be appreciative that I have several children that were able to help clean up all of those messes.  God desired for me to allow His mercy, grace and love to flow through me in this entire situation to teach our kids the biblical way to handle stress, but sadly I didn’t fully pass the test.  I had to ask for forgiveness for not totally responding the right way and then we all sat down and named the lessons we had learned through these situations.  Thankfully, God is not finished with any of us yet. 


I need to humbly “lose my mind” daily and replace it with the mind of Christ.  Will you join me in losing your mind as well?  I challenge each one of us to remember to exchange our mind and attitude for that of Christ’s every day.  The next time we are faced with unpleasant circumstances and we’re tempted to utter the words, “I’m going to lose my mind!” may we do just that.