Start Where You Are

Start where you are.

This phrase keeps reverberating through my heads the last couple of weeks.  Through a conversation with a good friend, she told me just to start where I am.  Don't worry about trying to catch up; just start where I am.  Boy, those were the exact right words at the exact right time.  This lets me out of some guilt and other feelings of negativity.  Just start where I am right now.

Where am I right now?  I haven't written anything in months.  Haven't even thought about it much.  Does that mean God hasn't been working in my life?  Of course not.  That means I have just been focused on some other areas of my life.  But start where I am.  I am going to take five minutes right now and write.  Five minutes to start where I am.  This has been in my head so much lately that I thought I needed to share.

When I am feeling overwhelmed by clutter at home or on my desk at school, start where I am.  Can I just put away five things that are out of place?  Can I just file these ten papers right here?  It is so easy for the piles to overtake me, for I have never been a naturally organized person.  When I walk into classrooms and I see teachers' desks that are completely and totally cleaned off, I feel a pang of jealousy.  How do they do that?  How do they just know where everything goes?  How do they find the time to keep it that way?  But I can't focus on that.  What I can focus on is where I am right now and put a thing or two away.

Where I am right now is experiencing an explosion in my crochet business.  I am so thankful for that.  God continues to not only keep my little side business going, but he is blessing it in big and new ways.  With the increase in projects has also come the explosion of the yarn room.  Finish one project and move on to the next-throw the extra yarn on the bed.  Some people have gifted me some yarn they have cleaned out.  I will deal with that later.  Piles, bags, and boxes of yarn everywhere.  It was getting overwhelming to even walk in that room.  So I told myself not to freak out.  Just start where I am.  Start where I am.  Just put a way a little right now.  A little another time.  With that philosophy now, I have been able to (almost) get that room straightened back out.

I have fifty thousand things to do .  Where do I start?  With just one thing.  Get it done, and then move on to the next.  What I am doing may not be the biggest on my list, but I am going to start where I am.  Focus on one at a time so I can start to clear the clutter of my mind too.

So where are you?  Are you stressed, worried, overwhelmed?  Start where you are right now.  This very moment.  Take a deep breath.  Ask Jesus to help for we know that we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.  And start where you are right now.