So there are five things I think that we should do when we think everything is falling apart, nothing is working. Fire is everywhere. And the first step is to calm down. And I don’t even love the phrase calm down, but I think most people understand what it means. I really like seek peace, get to peace. And I think this is really important because when we are living in chaos and our brain just sees tigers everywhere, we get so anxious, so spun up and we make really bad decisions that then make our crisis situation worse.

So wherever you are, you have five minutes to calm down, to seek peace. And this is just really important that you actually calm your nervous system down. The nervous system that runs your body is rigged out because it sees danger everywhere. And you need to tell your nervous system. We are safe right now. As long as you’re not actually in physical danger. I want you to take the time five minutes to sit down and tell your brain. We are safe right now. Our husband may leave us. We may lose the house.

We may lose custody of the kids. I might lose that job. I might get a really scary diagnosis. Those are big things, but right now, today I am safe. I am okay. It has to be the first step because we cannot think about anything else. When we are blown out and our nervous system is freaking out. We’ve got to calm down and find peace. The second thing, and man, let me just tell you, no one wants to hear this when they’re in crisis. So I say it with so much love as someone who has lived through some very difficult, very gnarly things. I understand that you don’t want to hear this, but it is true.

The second thing we need to do is to see God’s goodness, and this isn’t a garden variety of, oh, be grateful. You’re still alive. You actually have to see God’s goodness in your life. You have to look back and you have to see how he has been with you the entire time, how he loves you so much and how he has designed. Even these things that are happening right now for you, for your goodness, for your growth, because there is a battle going on for your soul. And God knew that you needed this sequence of events to lead you to the Saint. He wants you to be the Saint. You are capable of being nothing in this world, and lasts forever.

Everything we are experiencing right now is a blip compared to eternity. And when everything feels like it’s burning around you, it’s really hard to hold onto that. But we have to, we have to see God’s goodness. And when we are looking back and seeing God’s goodness, we will also see, he has always given us everything we needed, not everything we wanted, not everything that sounded good, sounded good. Not everything that was cushy and comfortable and lovely, but everything that we needed, you have always found a place to sleep. You have always had food to eat. At some point, you have always had enough money to make it through or someone to help you because the devil wants you to feel like you’re alone. And he wants you to have no hope.

And I want you to feel righteous anger about that. I want you to stand up and say, not today, Satan, you don’t get me. You do not get my soul. I belong to the Lord and I will follow him. And I will trust him. And I believe that he is good. And so what’s happening to me in some way is good. We can work together with the Lord to create goodness out of this. Don’t move on until you’ve really done step one and steps. Two step one is to calm down and find peace. Step two is to see God’s goodness. And as you try doing that, you might lose your peace. You might say, Lord, my heart is broken. I’m so tired of this. It’s been so painful for so long. Why is this happening? Right? You might lose your peace while you’re trying to see the goodness of God. That is okay, but you keep staying on steps one and two until you really have peace and believe in God’s goodness, you just hang there as long as it takes.

And then you move on to step three. You decide what you can control. I will tell you right now, you can always control how you show up to things. And so there are other things that we can control. And oftentimes when we’re in crisis and we’re freaked out, we’re not even doing what is within our power to do so. We’re calm. We believe in God’s goodness. We are looking around in our life. For me, I’d like to take out a blank sheet, like a white piece of paper and just, what can I control? Because when we feel like we’re in a crisis and fires are all around us, there are things that you can still do to set yourself up for success. And then you move on to step four and you make a plan.

We’re calm. We believe in the goodness of God. We kind of see, Hey, I can control these things. And in, built into that, by the way is, you’ll see the things that you can’t control. We can’t control how somebody else acts. We can’t. There’s a lot of things that we actually just can’t control, but we see, okay, but this is within my control. So I’m gonna put my focus here. Step four is to make a plan. How are we going to make some progress for a lot of you, you need to make some money or you need to ask for help. You need to create some stability in your life for food and shelter and safety. And then if you have all of those things, then it’s relationships, community pulling people together to help you.

If you’re, if you’re dealing with some heavy things with the kids who can help you, there are so many resources in 2022. Now pregnancy centers, crisis pregnancy centers, the WIC program. I mean just Google resources for women, domestic abuse, custody battles. Like there are people who will help you and then think about your friends and family. And if you have been in a crisis and you’ve acted crazy, which we often do when we’re in crisis, you might need to apologize to some people.

Hey, I’m sorry for what I did when I was freaked out, it was not okay. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’m trying to help myself out of this. Could you do this for me? You will have a much different reaction to that than when we go into frantic crying, screaming, blaming, and making a plan. And then the fifth step is to take care of yourself. Take care of your spiritual life. I want you on your knees. Praying, asking God, asking God for all of the gifts of the holy spirit, believing in miracles.

Lord, bring me a miracle today. My eyes are open. I will look for it. So taking care of your spiritual self. I mean, I would just have a rosary with me all the time and I would just be thumbing those beads in my pocket all day long. Then taking care of your physical self. Are you sleeping? Are you drinking enough water? Are you feeding your body? At least okay. Food. Let’s not live off McDonald’s can you walk around the block? Right? Like when we’re in crisis, it’s crazy. We don’t even do these things that are within our power to do drink water and walk around the block. And then the last component of taking care of yourself. And I just think the most important one is how you speak to yourself in your own mind. I love you. This is hard, but we’re going to to make it.

You’ve got this. Even if it’s the worst case scenario we can handle it. God is with us. I’m proud of you. I think you can do one more, right? Just learning to speak to yourself with such love and compassion. We don’t need to add garbage. Self-Talk on top of whatever you’re dealing with. . And so I want you to know that I love you. I may have never met you, but I love you. I love you because God created you. I think you’re special because God created you. I think you are worthy of time and attention and love and support. God is watching you with love. All the angels and saints are rooting for you. You have a heavenly cheering crowd. Isn’t that cool.

God is good by right of baptism and confirmation. We have access to the gifts of the holy spirit, but we have to ask for them. So start asking and then expect miracles, open your eyes and expect God to bring you the, the people, the resources, the programs, anything that you need. So here are those steps. Again, calm down and find peace. See God’s goodness, don’t move on until both of those things are present and decide what you can control. Then make a plan and last take care of yourself. We are playing an eternal game here. My friends eternity with God in heaven, you can make it through what you’re going through right now. Your goal is to suffer well to find peace, to be a good problem solver and to strive for sainthood. The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were Made for Greatness.