Fretting - from I Hate It When My Soul is Crying!

FRETTING

Switching off the Glitch of Worrying!


“What are you doing?” my husband asked with that tone he gets when I am doing something he doesn’t understand. “You need to know that our neighbors dog is going to the bathroom in our yard for the third time today!” I announced with disgust and purpose. “And, further, I don’t understand why he has to come all the way over here to do that!”
World-class fretters have to analyze everyday happenings in their life. Sound familiar? Well, why does the next-door neighbors dog do that? I need to know and take immediate action regarding. This is a passion and a platform of mine. It is something I need to share with you and help you identify as well. It is a glitch of mine. I have processed this glitch every day of my life. And, because I processed that with God out of frustration and finally turning it over, is why I want you to know there is hope.



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Fretting –
Shirley Faith Souder

The reason it is even more important today then it was 30 years ago, is, I see us as women in crisis today. We seem to be living in a great reality TV show. Maybe it is, and we don’t know it yet. I am serious. The current financial, political, chaos we are experiencing is really happening. We need each other; We need God more then ever. We need to join arms and walk with caution, clarity, and purpose over that bridge – trusting God that he has all the angels necessary in battle over us.
Winning. We just need to put our heads down and cross over.
As women of today, no matter what age we are, or level of relationship to God, many of us are feeling overwhelmed, trapped, unworthy, confused, and scared. When you are a fretter, you worry, obsess, and desperately want control over every situation. Why, you ask? Because things have so changed since the middle 80’s. As a counselor of thirty years, I have seen people’s lifestyles making dramatic and bazaar changes. In the 1980’s women wanted men to talk, communicate, and pay attention to them. Women wanted to be significant and noticed. They especially wanted their spouses, significant others, and their leadership in the work place. Women got excited about their ability to multi-task at home and in the work place. They worked on their self-esteem and leadership styles. In the 1990’s I saw a new trend take place. I received many more requests from the men who wanted to come to counseling. They wanted to understand what in the world had happened to their world as they used to know it. They hunted, they gathered, they had the last word. Also in the mix, came multi-marriages, more blended family issues, and spiritual warfare requests. I had to facilitate and arbitrate married couples meeting at State Police Posts to exchange children for the weekend. Too many 911 calls were placed over heated fights between families. One woman came to me after seven marriages, wondering if she was insane. One of those marriages was to a homosexual and his former lover tried to kill her.

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Fretting
Shirley Faith Souder

I had no manual for that one, not even a Bible verse. I referred her to a psychiatric hospital.
Then there was the famous 1999 year, when everyone came to counseling because of the computer shut-down scare. And, if that was a challenge and journey, the September 11, 2001 which changed us all forever. From that moment on, if you weren’t a fretter/world-class worrier, you soon became one.
The first decade of the millennium from 2000 – 2010 has also taken on a whole new level for fretters, us all really. The political problems, health care, economic turn downs and corporate America has also not been friendly to families. The whole working 24/7. Four days on and four days off. Four nights on and four nights off. One of my clients works from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. He sleeps two hours, then gets up with his 18 month old daughter and wife to see them off to work and day-care. He then tries to sleep from 7 to 1 p.m. But admits it is hard, because four alarms and sleeping through phone calls, keeps him from quality sleeping at all.
They both have strayed and now want to restore their relationship. So many rocky roads this day and age to fix.
This is why I write about this subject. We need and want to live our lives with carefreeness, peace, joy, happiness, and to be excited about life again. Looking forward to Saturday – date night with your wife, or husband. Reading that fun book you have that just sits there. Taking some courses at the local college on photography or gardening. However, what we experience instead is, taking big sighs every 10 minutes, laughing at something, but only pretending, wanting to sleep a lot, drink alcohol, watch shows we shouldn’t. We have so much on our mind about kids, grandkids, parents that are ailing, our jobs, our husband or wife and whether they are faithful. So what do we do, we fret!



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Fretting
Shirley Faith Souder

We want to fix everything, police everything, and direct traffic constantly. Instead we see ourselves standing in that jar with the lid on it. Life – people – they just won’t listen. What can I do? I hate this. I hate my life. Where is God?
“Why do I have to feel like I am swimming in syrup?”, a friend of mine asked a few weeks back. She loves God, has a close personal relationship, yet her lifestyle influences her to feel stuck in a vat of syrup.
In praying and studying these many questions over the years and looking at our lives these days, I am convinced that managing our emotions has become a doctorate level event. My clients seem to be surfing the net to find other people to talk to. They look to see how other people are living and in the meantime get caught up with them in a web of deceit. There are multiple relationship living styles, high school girls are getting caught up in homosexual experiments, blended families turn into an octopus of elephants in the living room. My own step-granddaughter has eight to ten Christmas’s every year. I begin to understand why the very young are experiencing depression, eating disorders, bi-polar episodes just to name a few.
There is no quality time, no personal quality time, and we look for red bull energy drinks, and calm down pills for the evening in order to sleep. We do yearn for God’s Word, we even understand Psalms as David poured out his frustrations and pain. But, when will God soothe my crying soul?


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