From graduations to birthdays, sports to weddings, 2020 has been a year of missed expectations for many. Sure, as adults we somewhat understand we don’t control the world and we’re going to be disappointed or forced to look at our situation through a different lens, but what about our kids? We spoke with bestselling author, international speaker and advocate Christine Caine about just that. Plus for all us overwhelmed parents, she has the needed tools to help us overcome.
Family Entourage: Christine, one of your daughters will be entering high school in the fall. It’s such a milestone to say goodbye to eighth grade, but the world looks so different now because of COVID. How do we talk to our kids, and honestly, ourselves, about missed expectations and that importance of focusing on the big picture?
Christine Caine: Absolutely, that’s our challenge to keep elevating people’s eyes. Those of us that have lived for any amount of time, you live long enough and a lot of expectations are not realized. You know that you’re going to face disappointment. You’re going to face discouragement. You’re going to face betrayal, hurt, offense. All of these things are part of life. What we’re finding is our children are having to confront this much, much earlier than a lot of us, depending on your situation. But by and large, when most of us graduated from school we were not sitting in an social distanced parking lot in a chair by ourselves. It was not like that. That wasn’t how our graduation went.
And so going, “Wow, okay, this is all different.” But as a family, we really have tried to make it a win in every way that we can. I keep telling the kids, “Look, the fact that we are at least connected digitally…” I mean, if this had have happened when I was growing up, because I’m much older, I was born before there was, my children cannot fathom this, but before there was an internet, before there was social media. I said, “I was in Australia. And if there was no internet, and no social media, we would have thought this is the end of the world.” I mean, you would have been disconnected. We only had four television stations at that time; there was no cable.
You would have literally thought this lockdown and COVID was the end of the world and you’d have no connection. I said, “So let’s look at this. There are ways to stay connected. We know that this is a global thing.” And then just helping to talk to them and to find the joy in it and to find the silver lining. And that’s a daily decision because it can really be heartbreaking. There’s no doubt about it. There is loss. People are sick. People are dying. There is so much racial injustice and pain happening and it’s just nonstop. And so it’s easy, even for our children, to become overwhelmed by all of this and so we have to be leading them in this hour. You can’t avoid having the difficult discussions.
Those of us that have lived for any amount of time, you live long enough and a lot of expectations are not realized. You know that you’re going to face disappointment. You’re going to face discouragement. You’re going to face betrayal, hurt, offense. All of these things are part of life. What we’re finding is our children are having to confront this much, much earlier than a lot of us, depending on your situation.
You cannot put your head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening because it’s happening, and it’s happening to everyone. I think helping them to see that Jesus is with us in this and that in him, we can still find peace and we can find joy and we can continue to move forward, I think that is the challenge in it all. I think that’s what the scripture, obviously, over and over again, says, “Just fix your eyes on Jesus.” You have to keep the big picture, and Jesus, in front of you. Especially in this moment. We have to make sure that we’re finding it for ourselves so that we can convey that to our kids because the bottom line is, if I’m full of anxiety and stress and fear and dread, then I’m going to transmit that to my children just through my actions. So I’ve got to find the hope. I laughed yesterday because I posted a post that I had to listen to one of my own messages to encourage myself in the Lord before I go on. Sometimes I’ve got to put on my own podcast and go, “Christine, you believe this stuff.” That’s why I decided to launch [Equip & Empower podcast] this in the middle of a global pandemic and all of the challenge and I thought, “You know what? There is no better time because right now we need as much faith-filled hope-filled positive reinforcement as we can get in this hour.”
FE: Speaking of overwhelmed. I am sure you had no idea when you planned to do your Overcoming, Overwhelmed free challenge, that this would be the state of the world. Whether it was pre-COVID and you’re overwhelmed with driving your kids to practices and trying to do your work schedule and all the busy-ness of life, or now, it’s a different type of overwhelmed where heavy issues are unavoidable. Share your heart here and how can people still get involved with this?
CC: You are so right. Some people say to me, “Wow, you were so prophetic.” I’m thinking, “No. I could not have picked this. I had no idea.” Coming into 2020, even before COVID, and before what we’re currently experiencing, everywhere we turned people were already full of anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. And I think now some of those same people that were overwhelmed by having to drive kids to school and afterschool activities are so longing for those days again. When I was overwhelmed by volleyball practice, where have those days gone?
But the thing is, David says in the Psalms, there is this line that really captured my attention, “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock.” And I just stopped and focused on that word, when. He doesn’t say if, but when. And I thought, “Wow, this is a reality. It’s when my heart is overwhelmed for every single one of us.”
It doesn’t matter who you are. We will all have this moment of when my heart is overwhelmed. And then there is the second part of that verse. “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” And I thought, “People are so overwhelmed. I want to help them.” Five days of intentionality saying, “You know what? Let’s go to the rock that is higher than us. We need to get our feet firmly grounded and rooted and planted on the rock of Jesus. The word of God.” I mean, we have so much media coming at us nonstop right now, and it is just painful and it is overwhelming. So let’s get back into the heart of God, the word of God. I’ve written a lot of things around that, that I think people over the five days will find deeply soothing. I mean, there are so many scriptures that it just reminds us that we’re not alone. That Jesus said this was going to happen. He said not if trials come. He said, “In this world, you will have tribulation. You will have trials. But be of good cheer, I’ve overcome the world,” and you go, “Okay, what does that even mean?”
So we’ll be unpacking all that stuff, scriptures that we’d glossed over when it seemed like the world was going okay, and I was working, and money was coming in, and everything seemed to be fine. I could go to a restaurant when I wanted to. I could meet and gather in church when I wanted to. I could… suddenly everything is different. Our homes are our schools and our workplaces and our leisure places and for many people, they feel like the four walls are caving in. It’s like I’ve been locked up and they’re just feeling overwhelmed. So what do you do when you can’t necessarily change your external circumstances? You’ve got to dig deep and a lot of people don’t know how to dig deep. We’ve lived lives of distraction and attraction for so long. We’ve been distractible. What do you do three months in when you’ve watched every Netflix series that you could watch, you’ve played every computer game that you can play, you’re sick of Zoom, Zoom is the new four-letter word, and you go, “What do I do?” And it’s like God has our attention saying, “It’s time to dig deep.”
There is loss. People are sick. People are dying. There is so much racial injustice and pain happening and it’s just nonstop. And so it’s easy, even for our children, to become overwhelmed by all of this and so we have to be leading them in this hour. You can’t avoid having the difficult discussions.
Where you’re going to find your freedom, where you are going to find the peace and the joy that you are looking for, it’s not going to be out there. It’s got to go deep. And I think this is what this five day challenge is going to help us do because nobody truly knows what’s going on or when all this will end. When will we be back to normal? Whatever that means. I personally don’t think we’ll ever go back to whatever normal was. And so I think we’re just not asking the right questions. We’ve got to continue to ask, “What am I supposed to be learning in this season? How can I be growing in this season? What practices do I need to put in place?” Moving forward into a very unknown future, we will be full of dread and anxiety and fear unless we learn how to overcome overwhelmed on a daily basis.
To be part of Christine Caine’s Overcoming, Overwhelmed free challenge, sign up here: christinecaine.com/challenge
To hear her new podcast Equip & Empower, every Monday and Thursday click here: christinecaine.com
