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    Can I Just Hide in Bed 'til Jesus Comes Back?: Facing Life with Courage, Not Comforters
    Can I Just Hide in Bed 'til Jesus Comes Back?: Facing Life with Courage, Not Comforters
    Can I Just Hide in Bed 'til Jesus Comes Back?: Facing Life with Courage, Not Comforters
    Ebook243 pages5 hours

    Can I Just Hide in Bed 'til Jesus Comes Back?: Facing Life with Courage, Not Comforters

    By Martha Bolton and Christin Ditchfield

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    About this ebook

    Depression, fear, a sense of unworthiness, and unfulfilled dreams can make women retreat to their beds—figuratively and literally—and refuse to face life. Yet most of the time, hiding in bed makes matters worse. Who needs emotional bedsores? Authors Martha Bolton and Christin Ditchfield gently show women how to climb out from under their emotional bedcovers, face their fears and doubts, and step into the lives God has planned for them.

    Can I Just Hide in Bed ’til Jesus Comes Back? faces down the fear, depression, and unfulfilled dreams that cripple many women to the point of wanting to crawl in bed—for the rest of their lives. Compiled as a collection of short, mostly humorous and warmhearted stories, it offers readers practical, concrete steps to help them move forward when they are ready. Essays are interspersed with special humor features such as “Top Ten” lists, while “Whenever You’re Ready” sections offer Scriptures, journaling questions, and practical suggestions for “putting your feet on the floor” and “taking a few steps forward.” The book addresses four themes:
    • Facing feelings of fear, anxiety, discouragement, and depression
    • Facing people and relationship issues
    • Facing the pain of grief and loss
    • Facing life—and getting yours back
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateJun 6, 2017
    ISBN9781624059827
    Can I Just Hide in Bed 'til Jesus Comes Back?: Facing Life with Courage, Not Comforters
    Author

    Martha Bolton

    Emmy-nominated and Dove-nominated writer Martha Bolton is also the author of over eighty books of inspiration and humor. She wrote the libretto for The Confession Musical, based on Beverly Lewis' popular Amish trilogy, as well as the libretto for Half-Stitched, the Musical, based on Wanda Brumstetter's newest Amish romance. Martha was a staff writer for Bob Hope for over fifteen years, writing humor to entertain the public and presidents alike. 

    Read more from Martha Bolton

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      Book preview

      Can I Just Hide in Bed 'til Jesus Comes Back? - Martha Bolton

      PART ONE

      Facing Your Feelings When You’d Rather Hide

      If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.

      JEAN KERR

      S

      OMETIMES WE FIND

      ourselves imprisoned by our fears. There are many to choose from: fear of risk; fear of change; fear of failure or rejection; fear of loss, death, or disaster. The list could go on and on.

      We can find it hard to face our hurts, heartaches, and disappointments; the pain of regret, loss, missed opportunities, or poor choices. We’d rather not address our feelings of remorse, misplaced guilt, embarrassment, or blame. Sometimes we feel so frustrated, so angry, so powerless.

      When we’re feeling helpless and hopeless, bed may seem like a safer place to be. But like broken springs poking us in the middle of the night, pain will find us even there. There’s a better choice!

      In part one, we’ll share what we’ve discovered about facing these powerful emotions. Learn with us about how to process your feelings, push through or past your fears, and press on!

      CHAPTER 1

      SKIP THE SHEEP

      Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strength.

      CORRIE TEN BOOM

      M

      Y

      (C

      HRISTIN’S

      )

      BEST FRIEND

      teases me about being a princess—not the spunky, cute, Disney kind with an Academy Award–winning theme song, a cadre of charming forest friends, and a handsome prince—but the kind who lies on top of eighteen mattresses and loses sleep over a tiny green pea.

      Sadly, it’s true.

      I’ve always envied people who can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Midsentence even. People like my friend Cinderella (not her real name), who was so tired one day after work that she flopped on the bed for a minute at 5:30 p.m. and woke up at 7:30 the next morning!

      Not me. I toss and turn, toss and turn, and turn and toss. I just can’t seem to shut my mind off. I hear every tiny noise and notice changes in light, even with my eyes closed.

      At the best of times, it’s incredibly annoying to be generally happy with life and ready for rest and still have a hard time falling asleep.

      At the worst of times, sleeplessness escalates to full-blown insomnia. My mind churns and churns and churns.

      Since I can’t fall asleep, and there’s no one I want to chat with on Facebook, I do the next best thing: I worry.

      I worry about how much sleep I’m losing and how tired I’m going to be in the morning. I check my cell phone (I used to check my alarm), telling myself, If I fall asleep now, I could still get six hours . . . five hours . . . four hours . . . three full hours . . .

      I worry about the piles of laundry in the living room and dishes in the sink. The food going bad in the fridge. The leaky roof. The funny sound the car’s been making. The funny sound my bones have been making.

      I worry about the piles of bills on my desk and the empty account at my bank.

      I think of family members and friends who are in various crises and feel helpless that there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to solve their problems. If only I had money to give them, or a car, or a house, or energy. If only I could give their ex or their boss or their ungrateful teen a piece of my mind on their behalf. If only I could give their doctors wisdom, or better yet, heal them myself!

      But I can’t even fix myself!

      That realization leads me to thoughts of what’s wrong in my life.

      I relive humiliating moments, mistakes I’ve made, and wounds I’ve suffered. You know—the shoulda, coulda, woulda stuff coupled with those didn’t want it, didn’t deserve it, and didn’t see it coming moments.

      I practice the clever and witty points I wish I could have made, the comments I tell myself I’ll express next time. (Even though I won’t. Not really. Oh, but I do sound articulate and convincing in my mind.)

      I ruminate on my to-do list, trying to figure out how I can possibly do it all. I feel guilty about what I didn’t do the day before and promise myself I’ll catch up tomorrow. (Then I feel guilty for lying to myself, because I know myself too well.)

      The to-do list is filled with unpleasant stuff: sorting out that insurance mess, answering one hundred e-mails, making decisions about this, finding a solution for that. It’s overwhelming.

      Even when I do finally fall asleep, it’s a restless sleep. All it takes is a cricket sneezing half a mile away, and I’m back to tossing and turning again (and fantasizing about hunting down the poor critter to gag him!).

      All too soon morning comes, and I can’t face it. I just want to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head.

      Count on the Shepherd

      That’s the scenario, unless I make a conscious decision to turn off the noise in my head and turn on the blinding light instead.

      Literally. (Ow!)

      I turn on my bedside table lamp and reach for my Bible and my prayer journal. Sometimes I play praise and worship music or an audio recording of Scripture or Scripture-based prayers.

      On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

      PSALM 63:6-7

      Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

      MATTHEW 6:34

      I’ve never fallen asleep counting sheep, but I’ve often found great comfort and peace talking to the Shepherd.

      And it’s amazing how quickly sleep comes when you try to spend an hour in prayer!

      I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O L

      ORD

      , make me dwell in safety.

      PSALM 4:8

      Now I lay me down to fret,

      to toss and turn—did I forget

      that God is here right by my side?

      No need to worry. No need to hide.

      CHAPTER 2

      BREAKING MURPHY’S LAW

      Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

      GEORGE ADDAIR

      W

      HEN

      I (C

      HRISTIN

      )

      WAS A CHILD,

      I was a voracious reader. A trip to the library took at least three hours: two to make my initial selections, and then another hour to painstakingly trim the pile to the thirty-book checkout limit.

      At home, I read and reread my favorites until they fell apart, and then, often out of sheer boredom, I read anything and everything else I could get my hands on—cereal boxes, dictionaries, encyclopedias, women’s magazines full of advice to harried housewives, even self-help and motivational books intended for salesmen. You name it, I read it. (Video games had been invented back then, but they were housed in arcades, cost a quarter a turn, and were mostly played by pesky, little-brother types.)

      I remember one day rifling through a parent or grandparent’s desk drawer, desperate for new material, and stumbling across a flip calendar that featured a cartoon raccoon. It looked kid-friendly, but the snarky sayings for each month caught me off guard and cracked me up:

      If anything can go wrong, it will.

      The bread always falls jam-side down.

      You never find whatever you lost until you replace it.

      And this classic:

      The light at the end of the tunnel may be the headlight of an oncoming train.

      I had a bit of a sarcastic streak, and I thought these laws were hilarious. And somehow, they resonated with me. So I read the calendar over and over until I had memorized them.

      In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.

      I look back now and realize that I’ve spent much of my life waiting for things to go wrong, expecting the bread to fall jam-side down.

      On some level I think this attitude is part of my God-given personality, the way He’s wired me to see patterns, to consider the future, to anticipate, predict, and problem-solve. I always ask, What could possibly go wrong? And then I do what I can to prevent it, to protect myself and the people I love from that outcome. It can be a strength, a gift.

      But it’s not such a good thing when I focus exclusively on what could go wrong, or when I allow myself to be convinced that it will go wrong instead of focusing on what’s already good and right, and what can be strengthened, improved, or accomplished.

      It’s not a good thing when it takes my eyes off the God who loves me and gave Himself for me, the One who promised He would never leave me nor forsake me. It’s not good when I forget to focus only on what He’s asked of me.

      And as for convincing yourself that the light at the end of the tunnel is almost always attached to an oncoming train? That kind of mentality will quickly rob you of peace and ruin your health and happiness.

      It will sabotage your success. That’s important to remember.

      Anticipating a train wreck can land us in bed. Fear can freeze us into believing that our dream, what God has called us to achieve, is out of our reach. And fear of success can also make us burrow deeper under the covers. We’re afraid to achieve a dream because if we do, our new status will be way too hard to handle. Or we don’t deserve it in the first place, so why even bother?

      We tell ourselves that success means . . .

      More work.

      More problems.

      More responsibilities.

      Greater stakes.

      Greater opportunities to fail more spectacularly, and in front of a larger audience.

      And some of that is unfortunately true. It goes with the territory. But those factors alone shouldn’t stand in the way of our striving to be faithful to God’s calling and be the best we can be. Yes, there is a price for success. But complacency and apathy come with a hefty price tag too—a life filled with disappointment, frustration, and regret.

      We say if you’re going to pay a price for inaction as well as action, why not choose

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