I’ve never been a fan of Life’s Overwhelmed – the one that feeds on stress, pressures, expectations and circumstances. The one that masquerades as life’s new normal.

In my younger years, I took performance pressure’s bait – hook, line and sinker. Then tried to control the landscape by joining my skinny High School locker-buddy on a diet that eventually landed us with eating disorders. Thankfully, Truth – with all its grace and hope and peace and joy – showed up and did what it does – gave life.

So, when I had kids, I determined to keep Overwhelmed at bay, since society seemed to have dialed up the intensity. For my mom in a world with only four channels on the television, phones connected to cords, and adding machines and electric typewriters the closest things to a personal computer – life’s pressures and circumstances didn’t seem to have the same death grip they have today.

Which is why I started saying (some days yelling out the car window)– This stuff is not the boss of you! Grades don’t define you! That sport is just a sport not a gauge of your worth. And offer Truth-reminders of whose they/we are. Then Truth, like grace, does what it has done through the ages – overpowers and reframes life’s stress, pressures and expectations with all their would’s, could’s & should’s – and brings life.

But when Overwhelmed went to far and desperately hurt a friend of our daughter’s, we decided to call it out and call it quits – together. That’s how my new book Not the Boss of Us began – like this:

You know, like re-purposing a soup can as a planter … ? Yeah. So then, the folks at Revell came to the rescue and it became this lovely thing:

Because, Life’s Overwhelmed might be the new normal, but it’s just Not the Boss of Us. Truth is, has been and always will be. So why not put it in its place and be overwhelmed by that!

I wrote Not the Boss of Us: Putting Overwhelmed in its Place in a Do-All/Be-All World because I was mad at Life’s Overwhelmed and what it did/does to people we love. The stories are ours but the soul-hydrating Truth is God’s. Truth, faithfully and genuinely woven throughout every day –  stands ready to overwhelm us with:

Purpose rather than all the endless performance pressures,

Provision instead of worry and anxiety,

Belonging rather than fighting to fit in,

Hope over the trappings of this world, … and so much more.

Not the Boss of Us involves stories (some funny, some hard) about calling out pressures, surrendering and remembering to be Overwhelmed by Truth. It’s a start to the conversation, not the end of it. Because even though Overwhelmed is overwhelming, it’s still worth contemplating – together. It doesn’t get to steal from us or from people we love!

If nothing else – maybe we just need to say and hear Truth out loud: you’re uniquely gifted, you belong, you’re beautiful, you’re seen, you’re known, you’re accepted, you’re loved.

What’s threatening to overwhelm you today?

Why not, together, let’s call it out and re-frame it to good. THANKS for for walking the road with me.

– Kay

Want to help? Here’s how you can:

• PRE-ORDER today.

Link HERE and be sure to follow the instructions for some fun free pre-order offers (like an audio-book download!)

• Join the Launch Team – link: http://bit.ly/NottheBossofUsLaunchTeam

• OR simply let your friends know.

Here’s the super-fancy trailer: