One of the things that keeps most people up at night are the things that keep me up at night. What's antithetical to a good night's sleep? Fear and anxiety. It's that you're afraid of what you might face when the sun comes up, and it can be all sorts of different things. So, there are a few things I do for myself. I didn't come up with the practices myself.
You'll see a person sometimes, and notice they're just so full of energy and hope that they look like they can handle almost anything, and you'll say, "I want to be like that person. That person doesn't have their fears keeping them up at night and chewing on the pillow until dawn."
So one of the things I've learned is to always look forward and see who's going to be there in the future with you, because you're not going into the future all by yourself. There may be a big problem that you're facing the next day, month, year, whatever. But visualize the friends and family and colleagues and neighbors, and members of your community, visualize them, beckoning you to come up into the future where they can help you because I've never solved the problem by myself in my life. Nothing serious. I always needed other people to help me. So if you can visualize the people that God has sent into your life to help you at moments like this, it will make some of that fear, if not all of it, go away completely.
In thinking about that and being future-facing, it's also important and allowable to look into the past, not to beat yourself up. Half of the past consists of, at least for me and for a lot of people, guilt. You look back into the past, and you go, "I should have done this, I should've done that." But when I look to the past, from a perspective of hope, I look at where I was able to solve problems or had people by my side. It's the same sort of vision of the future. It's a vision of the past, where you see how God helped you carry that burden, and usually helped you by sending people to help you. You look back on all the support and how you got through it all. And that is proof of the fact that God doesn't necessarily give you more than you can handle. But if he does, he gives you the people to help you handle it, and he helps you handle it.
The third thing I tried to do, and this is the hardest, is to decide who I am at that moment in time, with my fear and my hope and my dreams and my prayers, and my reservations and all those conflicting feelings that swirl up inside of you, especially when you're lying down to go to sleep at night, and your mind is susceptible to all of those influences. Who am I today? Who am I in this moment? And I realize I'm a child of God. I have been given gifts of friendship, and family and support, and I am someone who wants to move forward with with a purpose that God has given me. In my case, it's the work that I'm blessed and fortunate to do at Guideposts. And the way the organization reaches out and helps people. At that moment, I know that I have a purpose and a mission in life. As long as I stay in that moment, I can move forward, and I can overcome my fear. And I can rely on the courage that faith and love gives.
- The section above is transcripted from Edward Grinnan on his Threads of Faith podcast
As the Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of Strategic Content Development for Guideposts, one of the most highly esteemed Christian publishers in the world, Edward Grinnan recognizes the importance of engaging storytelling. Stories, after all, have the ability to bring people from all walks of life together and help us see that we have more in common than we realize. In his new limited series podcast, Threads of Faith, Edward is opening up about his most heartwarming connections and obstacles he's had to overcome, reminding us to find solace, embrace resilience, and cherish the profound meaning that unfolds in life's most joyful and toughest familial trials.
On the surface, his story may seem like it's only paved with positive moments. An Avery Hopwood Award in Major Playwriting recipient. An established editor. A highly successful author. But happiness and joy rarely come without challenge. Edward sacrificed his dreams to support his family, struggled with addiction as he searched for meaningful work in New York, and grappled with grief after losing his beloved wife of 38 years, singer and actress Julee Cruise, to suicide.
Here are 8 of our favorite quotes from his new podcast, now available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:
1. "God plants us in the soil of our family to grow, and we are watered by love."
2. "Love and faith intertwine into one incredible force."
3. "Tolstoy famously said, 'Happy families are happy in the same way, but unhappy families are different in their own way.'"
4. "Our wounds heal and they make us stronger!"
5. "I was led. God pulled the levers of my life."
6. "I am here for a reason."
7. "I've found that the only way to solve my problems is to do so with God."
8. "Guilt is the gravitational pull that drags you into the past."
LISTEN to the first episode of Threads of Faith with Edward Grinnan, "A Bottle of Old Granddad: A Journey from Addiction to Faith":
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Markus Bernhard
