Do you feel overwhelmed? If your answer is yes, you may need to read Not the Boss of Us by Kay Wills Wyma.
Not the Boss of Us Review
Not the Boss of Us started with the story of a 14-year-old who committed suicide. As I shared it with my son, his words were: “Why are you always reading these dark books?” (I had most recently read Therefore I Have Hope). It wasn’t though. Not the Boss of Us is a story that needed to be told. The sense of being overwhelmed has been around since sin came into the world and it will remain until Jesus returns. That’s why we need to learn to speak truth into our circumstances.
Too often people make permanent choices for a temporary problem. The enemy tells us that things will never get better and that we’re living our “new normal”. But he lies. And the only way to combat a lie is with the truth. For every overwhelm that is shared, Kay gives us a truth that will help us to fight Overwhelm on our own terms.
Through it all, she shares stories of conversations that she’s had with her family and friends. She shares her experiences and the very real way that Overwhelm visits her regularly. She shows us how she is able to fight Overwhelm with Truth. Sometimes Truth is shown to her by someone close to her – emphasizing the reason why we need to have faithful people walk alongside us.
Truth comes from God. Only when we know Him, truly know Him will we be able to access truth when we need it.
At some point, you need to learn what motivates you because overwhelm is so much more devastating for someone who is floundering in their identity.
Standing up to Overwhelm sometimes means doing things that are not popular. Your journey through life is unique and will not look exactly like anyone else’s. Own it. Live it. Run your race.
Favorite Quotes from Not the Boss of Us
Perspective acts like a cool drink of water. It quenches internal thirst. It helps us breathe. It refuses to give in to all that attempts to steal the joy from life. Perspective helps by reframing today based on real events not perceived ones.
What we focus on has a lot to do with how we react to a situation. When we focus on all we have to do it can quickly feel as though we are running out of air. But when we put our to-do list in light of eternity, when we Truth to it, we realize what really matters.
People feel compelled to create and put forth a persona that appears put together, cool, and in control when who knows what’s going on beneath the surface.
We are so busy pretending to be somebody else we don’t realize that everyone is doing the same thing we are. We have to learn to run the race that God has set before us. Not some man-made concoction of someone we don’t even know.
“I wonder,” she thought aloud, “if giving grace to ourselves helps us to be able to give grace to others?”
Yes! Absolutely. We have to learn to treat ourselves with the same grace we offer to complete strangers. Maybe eventually we’ll start treating ourselves with a grace that mimics the one that God displays towards us.
Identifiers play a major role in our self-worth. They include things such as professions, sports teams, colleges, families, groups, and even gangs.
The identifiers that we need to put emphasis on are the ones that God created. Beloved. Son. Daughter. Child of a King.
We won’t always know which is the right path to follow. Regardless, we put one foot in front of the other, weighing out the decisions and actions that line the path, eyes anchored on Truth rather than on culture’s shifting ways and standards.
As we keep our eyes focused on Christ we begin to understand what truly matters. Some of the decisions that we agonize over become a lot less important.
I was privileged to be a member of the Not the Boss of Us launch team and received an advanced reader copy from the publisher and Net Galley. A positive review was not required.
Have you read Not the Boss of Us? What was your favorite quote? Get your copy of Not the Boss of Us on Amazon.
About Not the Boss of Us
Too much to manage and not enough time or energy to do it? Join the club. Life is a pressure cooker and, more and more, being overwhelmed is just considered normal. But, truth be told, life’s stresses and circumstances aren’t the boss of us. What if we could take Overwhelmed and diffuse it–or, better yet, reframe it to good?
Author, blogger, and mother of five Kay Wills Wyma has learned that if we’re going to be overwhelmed by anything, let’s have it be Truth with all its grace, hope, peace, and love. In this freeing book, she shares how to confront life’s pressures we face–at home, online, at work, in our relationships, on our calendars–and replace all those heavy expectations with the liberating truth that we were made for something better.
Through her inspiring personal stories sprinkled with a dash of humor, she gives readers permission to step back, let go, and find fulfillment and freedom in a life lived in light of eternity.
About Kay Wills Wyma
Kay Wyma is a blogger, author, podcaster, and mother of five. With candor and humor, she has tackled troubling societal issues like youth entitlement, comparison-pressures and is now taking on pressure/stress-laden Overwhelmed in her upcoming book Not the Boss of Us. Kay has appeared in or on The TODAY Show, CNN, The New York Times, USA Today, Focus on the Family, Family Life, The Eric Metaxas Show, NPR’s Think, and more.
Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, she held positions at the White House, the Staubach Company, and Bank of America. Kay lives in the Dallas area with her husband, Jon, and their family
Follow Kay on themoatblog.com, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram
You may also like: