A Word About, …Overwhelmed

 

I was feeling overwhelmed the other day with so many tasks and demands, and things in my life. As I sat in my pity party, thinking about that ‘feeling’ of being overwhelmed, I decided to check out the meaning of that word. Was I feeling ‘overwhelmed?’ or was it something else. So I looked it up. Some of the individual descriptors used were very telling, and gave me additional pause to think. 

One part of that definition for ‘overwhelmed’ was ‘to be buried or drowned beneath a huge mass, as when a dam breaks and overwhelms a village below with water.’ I pondered where I am in my life for a while, and finally decided that, while I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m not drowning. Maybe I’m not overwhelmed? Perhaps it’s something else?

The dictionary said that overwhelmed can also hold the idea of one team completely defeating the other by a large margin, like 99 to nothing. I had to admit to myself that I feel at times as if I’m in a tug-of-war with gigantic things pulling me one way or another. But, I do have moments or days when I feel like I’m winning that battle. No. That’s not the kind of overwhelmed I’m sensing.

The dictionary continued the definition of ‘overwhelmed’ using what I would say is a more nuanced approach. Overwhelmed, it said, can be giving too much of something thing to someone, totally inundating them. At that point, I thought I might be getting closer to my kind of overwhelmed. I had to acknowledge that I have a lot of things up in the air in my life, but they’re all really good things. I suppose you can have too much of a good thing, but I don’t think I’ve ever been overwhelmed with feeling like I h ave too many blessings.

Ah, but then the dictionary added that “… ‘being overwhelmed’ can have a strong emotional effect,” as in ‘I was overwhelmed with guilt.’ Now I was getting somewhere in describing my kind of overwhelmed. If I were totally honest with myself — I’d have to say that feelings of inadequacy and the guilt I can feel about my inability to manage all the components of my life well, sometimes that can overwhelm me. What I call the shoulds  of my life can be more than I’m able to manage or deal with. If overwhelmed can be a feeling, “I guess, maybe I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of being overwhelmed.

But then, one more element of overwhelmed was added to that dictionary definition. It said that overwhelmed can mean ‘too strong for; to overpower,’ as in “The wine doesn’t overwhelm the flavor of the trout.”  That part of overwhelmed definitely does not apply to my life. 

One of my life verses is I Cor. 15:57, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I may feel like I’m losing in life’s tug-of-war. I may feel overwhelmed. But I refuse to live on that street Because I have a bible that affirms my identity in Jesus, I refuse to allow the joy in my life to be defined by circumstances that at times can seem … overwhelming.