Restore
By Contributor Jen Kacin
How to Help Your Child with Anxiety
By Contributor Sherri Crandalll
from my heart to yours
Hi Friends!
I’m so excited for this issue of Restore because I share the cover of my book, a devotional for moms! It was such a special experience to write it and relive my early days of motherhood: to remember what I didn't know but needed, to remember the hard and the good.
Here’s a little bit of back story on my writing journey: I have been a writer practically my entire life and had longed to be a traditionally published author. I attempted two other book proposals over the years, starting in 2010, and I didn’t get a book contract until 2023.
The waiting was so hard, especially as I saw other writers I knew write and release books. It was especially hard when I heard some say, “I was never a writer and sort of fell into this.” I’d often wonder why God was making me wait when writing a book had always been on my heart.
But God’s timing is always the best timing. He orchestrated the milestones of my book journey as only He could, leading me one step of faith at a time. The waiting was a time of preparation, not a punishment. It was a necessary part of my journey in so many ways.
What hopes and dreams are you waiting to see fulfilled?
Trust that God knows the desires of your heart. He works behind the scenes even when we can’t see it. He is preparing you in the waiting.
Cheering for you and praying for your hopes and dreams!
xoxo,
Available for Preorder
New Devotional by
Andrea Fortenberry
Two-Minute Timeouts for New Moms will be released April 7, 2026!
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Over the past year, I’ve had so many women ask me questions about how I got started with writing, speaking and podcasting.
I love investing in other women and sharing my knowledge. In my current season, the best way for me to do this is through 30-minute coaching sessions.
You can book just one session or you can book a package for the best value. We’ll chat via Zoom or phone, you pick!
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Motherhood And more!
Twenty-four years. That's how long my children's book has lived in my heart and took up file space on my computer. It will finally make its way into the world this September. Twenty-four years of starts and stops, of believing and doubting, of thinking I'd missed my chance.
I wrote the first draft when I was young and eager. We were in the process of adopting our daughter from China and I put together a sweet story to tell to my three little boys while we were on a camping trip. I wanted to engage them in the thought process of what it meant to adopt their little sister who would be looking very different from them. Story telling through woodland animal characters with their same names seemed like a fun concept they could relate to. Over time I added to the story and once our daughter came, added a little bit more. I even typed it all up and would read it to my kids classrooms. Every time I did that, I would get great feedback from the kids and the parents and I would again revisit the idea of turning it into a real book. However, I convinced myself that
dreams had expiration dates. So as the kids got older, when life got complicated, when other priorities demanded my attention, I tucked that manuscript away. The voice in my head whispered familiar lies: "You're not good enough," "Real authors don't wait this long," "Maybe this wasn't meant to be.”
But here's what I've learned about dreams and timing – they don't always align with our expectations. Sometimes what feels like delay is actually preparation. Those 24 years weren't wasted time. They were seasoning years. I raised children and have lovingly watched each of them step into their own lives, experiences and dreams. I have experienced heartbreak and healing that deepened my understanding of what truly matters in my life and I learned that the best stories often come from the richest soil of lived experience.
There's something beautiful about pursuing dreams at different seasons of life. While the world celebrates young achievers, I see that there's profound courage in the person who picks up their pen at 40, 50 or beyond. Age brings wisdom, perspective, and a certain fearlessness that youth often lacks. We've survived enough disappointments to know they won't destroy us, and we've experienced enough grace to trust that our timing might be perfect because we know it is really God’s timing after all.
The morning I finally submitted my manuscript, I realized something profound: the story I wrote 24 years ago wouldn't have been the same book I published today. The story needed those years to mature, my daughter needed time to embrace her adoption story and we needed time to build that story together. What felt like God's silence was actually His perfect orchestration, preparing both the message and the messenger.
We've experienced enough grace to trust that our timing might be perfect because we know it is really God’s timing after all.
Hard things don't get easier with age – they get more meaningful. When we choose to be brave despite our doubts, when we dust off dreams we thought we'd outgrown, when we say yes to the whisper in our hearts that refuses to be silenced, we model something beautiful.
I would like to remind you, your dream isn't too late. Your voice isn't too quiet. Your story isn't too small. Whether you're twenty-four or seventy-four, whether your dream has been hibernating for two years or twenty-four, it's still alive for a reason.
In just a few short months, I will hold my published book in my hands, and I'm grateful for every single one of those 24. They weren't wasted – they were invested.
dream have you been carrying? What story are you t to tell? What gift are you meant to share? The world ting, and your timing – whenever you choose to – is exactly right. Your dreams don't have expiration They have appointment dates. And perhaps, just ps, yours is today.
Crandall is an author, speaker and the Vice President bal Ministries and Leadership Experience for The Co. She has been married to her husband, Rusty, for 39 and they have four young adult children. Connect with her at sherricrandall.com.
How to Help Your Child with Anxiety Part 2
By Jen Kacin
To read Part 1, check out the May 2025 issue of Restore.
Emotions are experiential, like waves in the ocean. They are important indicators of deeper, underlying currents and patterns. To not be carried away by these currents or overtaken by the waves, we need emotional anchor points. Even pleasant emotions, such as feeling happy or excited are waves that come and go. There are two powerful emotional anchors that keep us grounded, regardless of other feelings swirling in the tides: gratitude and what is life-giving.
Whether we are feeling low, up, or meh, we can find things we are genuinely grateful for. I ask students to identify specific gratitudes from that day – small or large. When we reflect on the good, it takes some power away from the negative.
The second emotional anchor is to identify what is life-giving, what recharges your emotional battery – it can be people, places, activities, nature, pets, etc. Making the conscious choice to plug into life-giving sources and recharge our emotional batteries is vital to deeply rooted well-being.
As a physical experience, anxiety is energy. You feel it in your body in several ways –shaking, sweating, nausea, tension, etc. This energy requires an outlet. To address the physical signal your body is giving you, we need to release this energy in a healthy way.
I ask students to share with me the physical activities they enjoy. Often, they will tell me: sleeping! Teenagers need extra sleep, but it is not a release of anxious energy, it serves as more of a pause from it. I ask them to do something, on purpose, to physically release the energy. We discuss being outside (nature is powerfully healing), taking walks, sports, dancing, singing, swimming, even taking a long shower. These are physical release options usually reserved for after school. If they are struggling with anxiety while in school, smaller releases include drinking cold water, crunchy snacks (carrots, pretzels), deep breathing (four counts in, four counts out), or asking for a two-minute break to leave the room and come back.
Our thought life is something we can take a more active role in. As a mental being, we have choice over which thoughts we keep and nurture and which thoughts we let go of. However, if we tell ourselves, “Don’t think about that,” over and over, we are, in fact, obsessively thinking about that thing. If our minds are on an anxious loop, unhelpful thoughts circling round and round, we need to jump tracks. Avoiding thoughts isn’t effective but replacing them is.
Anxious thoughts that are usually based on hypothetical fears and worst-case scenarios such as, “What if . . . ?”, or “I might fail . . . ” I can choose to replace these thoughts with healthier ones:
“If I fail, at least I was brave enough to try.”
“If the worst-case happens, I will face it with…”
“I choose to put myself out there instead of hide.”
“Their opinion doesn’t make the cut for me.”
Mentally, we can choose to change the vinyl track we are allowing to play on loop. This discipline takes practice and requires support from trusted people to help remind us of the truth, leading to the next point.
As social beings, we need people. However, we don’t need to plug in to all people. Making healthy choices of who we are spending time and energy with will help us
put anxiety in the back of the bus. We need to be choosey about which people we plug in to, which people we allow to have influence over our thoughts and energy, especially when we are feeling anxious.
Analyzing what is life-giving is an anchor point emotionally. This is true with our relationships. Which relationships are life-giving? Which people recharge your batteries? Which people are trustworthy to speak truth into your life? Which people are safe for you to be vulnerable, to be celebrated, to be genuine?
The list you made in your mind as you read those questions is the same list of people who will be your support network who will remind you of truth when you’re struggling and will challenge you to make healthier choices. For anyone not on the list, it is imperative to remind yourself that their opinions don’t make the cut. If they aren’t a trusted person, their opinions are not trusted either. Anxiety is shaky ground; we feel unsettled and uncertain. Purposely unplugging from negative influences and plugging in to healthier relationships gives us solid ground even when we are struggling.
Lastly, as the glue that keeps the puzzle pieces of our beings whole, we need to recognize the spiritual reality of our identity. Though the practices above are wise and helpful skills and tools learned from over twenty years of practicing in my field, we are trees waving in the wind without the rootedness of our spiritual connection with our Heavenly Father.
Regardless of where your spiritual journey is, the truth of your spiritual being is evident in the all-encompassing search for love, purpose, meaning, laughter, and connection. The ultimate release of anxiety is to recognize that there are many things outside of our control. I often remind myself:
There is a God and I am not Him.
I believe and know that God is good even when circumstances are not.
He is the redeemer, taking suffering, pain, struggle, and ugliness and from that tangled mess harvesting hope, beauty, growth, and love.
He asks us to cast our anxiety on Him beca(use He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). He cares.
He will not always remove the struggle, but He will redeem it.
For me, I connect easiest with God by taking walks outside: I separate myself from chores, screens, people, and get alone with God while enjoying His creation. I use this time to talk to Him about my feelings and recognize what I’m grateful for (step one), to physically release by walking (step two), to sort through my thoughts with Him (step three), to thank Him for people I can trust (step four), and to worship Him regardless of my feelings (step five).
Making healthy choices in all the areas of our being will help take the keys from anxiety, refuse to let it take over. It does not take away the feeling or the struggle. It may still be in the back of the bus. That’s okay. You and your children are human. You are allowed to feel and be honest about how you’re feeling. The key to coping and growing is to refuse to allow anxiety, or any feeling, to be in the driver’s seat.
Jen Kacin, LBSW
For more from Jen, visit her website at: www.compasstalks.com and find weekly encouragement videos on YouTube @jenkacin-compass talks.
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