Fighting Stress with Scriptures~~~Flawless Ways, Perfect Choices

2 Samuel 22:33 God is my strength and power, makes my way perfect

This scripture from 2 Samuel was extremely helpful to me when I had epilepsy and was fighting my stress seizures. It reminded me that God was my strength and power. I didn’t need my own to see me through. I had God. I was like a battery operated toy that when the batteries ran low I was no longer able to function. Thanks to God I didn’t need to get to that point as I so often did.

The way God was making my way perfect was the fact that He was there for me. I was still having seizures, I was still disabled. What was so perfect about that? Nothing! Except the fact that through my epilepsy I was learning to lean on God for my day to day ability to function as I made Him my perfect choice.

Sounds wimpy, doesn’t it? That’s our problem today we have it in our heads that if we have to rely on God to be our crutch, backbone, strength, or power then we must be some kind of wimpy weak weirdo. From the beginning of time starting with Adam and Eve in the garden we think we can do it on our own. There is pride in showing the world that we can make it on our own. We don’t need God. I’m not some kind of windup battery operated toy that needs power from a different source!

Can you hear it? More important is the fact you can see it. You can see what that kind of attitude does for us in the behavior of our society today. We have moved away from our true source of strength and power and it hasn’t proven a thing. When I did it I had more stress seizures, when others do it their “stress seizures” are the anger they display, the bad choices they are making, and their destructive attitude they carry with them that hurts rather than heals.

Perfect ways? What’s that! In reality there is no perfect way. Our idea of a perfect way is one that is pain free, loaded with free money to spend, everything we ever asked for or wanted without doing anything to get it. Indeed a life free of stress, worries and other people sticking their nose in our business. Nice try but have you ever seen such a thing? No.

The perfect way God has to offer is one paved with not only His power and strength leading to eternal life with Him but His love, mercy and grace as well. Yes there will be pain and suffering along the way, stressful times and hard lessons to be learned but that’s okay when you’re traveling with Jesus. The flawless way, the perfect choice.

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Fight Stress with Scriptures Closing the Cracks

Due 6:5  Love God with ALL your heart, soul, mind, strength

 

How in the world does loving the Lord your God with ALL your heart, soul, mind, and strength help us to fight stress? It helps because it gets our mind where it needs to be. Any time we hold back a piece for ourselves that leaves a crack for things to come along that we don’t want or need brought in by stress.

 

The important thing to know is that “stress” happens. We can’t do a thing in life where we will never be struck by stress again. The issue is what we do it. How long we linger in it and allow it to run our lives. Do we add to it or take away from its desire to sting us.

 

When I stopped having stress seizures it wasn’t because I was at last living in a stress-free environment and it never came around again. Yeah right! And if you believe that I have oceanfront property in Arizona I want to sell you. Just teasing but that is how crazy of a thought that is to think we can live in a stress-free environment. Some get pretty close and others couldn’t be surrounded more by it. The issue is dealing with it and not allowing it to affect our lives.

 

A good start to that is remembering the fact that we need to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Don’t leave room for stress to have its affects on us. Yeah, I know you “have the right to get mad at someone for doing something to you” but is it really worth it holding back that chunk of your heart, soul, mind and strength to be mad at someone.

 

When I found out about my stress seizures the first thing that had to go was my anger towards the girl who initially caused my head injury that would lead up to my seizures. I chose to hold back that part of me and it showed in the amount of stress seizures I was having. If I truly loved God with all that was in me then it was time to show it by not worrying or getting upset over things, or being pre-occupied with things that were eventually going to lead to a stress seizure.

 

As I told a couple the other day, during the time of battling with my stress seizures I couldn’t even worry about what I was going to fix for dinner. If I did, I wound up having a stress seizure. It’s one thing to “think about” what you are going to fix for dinner and another to “worry” about it to the excess of having a stress seizure.

 

Looking to the “all” in loving God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength was a good focus point to measure the distance between what I was doing and where I needed to be and the stress seizure I just had in between the two points. Sometimes it was clear I loved God with my all and had a seizure anyway but there were times that evidence proved otherwise. It was then up to me to figure out what I wanted to do with the data I just collected from the last seizure. It was because I chose to learn from each seizure that future stress seizure eventually would be eliminated and victory was just around the corner.

 

Stress seizures or not it is a command from God for us to follow. An act not set up for God himself to profit from. However, it’s for the benefit of us for the by-product that comes from it.  It’s how God loves us and it does us well to do the same back to Him as we close the cracks to the things that don’t need to be.

Think I'm Having Stress~~~~~~~Let go and Let God

Life was getting rough, several times I heard people tell me to just let go and let God. I had heard it so much that I vowed if I heard it again I was going to scream. Let go and let God! It was like they thought I loved holding on to the pain I was experiencing and unwilling to let it go and trust in God. I trusted God or so I thought.

 

One day as I was reading my Bible and praying God stopped me in my tracks long enough to show me the handprints on the situations I was holding on to were mine. Displayed in front of me were my knuckles shining in white from clenching on so tightly. “God, did I really not trust you to take care of things? Lord, was I that afraid to let go thinking it would be the final move in my life that sent me drowning in a bottomless pit of despair, pain and anguish?”

 

All He needed to say was, “Karen…” and I knew instantly the answers to my questions. My fear was greater than my faith. My friends who told me to “let go and let God” were trying to keep me from drowning by my own actions not cause to me to be submerged.

 

The next person telling me to “let go and let God” was I and indeed I wanted to scream. Not because someone was aggravating me but because I had taken so long to wake up to the fact that I was doing the opposite of what I needed to do.

 

Truly we hold too tightly on to things and not tight enough to Jesus. We get into bad situations, have horrible experiences and we hold on to these times as if they were some kind of life preserver instead of the thing that tends to drown us. How crazy is that? We need to let go of that and hang on to Jesus. It is Him we need to lean on instead of clutching tightly to the bad times. We need to have a yard sale or heart sale and get rid of all the old things we think we can’t let go of.

 

When you prepare for a yard sale you gather all that needs to go, the things that have no value, and things that are just cluttering up your life. Believe it or not I’ve never had a yard sale but labeled by my family a “pack rat” my daughter thinks we’d be rich if I did. That was just counting the things I had stored in our attic!

Our spiritual life is no different. If we would just get rid of the things that need to go, the things of no value to us that are just cluttering up our lives we’d be rich. Eternally rich in God, rich in His love, mercy, grace, and blessings that never end.

 

Don’t scream but instead, let go and let God. Let Him do all He is able to do by giving up our right to hold on to the junk that needs to go. Letting go doesn’t mean abandoning people or some things it means allowing God the control needed to operate without us slowing down the process of trying to hold on and do it ourselves.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for COCWF

 

Think I'm Having Stress~~~~~Breaking out in Praise

Instead of breaking out in a sweat over situations we need to break out in praise to the Lord. “Praise? You expect me to praise God at a time like this, I don’t feel like it!” We are not to do it simply because we “feel” like it but because it’s the right thing to do.

 

Praise moves us from the clouds to sunshine from doubt to faith. Once when I was feeling down an elder at our church saw me and told me, “Chin up Karen and praise the Lord.” Praise the Lord? What in the world was he talking about he must not understand my current situation and what I’m dealing with. I knew better, I knew he was well aware of what I was dealing with in life. And most importantly I knew in my heart he was right about praising God.

 

Years ago I had already learned the lesson that it’s not for the situation itself we are praising the Lord but praising God for who He is and what He can help us with and for the little things in life. In every situation we find ourselves in if we take the time to look we can find something there we can praise the Lord for. If all we can do is praise the Lord for toilet paper, colorful paint, door handles, crawling ants or anything it gets our mind going in the right direction.

 

When sucked into depression it’s very difficult to find things to praise God for and that’s when we need to start looking at all we see and think about and praise God. It’s a process that un-sticks our praise searcher button that is temporarily blocked from working properly. It’s a way of getting it going again and to beat the stress that has moved in on us.

 

To help out any whose praise searcher button is currently stuck, I will start by praising God naming the things I current see around me, things directly in front of my face. As I go around the room I will leave out on purpose the things that remind me of the bad in life like my cancer, issues with other people, headaches, and worries about my parents wellbeing.

 

Here we go: Praise the Lord for electricity, for lamps it lights up, the computer it keeps running, the TV it makes come alive. Praise you Lord for our black lab sleeping at my feet, the sound of the rooster crowing outside, and the cow bawling for her breakfast to be served. Praise you Lord for warm socks on my feet, pictures of love ones to remind me of the good times in life. Praise you for calendars and the pictures they display. Praise you Lord for the carpet that is soft on my feet and the hardwood floor that still have the skid marks on it from my grandson making a game out of sliding on it. Praise you Lord for the artwork you created just outside my window for me to see as the wind blows the branches on the trees. Praise you for comfortable furniture to sit upon and curtains draping from the windows. Praise you for the sound of a clock chiming, the coffee pot brewing, and the heater running. Praise you Lord that in spite of what I have to deal with in life I have blessings to count and the number one blessing on the list is You, Lord God. Praise you Lord for today and the use of it. Praise you Lord I’m alive to live it, it didn’t have to be me. Praise you that I can live my life to Your glory no matter what. Praise you for loving me.

 

There you go, I went first now it’s your turn to get your praise searcher button unstuck. Bypass the bad and start to praise the Lord anyway no matter what. As you can see there are plenty of things we can praise the Lord for whether we “feel” like it or not. Making the choice to wait until we feel like it is bad for us and good for our enemy so start today for tomorrow will be too late.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for COCWF

I think I'm Having Stress~~~~~ Time to Apply

Along with all the other difficulties stress creates another hard part of it is dealing with it when it’s caused or created by someone else’s behavior. For example, the spouse of an alcoholic, gambler, drug addict, or controller daily their lives can be filled with all sorts of stress. We can either use those situations as excuses to engage in our own bad behavior or stepping stones to a better behavior on our part.

Just because the spouse is sleeping off their beer on the couch or down gambling the family’s money away doesn’t give the spouse the right to do wrong themselves. In these situations this is exactly what it can make you feel like. “Well if they can do it, I might as well too.” As much as that makes sense in our minds it’s not the way it works in God’s eyes.

These moments are thorns in our flesh that like to dig in deeper and deeper but we need to use these times as a classroom for ourselves to learn what we need to learn. God uses our thorns to teach us what we need to learn, to humble us, to show us what faith, trust, and patience is all about.

Therefore we need to get rid of our desire for revenge or our want for pity and pay attention to our teacher Jesus Christ and what He has to say to us. Not all lessons have to be learnt in the school of hard-knocks, many can come straight from God’s word if we would only take the time to study it and apply it to our daily living. Indeed a good technique and great preparation for future thorns and lessons that may be taught in a much harsher way.

I Think I'm having Stress~~ pillar of strength

The emotional "cancer" weekend I was having had followed me into the church come Sunday morning. Knowing I was a little, ok, a lot on the emotional side I had extra Kleenex nearby. Also nearby I had to make sure I formed my own row in the back. Because I am unable to sit and stand very long in the chairs I soon need assistance getting up and down. In order to utilize the church pillar for such a task for the morning worship service I make sure I pull up my own chair next to it and so begins my worship time with the Lord.

Once as I was lifting myself for a song I got to thinking about how I wished my husband was there beside me. With that thought the tears began to pour. The last place my husband wanted to be was in church with me. So again I was all alone as I had been for over thirty years. Obviously my diagnosis of cancer wasn't going to change that.

Looking at other women holding on to their husbands I couldn't help but cry as I held on to the pillar beside. Convincing myself to "Suck it up and not lose it" I decided if that's all I had at my side to lean on then so be it. Truth be known that pillar wasn't all I had to lean on. I had Christ as well. Squeezing past the desire to wallow in self-pity I stood proudly next to my stronghold. To the outside world it looked like a church pillar but from the inside out it was truly Jesus that was keeping me upright.

One tear at a time one ounce of strength at a time. As much as Satan would like us to think it, we are never totally alone when we have Jesus. It can sure feel like it and as we look out at others we get ourselves trapped in the comparison muck and mire that brings our stress level up and our strength down.

Who knows the unmarried lady next door to me could have been looking at me and saying, "At least she has someone waiting for her at home." We need to stand strong and hold on to Jesus and let the rest of life fall around that poise as we increase Jesus' influence in our lives and decrease stress.

I Think I'm Having Stress ~~~~~ Don't Worry

Mt 6:25, 27, 32, 33,34 Therefore I say to you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, or what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? For your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be add to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

 

It has been said if you are going to worry then don’t pray and if you are going to pray then don’t worry. Like anything else we can’t have it both ways. We can’t have our cake and eat it too as they say. When God tells us to not worry about tomorrow then we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow.

 

The hard part about not worrying is not worrying. That makes a lot of sense doesn’t it? But it’s true. From a person who has the tendency to worry it’s hard not to when you have been in situations before and you know what is coming. For example, the wife waiting for her drunk husband to come home. She knows his abusive behavior and therefore anticipates what is to come. She worries about what degree of cruelty his behavior will be that particular night.

 

In such a case it’s hard not to worry. To her I guess you’d have to say, “just trust in the Lord. That no matter what degree of severity your husband’s behavior is the Lord will be watching over you.” You could also look at it in the aspect that worrying is not going to change what is to come. Worrying about how he will behave won’t change his behavior. We can anticipate perhaps what is to come but keep our eyes on Jesus instead of what we fear are approaching.

 

Perhaps together we can figure out what we can do to avoid worrying about something like this and prepare ourselves in a better way. We may not know what we should be doing but we definitely know what we shouldn’t do and that is 1) worry 2) Get mad 3) run from it 4) Hide from it 5) Give in. Just making up our minds before the return of the alcoholic spouse that we are not going to do any of these things gets us ahead on the behavior we are after in Christ.

 

Have you ever heard, “I’m sorry I can’t help but worry about it?” Often we look at worrying as our sacred right or duty. That if we don’t worry about something then we don’t care. These are lies from Satan we need to stay away from. It takes us out of the healthy balance we need to maintain in our lives.

 

We may worry about our child who is driving over the mountain pass for the first time or about grandma who was diagnosed with cancer. These are things that are natural for us to worry about or be concerned over. It’s when we take it too far and stop trusting in Jesus as we try to borrow from tomorrow even more worries then we’ve gone too far. We just need to make up our minds that we are going to pray and leave it all in the hands of the Lord and trust Him to deal with it as He sees fit.

 

“Well what if my alcoholic husband hits me or grandma’s cancer gets worse?” We still are required to trust. Worry about these situations will not change them one bit but trusting God will. God may not see fit to stop the alcoholic husband or cure the cancerous grandma but we need to know in our hearts He knows best. Being concerned is great but worrying beyond our ability to trust in God is not a good thing.

 

We need to exercise our faith instead of allowing our worries to flop us around like a flag whipping in the wind that becomes tattered and torn. Worry doesn’t add anything to the situation but usually more trouble and each day has enough trouble of its own! Amen? Amen!!

 

 

**When I had epilepsy and had to deal with my stress seizures I couldn’t worry about anything without having a seizure. If I wanted to overcome my stress seizures and possibly be cured of my seizures I couldn’t worry about nothing. Everything had to go straight into the hands of God without me playing with it first for days and weeks on end. I had to immediately hand it over to God and allow Him to take care of things. It took five years of practice but I managed to get it done and the cure for my epilepsy came as a reward for my efforts.

 

© 2012 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for COCWF