Stress is a Choice

So I'm still reading One Thousand Gifts.  Sometimes I just need to put a book down and come back to it a couple of weeks later if I'm not completely focused on what I'm reading.  I'm in the middle of Chapter 8 which talks a lot about stress and fear.

I know I can easily get caught up in day-to-day things and think that I am stressed.  This definitely happened more when I was working, as I always felt like I was either coming or going.  I was worried about meeting expectations at work and also meeting my expectations as a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend.  It was difficult for me to find an appropriate balance between all of my obligations.  Voskamp points out that stress and fear really are the opposite of having a strong faith.


... Stress isn't only a joy stealer.  The way we respond to it can be sin.  I stand in the laundry room looking out at the barn, knowing that stress stands in direct opposition to what He directly, tenderly commands: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me" (John 14:1)  I know an untroubled heart relaxes, trusts, leans assured into His ever-dependable arms.  Trust, it's the antithesis of stress.  "Oh the joys of those who trust in the Lord" (Psalm 40:4).  But how to learn trust like that?  Can trust be conjured up simply by sheer will, on command?  I've got to get this thing, what it means to trust, to gut-believe in the good touch of God toward me, because it's true: I can't fill with joy until I learn how to trust: "May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow" (Romans 15:13)  The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the caress of the Lover, Lover who never burdens His children with shame or self-condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace...


Everyday I hear people tell me how stressed they are, but I have to believe Voskamp on this one.  We get stressed because we see life us ourself versus the world.  If we think that way, stress will take over, but what if we trusted and placed it all on God like He has told us to do.  With God, we can take on anything.  By trusting God, we can believe that whatever we are going through is for a reason and that we will make it through.  God is always with us, even in the darkest of times, but we often don't realize that until after we have walked through the valley and are looking back on the experience.

If authentic, saving belief is the act of trusting, then to choose stress is an act of disbelief...atheism.


That is difficult to hear and it's something most would probably say isn't true.  It's not saying that by not trusting we completely do not believe in God.  However, in the hard times, when we feel overwhelmed and completely lost, we are not believing that He is really with us.

When we first learned that Madelyn had a problem with her brain (while I was still pregnant), I will completely admit that I did not trust that things would be OK and that I was mad that this was happening to me.  I felt like I was being punished for something that I did wrong at some point in my life.  I had moments of hope and faith, but I also had many sleepless nights where I was scared of what was ahead of me.  The kicker is that I was scared of something that I would love to have right now.  I would love for Madelyn to still be here, even if she was severely cognitively delayed.  At the time, I felt like I wouldn't be able to take care of her the way she needed and was scared of how it would change our family dynamic.  I know now that God would have gotten me through it.  Obviously, God had a different path for us to take and took Madelyn to Heaven way earlier than most.  If she wouldn't have been taken from us, I would still be the anxious, stressed, and faith-lacking person that I was before.  I have no idea what God has in store for me.  No matter what it is, I know he is by my side.