Blessed is the one who trusts in you! (Psalm 84:12)
As I sunk into the all too comfortable couch in my newly found counselor’s office, I felt my walls begin to lower. As I worked quickly to catch her up on the last eight months of life, she listened with a trained but awkward silence. Eventually she interjected: “you know, out of the top ten major changes in life . . . those that create the most stress . . . you hit at least three of them.” Typically I am not an overachiever but crushing a third of a top ten list came with a weird sense of accomplishment for me. She explained that the different emotions I had been feeling were in fact consequences of something bigger. The anger, sense of loss, and numbness were secondary to the change. Emotions are funny.
Stress is an indicator of what is truly vital in our lives. How we handle it might be the most important thing we do in life. There comes times in this life where the weight of our burden becomes impossible to carry alone. The tax of this modern life exhaust even the most stubborn of souls. The beauty of faith is found in a blessed partnership. Our stressors are shared with our savior. When life becomes too cumbersome, we have a pardoner who patiently evokes strength in His children. Like any great parent, He chooses the more difficult task of instruction than doing the labor for them. The key to this, and it is the greatest task of man, is to trust in the silence. We must trust something bigger than us when life becomes too large for our abilities. The result of this trust is the abundant life that our Lord promises (John 10:10). Perhaps the key to diminishing stress is found in the letting go of the things we can no longer control.
Matt simon blog 