The Blessed Out Life

Wow.  You have a lot on your plate.  You have two kids in high school.  You're the PTA president.  You're the Club Swim Team Fundraising Committee Chairperson.  You are involved in a small group at church.  You have this friend you're trying to help through a divorce.  You're trying to watch your weight and cook healthy for your family, so you're growing grain in the backyard, but you feel guilty because you keep forgetting to water it and it's dying.  Your kids will probably have Thiamin deficiencies because they don't have a good source of organic hand-ground wheat berries. 

Gosh.  You really have a lot going.  You are working so hard on that class project.  I'm really amazed at how you carry the weight of the work of your team.  It's a wonder you fit it in what with organizing language partners for the International Club's exchange students, and tutoring young impoverished children.  Your girlfriend must be so proud to be dating someone who is so plugged in at the university.

I don't know how you do it.  I really don't.  You closed the deal that Harper, the guy down in marketing, wouldn't even touch.  You are a real go-getter.  I can see you going places, you know?  You take your work so seriously.  You never quit before the job's done.  I can't even wrap my mind around how you have time to be on the city council at the same time! 

Have I petted your ego enough yet?  Ok.  Now that it's sufficiently inflated, let me do us all a huge favor and be frank with you. 

You love being stressed.

Ha, you say, I do NOT love being stressed.  That's the silliest thing I've ever heard.  Do you actually think I LIKE feeling the weight of the world (or at least the weight of committee A-Z, team blah blah blah and organization zeta theta alpha beta) on my shoulders?  I just don't know what to do.  It's wearing me out, but they need me.  I can't just leave them in a lurch, whatever a lurch is.  (Does anyone know?)  Feeling stressed is not a fun thing, it's just an unfortunate part of my life right now.

You love being stressed.

It's fulfilling.  It makes you feel important.  It makes you feel needed.  If you have things to worry about, you feel like you have a purpose in life. 

Let me clue you into something… You have a purpose in life, but it is not being stressed about things you have no control over.  Allow me to give you a list of the things you are in control over, just for the sake of being organized.

- Your reactions. 

That's it.  As a matter of perspective, let me give you the short list of things you don't have control over, again, just to keep us organized.

- The price of tea in China

- Disease

- Death

- Elections

- The economy

- Your job

- Your family

- The weather

- Your friends

- The jerk who backs into your new car

- Germs

- Your cat

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  So, just to review, your purpose is not to stress over things you don't have control over.  What about the one thing you do have control over?  No, that's not your purpose either. 

You're sitting there asking yourself, well geez louise, what the heck am I supposed to stress out about?!

You are supposed to stress out over - wait for it - nothing.  Stress is evil.  You might think that it makes you feel important, but really it's pilfering your joy, screwing up your priorities, oh, and it can physically kill you. 

So what's the solution, the magic Easy Button from Staples that will solve your stressed out life problems.  You can't just decide, oh, I'm not going to be stressed anymore, I've had enough.  I know, all you strong personality willpower people are disagreeing with me right now, but you can't.  You will fail, and chances are, that will stress you out more.  The problem with trying to get rid of stress is stress isn't the problem. 

Think about it.  You know people who have a huge potential for stress.  Life is kicking them while they're down.  They have a disease or a child with a terminal illness or they've experienced loss on a scale we find unimaginable.  Their circumstances are off the charts difficult, and yet, they have the audacity to possess this peace that is over and above anything we can wrap our minds around.  What's their deal!? 

They're looking reality in the face.  They know the God who holds the universe in the hollow of His hand.  They realize He loves them more than anyone else does, and He will give them strength to endure whatever happens.  They know they are significant, not because they win the award for Most Community Service Hours or Fullest Daytimer Ever, but because they were created on purpose for a purpose. 

They are important for reasons independent of their actions.  They matter because God says so, simple as that.  You can't solve stress by removing stressors from your life or just gritting your teeth.  You can only solve stress by understanding who God is and who He says you are and believing that to the moon and back. 

I hope you do.  I hope you give up trying to fix your stress problems and start looking at what you're believing.  I hope I do too.  I hope I relinquish the mirage that I might have control over anything in my life.  I hope instead of seeing myself as stressed out, I can walk through my week realizing I'm blessed out instead.  Blessed circumstantially, but even if that changes, I'm blessed with a hope that never quits.

Go meet your Monday,

Little Miss Sunshine