It is great to have a dream of living stress free, but let’s face the facts. You will always be subject to stressful situations. The key is to develop control over how you handle these situations in your life. This will not happen over a short period of time. It is a journey that you must take. Your goal should be to always strive to get better. You should be able to look back at times in your life that you were put in a tough spot and compare how you handled it then to how you would handle it now.
There are some areas in your journey that a little stress is a good thing. Learn how to embrace these times and not let them take control over you and your emotions. Paul writes in the letter to the church in Rome (Romans 5:3-5 ESV) “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Think back through your life and your experiences that have helped produce your character. Some of them have been stressful, I am sure. Knowing what you do now, how would you get through these same situations? Would it be easier and less stressful? Too often, we get wrapped up in the moment and think about all of the things that can go wrong. Why can’t we just think about all of the things that can go right and rejoice in it?
I remember helping with a children’s musical and how we worried about getting the lighting just right. It was very frustrating to not be able to figure out the control panel for the spot lights. We tried everything, with no luck. All we could think about was what it would be like to have areas of the stage with lower light levels than the rest. Finally, I had to convince myself that the parents in the audience were there to see their kids act and sing and praise The Lord with their musical. Their praises would be adored in any level of light. We forgot what was really important and stressed over something that we should not have. I look back at the experience now and can see that no one noticed or cared about the lights. Would it have been better with more lights? Yes, probably so, but did it take away from the experience without it? No.
Embrace your struggles instead of stressing over them. Remember what is truly important in life and it is normally not what we put so much stress into. These struggles will only make you stronger in the end.
