STRESSED!!!

Today I have no concentration.  Today the paperwork seems endless and the time seems short.  I don't know if you have days or seasons like this.  When all that needs to be done, has to be done... today.  These are the moments that I miss having a partner in crime.  I would call him and tell him that I was having a bad day and he would tell me that he would pray for me, my sweet guy.  Today, I must pray for myself. 

I'll tell you what the problem is: Stress.  I am stressed.  I am.  I think about what I'm dealing with.  What is stress?  It is a strain.  It is allowing the floodgates of what can not be controlled unloosed and now I am sinking beneath its waters.  This is what it feels like.  If I can write about my triumphs, I need to be able to write about my challenges too.  It's just one of those days.  I have an idea of what started this spiral.  I know what is adding to it.  I know what I should be doing.

I am forgetting.  I am forgetting in this business of busyness that I am the daughter of the Most High King.  I am forgetting that everything is in my Father's control.  I am forgetting that He is sovereign even when I am overwhelmed.  God is on His throne.  The war is won.  Death and sin no longer have any power over me.  I am brought to mind Romans 8 especially verses 18-39.

18- For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
25-But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26- Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
28- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
31-32-  What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
37-39- No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So I take a moment and I breathe.  I feel the effects of stress on my neck.  I feel how I have been holding this stress on my shoulders.  I slow down my breathing.  If I don't finish everything what will happen?  Will I lose my salvation?  If I don't get what I want, what will happen?  Will I be a less than person?  No!  If nothing special ever happens to me again, does this mean that I am a nobody?  Does this mean that I lose who I am?  If I am never seen by anyone ever again as attractive or unique, does this mean that I am not worth loving?  No.  I continue, even now- with stress attempting to bite my ankles and bring me down into a dark abyss, to be the daughter of the Most High King.  I am not pained or hurt.  I don't think less of myself because I didn't do something or someone didn't respond to me.  I will sleep.  Tomorrow, if tomorrow shows itself, I will continue to be me.