The experts define stress as our body’s way of responding to any kind of external demand or threat. In other words: your life feels out of control.
Stress doesn’t just bother us. It overwhelms us. Stress can trigger other troubling emotions such as fear, anger, irritability, anxiety, depression, isolation, panic attacks loneliness and more.
Our stress response1 is the body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life—giving you extra strength to defend yourself, for example, or spurring you to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident.
When stress grips our body, what do we want right then more than anything else: rest and peace. Right?
Stress impacts folks differently, depending on the life event causing the stress. A pair of psychologists studied stress and assigned numeric values to a variety of life events causing stress. They call them Life Change Units, or LCU’s. Here are a few and their numeric values:2
- Death of a spouse–100
- Divorce–73
- Marriage–50 [Shouldn’t this number be higher?] :>)
- Pregnancy–40
- Trouble with in-laws–29
- Change in sleeping habits–16
1To review all the LCU’s or evaluate your stress level by the numbers now, click here.
However, all the LCU’s and psychologists and doctors and stress management books and tapes and websites can’t begin to relieve our stress as thoroughly and as quickly as these proven stress relievers.
Try these infallible stress relievers:
You want rest?
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and humble in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30.
My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from Him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, I will never be shaken. Psalm 61:1-2
You want peace?
You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; [Talk to God about your stress] and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Here’s another: In the middle of your struggle and trials with stress, just keep repeating the name, Jesus. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
A note to ye of little faith in these stress relievers:
You may think just saying scripture is bogus. “No way quoting scripture is going to relieve my stress.”
I would ask you, have you tried it? If not, why? What’s do you have to lose except stress?
If you’ve tried it and it doesn’t seem to work for you: Keep quoting. Keep meditating. Keep memorizing and keep remembering:
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11
1 This paragraph taken from HelpGuide.org
2 To see statistics for stress indicators, click here.
They can’t tell you where the storm will strike, when the storn will strike, or how bad the storm will be. Weather savvy meteoroligists at the TV station draw this wide cone on the screen hedging their bets with their best scientific guesses. It’s called the cone of uncertainty. It’s used to describe where weather experts believe the eye of the storm could possibly travel.
For years I toiled under the weight of a “works” oriented salvation. I believed that to please God I had to work to earn His favor and His grace. When I did good things I believed my deeds were pleasing to God and, for the moment, I had gained His favor. But, when I sinned (and I did. A lot) I believed, even when I repented, God would make me pay with some consequence or retribution. I considered it, “Waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
For His Glory 