Stress Confessions

"anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult." 

"What if I opened the clenched hands wide to receive all that is? A life that receives all of God in this moment? How do you do that when the terror tears up your throat..." 

"Stress isn't only a joy stealer. The way we respond to it can be sin."

"I've got to get this thing, what it means to trust, to gut-believe it's true: I can't fill with joy until I learn how to trust: May the God of hope fill you with all JOY and peace as you TRUST in him, so that you may overflow ~Romans 15:13" 

"Isn't joy worth the effort of trust? -Because I kid no one: stress brings NO joy." 

"Anything less than gratitude and trust is practical atheism" 

~Quoted from One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp 

picture credit to "the Boss"

Yes, I am still reading this book... This has been a long LONG journey for me, Learning to give thanks in all situations is a daily discipline and sadly sometimes I lay it aside for the chaos that seems to surround me and delve into focus on it instead.  There is nothing like anxiety that eats you alive... NOTHING

It leaves your heart bruised, your soul worn thin and your emotions deeply injured.

It leaves you feeling like you have no worth, like you are a failure.

I have only to open the Psalms and see that David struggled through many of the same emotions in different circumstances. I open this book and discover that even in the last quarter it is still a skill being learned...

Thankfulness Eucharisteo 

"He gave us Jesus. JESUS! Gave Him up for us all.... - If God didn't withhold from us His very own Son, will God withhold anything we need? 

If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your name on the cracked lips?" ~Ann Vosckamp