My Control

As we sang the song "Unashamed Love" at Sunday Nights at school, the opening lines really caught my attention:

"You're calling me to lay aside the worries of my day. To quiet down my busy mind and find a hiding place."

This is one of my biggest faults - and incidentally it has also become a health problem for me. My doctor says that I am so stressed out that my body doesn't know how to handle it anymore. How crazy is that?!

For the past week or so I have been reading this book called "Making Stress Work for You." It's an older book, probably written in like the 1980's or something - but my dad says that the concepts are really good; so, he gave it to me to read. Surprisingly, the concepts really are good and helpful. I am only in like chapter 4 or 5, but I have learned a lot from it. The theme of the book is really about letting go and letting God.

But as I sang that song tonight I began to think about much my stress level affects me - it affects my physical health, my mental health, my relationships, my school work. It affects EVERYTHING - even my relationship with God. Then I thought, well how much different could everything be if I just gave it over to God and didn't stress about anything anymore. He is calling me, telling me, pleading with me to give it to him to carry because he knows that it is too heavy for me to carry on my own. But I am stubborn and won't do it. For some reason I have to carry my silly burden of stress around - I think it's all about my having to be in control of everything all the time. And as much as I want to lay aside my worries and quiet down my busy mind, I can't. Or more so I won't. I can't reason with myself that my life would be so much better if I just gave it to God - and less stressful :) But doing that would mean relinquishing control and that's a scary thought for a control freak like myself.

My boyfriend was joking around with me last week about how I need to learn how not to be in control. But I think that was God's way of saying, "Hey, Audra, take a hint.....give it to me"

I hate "Ah ha" moments like this because it means that I have to give up something I don't want to. So my goal for this upcoming week is to relinquish the control of my stress. I am going to do as the song says and "quiet down my busy mind" by giving it to God.

So God, help me to give up my stress and my worries to you. Help me to learn how to let you carry it all and for me to just give all control to you. I pray that I will use this week to start giving my stresses to you and that through this I will have a healthier life and relationship with you.