I Hold You in the Palm of My Hand
Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
2 Kings 20:5 I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you.
Psalms 55:22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved.
Proverbs 12:25 Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad
Isaiah 41:10 Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. `
Matthew 6:25-27, 34 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; not about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? . . . Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight
Philippians 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
I know during the years being a teen through young adulthood, I thought I was pretty much in charge of my life. I made decisions, many, many the wrong ones, wrong choices, and then dealt with consequences. I would bet, most of my life at that time was spent being jittery. I fought mental battles of “what if…..but then what if this…..or what if that….” A constant state of anxiety.
I fretted, worried, and always felt ready to burst in frustration, sometimes anger, and consistently wondered if I would make such a mess of my life and my son’s life that I would never be able to look at anything with success; a job well done.
The pressure was applied by me, believing I was in charge of everything in my life. ICU nursing was my profession and while working full time, raising a child, I went to school to get my bachelor’s degree. There were times my self imposed pressure and expectations had me not sleeping well, feeling tense all the time, had difficulty being truly relaxed. I worried about meeting goals, including spending quality time with my son, seeing my family and spending good time with them, and so forth, and money; it seemed we never had enough to get him a treat, I was always juggling. WE all live stressful lives, and many of us impose more pressure on ourselves believing that we are totally in charge of what will happen in our lives.
Since I started depending on God—which did not come about for several years after I believed and called Him my Savior, my stress has eased. I initially believed He created the world, that Jesus came to earth and and ultimately was killed, nailed to a cross to be our atonement for our sins, a sacrifice in place of the death we each deserve. We are sinners; He was sinless. But I did not place Him at the top of MY life. He had so much to do, how could He want to be bothered with the stresses in my life? It wasn’t as though I was praying over someone close who had been hurt in a serious accident, praying for some awful illness in a friend or family member. This was my life…but no big deal or care to someone else. Right?
It took a lot of wasted years on my part before I came to know He DOES CARE, VERY MUCH, FOR EVERYTHING GOING ON IN MY LIFE. AND IN THE LIVES OF ALL WHO HAVE CHOSEN HIM AS THEIR SAVIOR. But we don’t always believe that. We still hold onto a bit of the control we think we have.
That was and is not true. I can only be responsible for doing my best at whatever I am attempting. There are many things that I don’t do well: I am not and never will be able to be an artist. Now, I can do some geometric designs and color them in, but there truly is no skill in the art work I can do. But I can not draw a decent fruit basket, draw a person, or even a nice looking tree. I am not blessed with that gift. I have several other gifts, but art/drawing/ painting are not included; although I can do a decent paint-by-number.
Gardening with flowers, writing, teaching some things, reading are some of the gifts I do have.
For years I only reached out to God to thank Him for something that awed me—gorgeous mountains, dolphins, hummingbirds, lovely flowers, family, friends and so forth. But I did not start and ask Him to help me each day, and expect Him to be there. I believed me and mine was not that important compared to some of the horrific, tragic things happening throughout the world. Why would He care about me, about us since all seemed to be going well and smoothly for us? I was fairly young, healthy, handling my responsibilities—albeit with stress feelings and worries. However, in the scheme of things, my worries were minute, right?
But God does care. He wants us to know He cares about everything for each of us. He wants us to come and chat with Him on a daily basis. God guides our paths and our steps and decisions IF we choose to listen and allow Him to. He wants what is best for us. That is NOT to say we will not have times that are rough and difficult to walk through. Those are our valleys, and Jesus promised that while walking through this life we would have problems.
But IF we place our eyes on Him, He will walk us through. We will still have problems, but if we trust Him and seek Him, we will get through because He is with us. By placing our trust in God, knowing He cares about each of those who follow Him, even if and when we have problems, we can have confidence that He has our best interests in His plans.
When I chose to keep God in first place, my life became less stressful. Well, that is not true. The responsibilities, stresses, workload and so forth remained the same, but when I CHOSE to seek His input on my questions, decisions, then I felt less stressed, less anxiety. It seemed I felt more capable and I doubted that I was making an incorrect decision. My confidence was better because I was NOT alone making these life decisions.
After a fairly short time, it was fairly easy to see I had been carrying a load and increasing my burden when I hadn’t needed to; God would help me carry my burdens and lessen my load. Why, oh, why had I been so resistant, so obstinate thinking I was in charge, thinking I was responsible for the decisions on my own? But, obviously, the fault was mine in delaying to turn to Him.
I can’t tell you everything smoothed out and I never had a bad period. But it never felt as overwhelming as when I was not leaning on Him. My choice to follow His lead, to seek His guidance and light on my path, then waiting for His direction, lightened my load. There were times I still wondered how I could be so important to Him that He would care, but even though I did not feel important enough for Him to worry about, He showed up.
Over the years, I have just learned to increase my trust in Him, and life with its problems has continued, but less stressful. My coping with issues feels less stressful. I have the confidence of not flummoxing about on my own, If I listen and seek His counsel, He is more than happy to direct me. I need only seek, listen and follow—and not go traipsing about with anxiety ad stress and making all kinds of bad decisions.
Thank You for all You do and have done for me and ‘mybellaviews.’
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