Are You Stressed?

If you haven’t read my “about me” page, I want to be a journalist when I grow up and something I learned from that is the importance of a good headline. If this headline compelled you to click on this then I feel like this will be a good post for you.

I may seem like the kind of person that just stares off into space and reads all the time, but… wait I do that. Oops. Not a good example. Anyway, despite that, I have as busy of a schedule as any other middle schooler. By the time I climb into my bed at the end of the day, my social battery is in the negatives, my mind is whirling with all the things I need to remember to do the next day, and it is probably really late. Nothing is better than the promise of seven hours of sleep after a day of stress and exhaustion! (sorry it's really hard to type sarcasm)

Through all of this, I had the very sad mindset of: “I’ll get that thing done. I’ll feel better tomorrow. I can sleep in on Saturday. Just get through this week.” For the record if you just try to “get through” your entire life you are going to be standing in front of God to go into Heaven and He’s going to say, “Sure you got through, but what did you do?” Hmmm. Something to think about. Also that rhymed. This wasn’t the point I was trying to make though. Get back on topic, Katherine!

So, I had all these things slowly building up on me, and you may have noticed my mindset referred to me helping myself. By doing that I was taking the burden more on myself which made things worse. I usually have pretty good self-awareness, but I actually failed to notice any of this. That is, until the little stress pimples made an appearance and marched across my forehead. Lucky me. NOT. I was actually going to name this post ‘What my pimples taught me.’ Count yourself lucky.

Thankfully, I got the hint and thought I'd pray about it. Praying is so awesome! You can literally talk to God about everything! If you ever say you have no one to talk to about something you're wrong. I realized how I could not do this on my own. I gave it to God. I literally said, “God I can’t do all this. I’m giving it to you.” The next morning, no joke, I felt lighter. That night I wasn’t pestered with the things I had to do invading my quiet time. I’m not saying my homework was magically done on the counter. (I wonder what God’s handwriting looks like?) I still had to work, but I had so much peace of mind. Pressure to do the things myself had weighed me down. I didn’t realize God was standing there willing to take that burden. Now I'm happy and I trust Him to be there when I need it. A song called Where the Joy Is by We Are Messengers says, “Joy's not a place it's a disposition.” A place can bring me joy, but I can be joyful wherever I go! I don’t have to be stressed, because I don’t have to do everything myself. Yay! (Yes, I say yay. You don’t?)

Try to spot the lyric I mentioned in the song! Click below!