Our Companion Stress



I have been praying today about a mountain in my life I am having difficultly climbing, I feel like my knees and ankles are giving out, and I am considering letting go. I have been praying all morning asking God to give direction on whether I should push in with stress and continue to climb, or let go. My mind and feelings at the moment want to take the easy way by releasing the mountain.

Have you ever climbed a mountain? If you do not have a firm commitment, strong knees, ankles, and arms you will not make it to the top! I have experienced it personally and you never forget the climb, even if you don't make it to the summit.

As usual right after I prayed, and spoke my concern to my husband and close friends a revelation entered my life. I opened an email from my aunt with a link to a web page titled Enjoy the Ride. If you have a moment it is worth taking a few minutes to view. I am still on the theme the Climb, by the way, Miley's video is amazing and the words go deep into the heart, I have watched it at least 30 times.

What stood out for me from Enjoy the Ride was: "Remember you are blessed to be stressed." A few month's ago, I visited a man in his early 70's who was dying with cancer.

As we shared our stories, he asked me how I was doing in my life. I shared with him how there were issues in my life that were causing stress. His reply startled me. He looked at me and with a soft voice said, "Robin, I wish I had the strength and blessing to get stressed." I was speechless after his reply, and left his room with a deep thought to mediate upon. He has since passed away, but today I was reminded of his startling words.

I am blessed! I am still alive and still have strength to hold on. I need to keep pushing in even if stress is my companion on the climb. I will make it, if I don't and fall off the cliff, well at least I tried! Life is about embracing the story before us, loving others and self well, and keeping our faith in Christ.

What mountain are you facing today that would be nice to let go of, but in your heart you know you need to continue pushing forward?

How do you view stress at this moment in your life? Is stress a companion to push you forward as a blessing, or an enemy who is stopping you from pushing in and growing?

I went back and watched the video, Enjoy the Ride again, and what the quote actually said was: "Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed." Yes we are, but stress still comes and we need to have a good perspective on whether it is a companion or foe.

Tim Challies had a great comment concerning his journey with memorization: "The great joy I've found in memorization is not in the future but in the present--in the actual moment of memorizing. As great as it is to be able to bring Scripture to mind at a future date, even better is having the structure around which I pause often to meditate on a new passage, repeating it over and over, looking for its meaning, looking for its nuances."

Our journey in life is like this, we need to take time pause and ask God what is He doing and where is He leading...

Love to all,
Robin

P.S The picture is of mountains near Mount Robson just after Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.

Comments

Andrea said…
"Blessed to be stressed" what a testimony!! I choose to keep climbing my mountain...right into my Heavenly Father's arms.

Blessings and prayers to you as you journey forward..andrea
Robin said…
Andrea I am praying for you as you climb your mountain. Blessings to you and it amazing how we build community on the internet. You and Alle were both on my heart today in prayer. Pax Robin
Robin said…
No more blogging for today I have a mountain to climb. : )
Saleslady371 said…
Thank you, Robin, for this. It is very encouraging!
Anonymous said…
ahh! that video has me in tears, it is so profoundly beautiful. Where do you find this stuff!?
xo
Robin said…
Deb as I wrote it was after sharing my dilemma with you that it came to me! LOL It was in my email box. Treasures are all around us. Thank you for your friendship. I went back and watched it again, and it had me in tears on the third round. I took the suggestion and went for a walk, while I was out I watched a young man who was out walking with his guide dog, he was enjoying life and he had a huge hurdle in his journey. What do I have to complain about.

Saleslady thanks for being part of my blogging journey, it is great to be making friends in the blogging world.

Love to you both...

Deb you need to re-evaluate the decision for the fall. ; )
Warren Baldwin said…
Robin,
I started a comment to this, switched pages for a minute, and when I came back my comments were gone. So ... if they pop up somewhere on your site, that explains it.

I appreciated the quote from the man in his 70s about wishing he had the strength to feel stress and from the man who shows the value for today of memorizing scripture. I'll bet both of these helped.

I find Psalm 103:19 - "The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all." This comes after a lengthy discussion about how he separates our sin from us.

Another is in Psalm 11. After the Psalms lists some of pressures he is facing (metaphorically), hesays, "The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne." (v.3) It's as if he is saying, "All these things that trouble me? Well, I've got something bigger on my side." (I wrote a post on this passage: http://warrenbaldwinbiblefountain.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-foundations-fall.html)

Whatever your mountain is, you are handling the climb in the right way: 1) God 2) Scripture 3) Spiritual friends.

wb
Warren Baldwin said…
Just watched, "Enjoy the Ride." I can see why you liked it so much. My favorite line: "What other people think of you is none of your business." Never thought of that before, but it is true! Their thougths are their thoughts, not mine, so why stress over them?!
Peter Stone said…
Challenging post, and a decision we all have to make repeatedly. Do we yield to the stress, or become an overcomer in Christ, and receive the blessings He has for the overcomers.

I've had my share of times I have fled the stress, but the Lord has taken me across (and is taking me across) many mountains I could not avoid - through His strength. Mine is so inadequate.

God bless :)
sojourner said…
nice perspective on stress - i've done some mountain climbing and it was always good to feel a little stress on the cimbing rope during difficult movements because it reminded me that i was on belay (spelling?) in life we know that Christ holds the other end of the rope and stress means that we are relying on Him to make it over the difficult movements - thanks for the reminder!

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