I recently discovered a bald spot on my head. No, it’s not the start of a receding hairline or Female Pattern Baldness. It’s due to stress. When I first found this bald spot, I was suddenly taken back to when I was a little girl. When I would become stressed as a child, I would pull hair from specific areas of my head, creating a bald spot, so when I initially found this new spot as an adult, I immediately knew exactly what it was.
During my recent quiet time, God whispered to me about my stress. He revealed to me some of the reasons that I stress. One reason is so that others might see all the responsibility that I have and see me as being important because of it. Many of us fall trapped to the thought that “if I show that I am overwhelmed and constantly busy, then I am obviously important.” Apparently, my thoughts lead to me thinking that the level of responsibility + level of stress = level of importance.
As hard and heartbreaking as it may be to admit, I am not that important. Gasp! I am no more important than anyone else. The cold, hard truth is, if I am stressed then I am not exercising proper boundaries as a responsible adult. It’s also impossible for others to make me stress or “stress me out.” This happens due to lack of boundaries on my part. My personal stress is never anyone else’s fault.
Another reason I tend to be stressed is so that when I screw up, I have something, other than myself, to blame it on. “It’s clearly stress’ fault that I screwed up and not my own.” This would mean that I am officially off the hook for any mistakes that I make. As a child, I could sometimes be vulnerable to other’s decisions and mistakes. As an adult, I am responsible for my own. Like it or not.
Now that I am an adult, the stress that is implied on me is different than when I was a child. As an adult, I am able to somewhat control my environment. I am more able to say yes and no to certain things, instead of having things forced upon me.
The great reality is, Our Father God, who created me and lives in me, holds multiple universes in His hands, and yet He does not stress. He has multiple people telling Him what to do on a regular basis and giving Him a timeline or deadline to do it by. Yeah! I’ll be the first to raise my hand on that one! Yet, He does not stress. Genesis 1:27 tells us that “we were created in the image of God.” If this is true, and God knows no stress, then maybe I shouldn’t stress either. If He takes care of all of the universes, can’t He take care of tiny me?
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
