A week of stress

Any of you with chronic health issues know that sometimes the hastle of going to doctors and the many and varied "treatments" can be quite a pain in the behind.  This week my doctor told me to try a Gluten free diet for 5 months.  Gluten is hard to avoid, and even though I have tried wheat free on and off gluten is in a lot of things that you wouldn't expect like sauces even soy sauce!   It just adds stress to my day to have to monitor everything I am eating and it takes a lot more energy to eat healthy than it does to eat something that is pre-prepared.  (I do make most of our meals from scratch but I do enjoy having easy things in the freezer for when I can't cook).   It's stressful to see people's reaction to any new diet that my doctor has me trying, or to just have to plan so far ahead for meals.

This week also, my sweet Farmer Boy started year 2 of the 3 years he had transferring into the teaching program.  He has been gone 12 hours most days and when he gets home he has been up til 12 or 1 doing homework til he can't stay awake any longer.  The impact on me of having a husband in school and working 2 sometimes 3 jobs is more stress (oh and a lot of being proud of such a hard working handsome Husband!).   I really enjoy my life and the fact that much of it is so stress free and relaxing.  I feel guilty when I am sleeping in and taking naps during the day, or when I get to just be at home for a lot of my time.  I wish I could contribute more financially to help get him through school.  While my odd jobs do help us out, I want to do more!  I've been working all week on trying to figure out ways that I could get more brides and grooms to hire me for floral work for their weddings.  I've been so frustrated because I want to do so much more.  And with all this stress that I have been putting on myself I've been in more pain. 

The stress of life is inevitable.  No one rich or poor, healthy or not, young or old, is totally immune to stress.  But what we can control is our reaction to it.  Do you put it on ourselves or do we turn first to God and lay every stressful thing at His feet and TRUST HIM to take care of it?  I'm trying to learn the balance between trusting God and being willing to take action in my life.  I haven't figured it all out yet - but I do know that God gives me responsibility and that with that sometimes there is stress.  It becomes sin when I let that stress take my focus off of God and onto myself and the situation.  I need to allow Him to speak peace into the areas of stress in my life, while being willing to work hard when He tells me to.  The lesson from this week is just to not let the stresses of life get me down but to keep going and most of all to lay those stresses at the foot of the Savior allowing Him to work through even the things I would love to not deal with in my life.