Take Stress & Anxiety Off Your Holiday List!
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<God said to Solomon pertaining to Wisdom>, “(32) For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; (33) but whoever listens to <God> will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”.’ (Proverbs 1:32-33); ‘(6) Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. (7) Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.’ (1 Peter 5:6-7)
As we enter the holiday season, there is the anticipation of joy and a time of enjoyment with family and friends, and we have an early outlook of finishing the year in a relaxing tone. The reality is the holidays are typically an extremely stressful time. We start with Thanksgiving, and either we need to travel or prepare to host others for the Thanksgiving dinner. Either can cause stress; driving to destinations involves a lot of traffic, flying involves a rush to and from and through the airport – twice (once coming and once going).
Hosting means getting the ingredients to cook the entire Thanksgiving dinner, ensuring the turkey is ready to cook Thursday morning or early afternoon, set up, presentation, and clean up. Then comes Christmas starting on Black Friday; the unpacking, setup, and placing of the tree and decorations, the shopping, the wrapping, and either shipping the gifts or prepping them to travel or prepping to host others, followed by the cleanup and tear down.
Much of the holiday stress, though, is self-inflicted. Many get caught up in the ‘hype’ of needing everything perfect for the holidays, or the need to get the ‘#1 gift of the season’. Some decide to be that first shopper in the door at 5:00AM on Black Friday, or book that last minute flight out on Thanksgiving morning or Christmas Eve.
God, however, doesn’t want us to stress like this. As God stated to Solomon in Proverbs 1, if we tune into the Wisdom that the Lord provides His people through the Holy Spirit, He will provide us a means to avoid the stress. Traveling doesn’t have to be rushed if one leaves early, and shopping can now be done online (and many stores now start ‘Black Friday’ at the beginning of November – a praise for sure!).
Even for those who host, there is no rule stating Thanksgiving for your family has to be on Thursday; it can be adjusted to when everyone can arrive safely. One year, Shirley and I held Christmas two weeks early as the movers were coming the week before Christmas to pack us up for our move to Florida. We place deadlines on ourselves that don’t have to be so rigid that we kill ourselves to meet.
If you start to get anxious or overwhelmed, take a few minutes to stop and ask the Lord for His peace and guidance to lead you. Peter tells us God wants us to turn to Him when we become stressed and anxious, as His strength overcomes our ability to put ourselves in real or imaginary pickles. We build rigid obstacles in our mind that in reality don’t exist, but those can be overcome when we allow God to lead us and allow Him to overcome those hurdles. God, of course, is not just talking about the holidays but in our everyday lives and everyday circumstances – He wants you to follow Him and avoid the mines in the minefield!
