Stress-Busters

I’m glad I have not yet split my blogs. This one would have to be posted once to Prayer Power and once to Crafts. It belongs in both. It’s about stress, faith, fear, and how busy hands can make it easier to deal with all of those.

We all have stress and fears and worries. Some are financial, like the ones my nephew and I faced last night. Yours are likely to be different (family, illness, abuse, others I’ve listed below).

Briefly, we thought he finally had a firm job offer, a good one, and would be at work this morning. That word had arrived late Thursday. Finally, last night, after futile attempts to contact the contact man to determine starting time, what to wear, etc., we had to admit that, since he had already told us he had not passed his choice through his own superior, his boss must have had a favorite choice that canceled this deal out. We had been frozen from Sunday morning on, finding it next to impossible to concentrate on anything at all.

Frank has no hobbies, so he found other “busy” work - he walked his middle-aged but arthritic legs off fast-walking in our mobile home community, and then hauling out the plug-in shredder and having me toss him piles of stuff we needed to shred. Me, I noticed little balls of scrap yarn and grabbed all the green and tans (many shade variations of those, as it turns out) and began making 12” granny squares for a Yahoo Group that has a Charity Afghan drive in process. We got a lot done - Frank got exercise, we ended up with a lot of shredding, and I have half a dozen squares with green/tan/black. Today, since I’m not at all sure I am back to normal, I’ll start on some raspberry/tan/off-white/burgundy squares. To be truthful, these look so good I will have to force myself to donate them.

Bottom line - when stressed or worried or full of fear, keep the hands busy. It’s something the older generation used to teach us kids during the 40s. Your stress or fear or worries might not be financial as ours are right now, but you might be facing illness (yourself, a loved one), family troubles (troubled youngster, wayward spouse), physical or mental abuse, or more. You might not have a hobby, but you can brush the dogs and cats until their fur comes off; you can work that rock garden outside until the rocks shine, you can, well, you get the drift. Keep the mind busy and you won’t be as likely to drift into frozen self-pity. Not only that, but the routine, mindless activity calms the mind and soothes the soul; solutions often appear; even better, peace creeps in.

Thank you, Lord, for the outlets you give to each of us, each unto our own needs and abilities.