Wearing Out My Heart

I remember when I shared with my sister in law that my husband was struggling with high blood pressure. She gave me some good advice about getting that taken care of since it would wear on and out his heart, making it work too hard. High blood pressure is dangerous and feels horrible. But you know what? Anxiety trumps high blood pressure any day of the week. It will wear.you.out. body and soul. 


"Anxiety in the heart of a man weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad." ~Proverbs 12:25


Anxiety happens when I have taken my cares and pile them up in my heart as problems I need to solve. I start to act like the god of my own life. I take it on and then it takes on me until it takes me over. Little by little the burdens pile high on my shoulders and weigh me down until I can barely breathe. I am wearing out my heart. 


"Cast all your cares upon the Lord, because he cares for you."  ~1 Peter 5:7


I am so thankful for a God that not only created me, not only loved me enough to die for me and adopt me as his child, but who loves me enough to take on my cares and worries. 


So today, my priority is to make a long stinkin' list of ALL my worries and cares and stresses and anxieties. I am laying them down. I am giving them over to God. I am going to let him figure them out, I am going to focus only on walking with him and doing the next thing and the next thing that is before me. I am going to stop walking in those things that only he can work out.


"When I am afraid, I will trust in you." ~Psalm 56:3


Can I get an "AMEN?" Who's with me? Who else is sick of staying up too late and waking up too early? Who else would like to give up tension headaches, an upset stomach and a tight chest? 


~Finances that don't add up...

~Heartbreak you watch in your children that you can't fix...

~Learning challenges in your kids...

~Loved ones that don't know Jesus...

~Health problems that doctors have no answers for...

~Future plans you wish you knew now...

~A to-do list longer than the day...

~A straying child...

~The house falling apart...or the cars doing the same only quicker...

~The impossibility of college costs...

~Relationship problems...


Like high blood pressure wears out the heart, so worry and anxiety take a terrible toll on our hearts and minds and souls. We're carrying things we were not built to carry. Would you make your small child carry the furniture during a move? Neither would our heavenly Father ask us to carry these burdens of ours. He tells us to give them to him because he loves us and he knows he has not built us to carry them. We need to give them to him so completely that we let him handle it and we stop worrying about it! Let's give it up and give it over!

"Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all." ~2 Thessalonians 3:16