Stress and Prayer

Our house went on the market recently. Our cute little house in a cute little cul-de-sac. This is the first home we bought together – we fell in love with the vaulted ceilings and sunroom the minute we walked in. Never mind the cedar siding that needed to be replaced, or the rotting deck out back, or the nasty carpet in the basement, or the random repairs that the previous owner had rigged. We loved the location and the neighborhood, and worked to make the house our own. We painted, replaced flooring, replaced siding, fixed the roof and deck, replaced windows, and planted flowers. It was – and still is – the cutest home we could have imagined for ourselves. Then, we found out I was pregnant with our first baby. We created his room ourselves. We cleared out the furniture, picked paint and new furniture, bought curtains, replaced trim, decorated, and organized. We had just finished washing and hanging all his little clothes in the closet when Jason was born. We walked through the door of our home with him, three days old and seven pounds, and proudly showed him his room that we had so lovingly prepared for him.

 (Jason's room, in progress)

 

We’ve sat on the front patio, drinking wine, and listening to the frogs at night. We have invited friends and neighbors into our home for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and parties (until our guests started falling through the rotting boards in the backyard deck). We’ve sat around the fire, whether it was in the fire pit outside or the fireplace in the basement, and talked for hours with friends or just with each other. We have complained about how small our garage is, but were still so thankful for it when it snowed.

(Our first walk around the neighborhood after Jason was born, when it was oddly 70 degrees in December...)

 

We have hosted youth group sleepovers in this house, kids piled on the couch playing video games or watching movies, our kitchen table covered in pizza boxes. We spent many afternoons at the neighborhood pool in the summer. We walked to Fitz’s for frozen custard, or Fandango’s for onion rings and the coldest beer. We have hosted Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and New Year’s Eve in this house, including our son’s very first Christmas morning. He was three weeks old, but we still decorated the tree and Santa still came to visit. When he fell asleep later that morning, we made cinnamon rolls and enjoyed a quiet Christmas morning, just the two of us.

(Jason's first Christmas tree)

 

Needless to say, getting our house ready to be put on the market was incredibly bittersweet. We hired a realtor that I knew through the WCA dance team, and we had ten days after our first meeting with her to get our house ready. During that time, TJ was working like crazy at the church, preparing a Sunday service as well as a youth backpacking trip to Lake Tahoe. Father’s Day also occurred during that time, and we forced ourselves to not do any work that day and enjoy some family time. It was a pretty intense – and tense – ten days. I found myself getting frustrated for no explainable reason, and TJ went through periods of frustration as well. At times, we were frustrated with each other. Of course, when you’re painting your ceiling and parts of it come raining down on you, it’s frustrating. But there was something else. So far, I have been in a strange sort of “zen” place throughout this process. I felt that I had been truly giving all my worries to the Lord. I should have been stressing over all the changes that were about to take place, but strangely, I wasn’t. I had complete faith in God that everything would work out perfectly. Suddenly, as we were readying our house and discussing what potential buyers would like and dislike about our house, the stress crept back in and multiplied ridiculously. I was convinced that no one would buy our house, and that we would move to Nashotah and have to continue to pay mortgage on our house. It would sit and sit until we had to short-sale the stupid thing. It would rot and we all would die. I wouldn’t be able to find a job in Wisconsin. We wouldn’t make any friends. Jason would hate it. Stress, stress, stress…

(Cats don't get stressed)

 

I realized I was too fixated on the what-ifs and the future. During my prayer time, I was praying for our lives a few months from now but not on the day-to-day issues we were going through. I was reminded of Matthew 6:34, which says “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”, as well as the countless times throughout Scripture that God reminds us not to worry. It’s so easy to let our stress compound itself. We can worry about one small thing, and before we know it, we are lying awake at night, in a puddle of sweat, having a legit panic attack about absurd, imagined scenarios (am I the only one that does that?). We have to recognize when this happens, and understand how toxic this can be. When we take time to slow down and change up how we are praying, God quiets our soul and reminds us to have faith in Him. When we stumble and fall back into our stressful habits again – which always happens – God is there, gently reminding us again that He is in control. He sees us and hears us, and reminds us to focus on the day at hand. He truly does hold the future. This doesn’t change the fact that we are in a stressful time. This knowledge doesn’t cure me of my late-night panic attacks. However, it reinforces my trust in my Savior.