Stress!

"I'm just so stressed right now."  "There's just way too much on my to do list."
I teach six high school students a week and I guarantee I hear this from three of them every week.  Kids today are wearing and carrying so much stress.
My almost seven year old told me this week, "I'm stressed out that I'm not going to have time to finish my homework."
I am still keeping my gratitude list, but this time in a journal.  It is difficult to get on to post every time I want to document my gratitude.  But can I just tell you, keeping this list, writing down my thanks to God...it's amazing the change it makes in my days and in my heart.
And I've been thinking about stress and trusting.  Because anyone in my family can tell you, if there was a contest in who stresses the most, I'd probably win a lot.  I've long been a stressed out person; it's just my nature I've told myself.  Change and new situations stress me the most, especially if it involves my children.

Romans 15:13 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow."
How can I overflow grace and peace to others, to my children, to my husband when my own heart is stressed out so much?  Here's the simple truth I'm discovering:  I can't.

Being stressed out is kind of popular in our culture. If you hear someone is stressed, sometimes it says...ooh that person is important, their work/job is indispensable and can't be done as well by anyone else.

In Anne Voscamp's book, I read..."Stress isn't only a joy stealer.  The way we respond to it can be sin."

God COMMANDS us to trust in Him.  It's not a suggestion; it's not just a way to bring peace; it is a COMMAND.  Trust is the opposite of stress and worry.

Anne Voscamp goes on to say something that has stopped me in my tracks every time I think on it, every time I let my mind go there.  And I think she's right...I think she has hit on something here that is really tough, but really true.
"I've just begun to feel around the outside edges of it, here in crumbling economics, the fretfulness of parenting, the dizziness of the twenty-first century spin.  Just begun to realize it, and it catches in my throat:  If authentic, saving belief is the act of trusting, then to choose stress is an act of disbelief."

For the everyday stresses...for the job stress, the uncertainty of tomorrow, the worry for our children, for the how am I ever going to get everything done...
Aren't we commanded to trust and obey?
How much would my time be better spent to pray, trust, and DO instead of stress and worry?