"Stress Buster"

Before I start today I have to make a disclaimer the title of this blog post is not my own but borrowed from Pastor Dave Kemper of the First Congregational Church of Ossipee. It was the title of his sermon this morning and I was deeply touched by the sermon. While I try to live a Christian life it is very hard because the minutiae of day to day life seems to always bog us down. We do things that cause us guilt, and we lose people and things close to us that cause us grief, and people do things to us that cause us to hold grudges. Because of the three g's guilt, grief, and grudges it causes us to live tension filled lives, and inhibits our relationship not only with God but also with others.

The three g's drag us down into the mire of our pasts and do not allow us to concentrate on the future where we can make the changes that would allow us to live less stressful lives. Guilt of our past actions, grief of what we lost, and grudges held against people all drag us into the mire of that stress. We cannot change the past but we can change and affect the future. by putting those things behind us and turning them over to God can we look forward to a bright new future with less stress in our lives. We have all done things that are wrong, but through turning our lives over to Christ, and believing the sins of our lives were nailed on the cross with Him then we can live guilt free lives and work on correcting those actions that we know we should not be partaking. When we lose something or someone dear in our lives, by concentrating on what we do have rather than concentrating on what we have lost we work on the future instead of living in the past. We may not have the person in our lives, but we will always have the memories of what made them special to us. My father passed on when I was a young man and just married, my wife was pregnant with our first child. Yes I miss my father deeply, but I have memories of fishing trips and camping trips with him. I also have my home, my wife and my daughters. I have made some bad decisions in my life, and at just shy of fifty years old find myself essentially starting all over again with little left in savings towards day to day living let alone retirement , but I still have modestly good health, I have a loving wife working with me to start all over again, I have dreams of where th e future can bring me, I have three lovely, loving daughters, and I have the ability to start all over again. (It takes a lot for me to be able to admit this on a blog like this but it is in a sense a part of starting all over.)

Grudges for me are the hardest part to give up. We have a tendency to hold things against people for things they have done or things they have said. Who does holding a grudge hurt? The person we hold the grudge against.....guess what for the most part they probably don't care. I held a grudge against a minister for years for things he did an said, such as basically telling me I had nothing to offer in my life. Does he care I held this grudge? I can tell you in retrospect he does not even care that I held this grudge against him. All it did was affect my life and turn me sour against the church for several years.

Let me tell you this, forget about the 3 g's turn your guilt, grief and grudges over to God and get on with you life and making yourself a better person. As Pastor Kemper said the difference between being BITTER and being BETTER is I so it is up to me. This reminds me of a saying that was drilled inot our keads at a sales meeting this winter.."IF IT IS TO BE, IT IS UP TO ME"