Life is Stress...Right?

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

I've been busily trying to get everything in order before I leave Monday
night for Montana and keep up with our weekly activities.  I feel like I'm
back in college at the end of the sememster and everything is due with
the impeding doom of finals hovering over my head.  The main difference
is though there is no room for failure to complete the task, but it's not
the end of the world because I won't be out thousands of dollars to
take the class over.  Ryan might have to do more things for himself, and what 
wife would ever complain about such a thing.  :)I prefer to give him a good 
reason to miss me and not remind him that he often wonders why it was he married me.

So, in the mist of all my preperations for my trip and the emotional rollercoaster with what has happened with my brother and I realize 
that I am stressed...pretty stressed.  But at the same time I am 
amazed to see just how much peace I've had throughout the past
couple of weeks.  I've also been able to see how God IS working
everything out to happen at the right time, and I feel that my time
has been mulitpied...what a blessing is that?  And the biggest thing
for me is that even though I've gotten about 6 hours of sleep each
night I've been able to have the energy to do my everyday activies
with the girls, as well as our evening activities.  This is huge for two
reasons: first, as we all fight to keep everything in balance in our lifes
it's easy to commit to too much to where we burn out very quickly. 
I never want to get involved in too many things that my girls have to
sacrific our time together.  Second, I'm not a very happy person when
I don't get my sleep.  I think Ryan told me once that it's hard to live with
me having very little sleep.  I hope I am growing in that area.  :)

Okay, to the verse above.  It's one that is very special to me because in
college everyone has a "life verse", so I made this one mine.  We used it
in our wedding and for Makala's dedication.  I decided to spare everyone
from going through it again for Raquel's and to give her an individual experience.  
Regardless, it's a scripture that I return to in time of run-away rollercoaster
times in my life to remind me how little control in most situations, and though
I'm free to worry about them, maybe even complicate them, it's really just wasted time and energy that is better spent taking care of the 
things I have been given to do.  Now...just can't let myself forget that in the
middle of all this stress because I do forget way too often!