Welcome to Nancy Wilson's Feminine Podcast, presented by Canon Press.

Welcome to the Feminine Podcast. This is Nancy Wilson. Thanks for joining me today.

Today I thought I would address the everyday topic of stress and flexibility.

And everyone has stress. We just moved. So we have been packing and putting things in storage and moving things out to our daughter and son-in-laws apartment while we're building a house.

It's very low key. It was very low key, especially compared to those of you who just moved across the country with a bunch of kids.

This is just the two of us, very simple, but sure there was stress. There's always stress in many, many circumstances, all kinds of circumstances.

And it's clear that God wants us to stay even keel as we sail through sort of troubled waters or rough waters or maybe white waters depending on your circumstances.

We need to learn how to handle stress. No matter what age we are of your teenager, there's teenager level stress.

If you're in your 20s or your 40s or your little lady, there will be stress. And this is a feature. It's not a defect.

And we need to learn how to cope with it and not just cope, but excel. And to read the story we're in, how are we supposed to handle stress?

Are we going to be a little heap, a little puddle in the corner, needing everyone to cluster around and comfort us?

Or are we going to just learn how to steward it and guide it and respond to it wisely?

The world might suggest that you just blow off some steam to take the pressure off, maybe at work, handling the stress at work, just let someone have it.

But obviously that's not fruitful and neither does it even work because then you're going to have the stress of sin that you have to confess and put right.

Or you might think you are being spiritual by just clamping down a lid on the pressure instead.

That's not dealing with it, right? Just pushing it down, clamping a lid on it is not dealing with it in a wise or fruitful way.

Because sooner or later the lid is going to blow and what comes out will get all of everyone. And that will be unkind and unloving and entirely unfruitful.

So of course there has to be a better way. Stress can come from looking at your calendar and you've just put too many things packed in too many things in one day or one week or one month.

Or it can come as you anticipate something that you're concerned about. It might be dental surgery or other kind of surgery, hospital visit.

It might be a visit with difficult in-laws or a drive across the country or a financial deadline or a job evaluation.

The list can go on indefinitely and we want to handle each situation in a wise way and be prepared in advance for what's coming.

So fill in the blank as I talk about stress with whatever thing is tempting you to be stressed out right now or stressed out I've mentioned before is sin.

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