
Copyright: belchonock
For the past 8 years or so, I have led a group of women in a small group study format. These women range in age from their 50’s to their 70’s. One of the things I love about this group of women is their life experiences, and the unique perspective they bring to our weekly meetings. This year here in 2022, we will be studying “PRAYER”.
As a small group leader, and with this group specifically, we learned long ago that the enemy does not take a vacation, a holiday, take time off for illness, a birth, a wedding, a death, or any other event in our lives. This realization took place when we studied Chip Ingram’s study: “The Invisible War.” Our eyes were unscaled as to how crafty and sneaky he is at entering our lives when we least expect it and when we let down our guard for refreshment, renewal, and fun.
This brings me to something I recently taught to my group, and I’d like to share it will all of you now. All of us, and I mean all of us, are confronted with challenges, worry, anxiety, an unexpected turn of events in our lives. Below you will see a diagram on how our challenge level is directly connected to the amount of support we have in our lives to weather these challenges. When one or the other is out of balance, we enter what is called a “destructive stress zone.”
When we are faced with the trials and tribulations of life and we are not also supported by Christian friends, family, and support medically [if that is the need], we will quickly find ourselves in “The Destructive Stress Zone.” In this space, we lose our sense of balance, our sense of reasoning and we see trouble everywhere, even when this is not true.
What can I do if I find myself spiraling down into The Destructive Stress Zone? Good question and our diagram tells us what to do.
- Ask yourself about the “Challenge” you are currently facing and be honest. Is it really life-altering or an unexpected nuisance or perhaps an unmet expectation of something you built up in your mind which had no chance of happening. This could be because of circumstances, timing, the people involved, or a host of other things.
- Ask yourself, who is on my support team anyway? Write down their names and contact information and reach out. If you find your pool of support names is rather thin, you have some work to do.
What did you learn from our blog today?
What action might you want to take based on what you learned?
As always, we are here to help you. Reach out!