Positive Attitudes, Stress and a Colonoscopy

The title alone is a mouthful.

You must be wondering …. where is she going with this blog?

The truth? All over the place!

Let me start with the word STRESS.

We’ve been feeling it a little bit over here in our little piece of happy. But I didn’t realize how much stress until I started really thinking about the events that have unfolded in our lives over the past 3 years.

You want a good laugh? Come see my results from The Holmes-Rehe Life Stress Inventory. I took it yesterday just to see where I was on the scale. According to the results and it is skewed because I did it from May 2018-September 2019. (It’s supposed to be within a 12 month period.) But I thought it would be interesting to include all of our recent crazy.

I scored a 496.

Umm….the scale only goes to 300. If I did take it to just the year May 2018 – May 2019, my score would be 408.

What does this tell me?

I need to get on a private plane, fly to my own private island and sit still for a while.

But since that will not be happening, let me share what I have been doing.

I have been taking it to the feet of Jesus. No, really. Over and over again when necessary because there are some things, I like to sneak back over and pick up again after I’ve laid them down.

What does it mean to take it to Jesus? Well for me, I start by telling Him that the issue is too big for me to handle, I then tell Him that I trust in Him enough to know that He will handle it for me. I then ask Him to help me to believe in Him for the situation to be taken care of in the best possible way. From then on I begin to thank Him for how He is at work in the situation, even when I can’t “see” anything changing. Then when I “see’ evidence of the situation changing, or the problem being resolved I give praise reports of how the Lord is at work in our lives.

So even though this Stress Inventory tells me that I have a really good chance of becoming ill because of my “stress” level, I have to remember that I don’t have to be responsible for all of the stuff that is going on in my life–I have laid it at the feet of Jesus. Sometimes more than once!

Next up–Positive Attitudes!

One of the things I have missed the most this past year of being mostly confined to home is eating out at restaurants with friends and family. I think I have only eaten out about 3 or 4 times since my surgery last July. I really do miss the positive attitudes of the people at Chick-Fil-A. Nothing makes me happier then when they say, “It’s my pleasure.” Because whether they really mean it or not, those words make me think they are thrilled to be serving me a grilled chicken sandwich and a fruit cup.

I wonder how the attitudes within our homes would change if when our kids ask us to take them somewhere, or help them locate something the words, “it would be my pleasure” just rolled out of our mouths. Better yet, if our spouse asked for the 10th time where something was located, we just said, “It will be my pleasure to help you find it.”

Just let that simmer a little bit today in the back of your brain…hmmm!

Last on the list—-A colonoscopy!

I can now check this off of my “Congrats you are about to be 50 list”! I just had this procedure on Wednesday. Besides the day before prep–the procedure is nothing. They gave me Benadryl, Versed, and Fentanyl–I felt nothing for a while. We will know the results next week–they are actually trying to determine if I have developed a condition that can be treated with a steroid for a short amount of time. That would be such a blessing to know that this issue would be over.

For all my friends entering the “50” year old status–it’s no big deal, go ahead and check that off your list too.

How do you wrap up a random blog post like the one today?

With one more random thought–

Hugs,