RuthAnn is in the final countdown until the first day of school. Like any deadline there seems too be more things to do than time within to do them. But for many reasons this year is more stressful and time limited than usual. The last few weeks have been really hectic.
While observing and partaking in the tasks at hand, it has brought to mind times in my life when stress loomed so large that it blotted out all normal living. Of course, like RuthAnn and so many of us, it seems that the most stressful events center around work. For me this was absolute. Even the advent of cancer in my life did not compare to the days when work issues would bring me to my knees. I want to share just one, maybe you can identify.
This goes back about ten years, I guess. Not long after I moved my office from Livermore, California to my new home in Grants Pass, Oregon. I was given the Devil’s Slide Tunnel project. It was a major job, adding two new tunnels for northbound and southbound traffic thru over a mile of the coastal hills south of Pacifica, California. I would be in charge of designing the concrete reinforcing and would be Project Manager.
As with most Caltrans jobs there were added issues because of some design problems. Also, because it was a tunnel there would be special boring and forming problems. But eventually most all of this got worked out over many meetings and design conferences. But one issue was never resolved and that was the entrances, called portals. These would be the only structures that would be build in the open (not underground) and there were several staging and forming problems that were seemingly unsolvable.
In my life at this time, I had just come off my first sessions of radiation treatments and was adjusting to the antigen drug I was being given to control my cancer. Along with this I was still drinking regularly, even if I was hiding it from my wife. These factors along with the stress of this project and the ten or so others I was managing were taking their toll.
The culmination of this came one Friday. The day after I had my Zoledex injection which normally left me feeling disoriented for a few weeks, spacey is the way I used to explain it. I was under pressure to release 3 or 4 truck loads of rebar into fabrication and at the same time was on the phone to handle more problems that had come up with the portal design. Somewhere during this day, I made a major error in my fabrication request. But I would not find out about it until two weeks later.
On a Saturday morning, I was just getting up and about when my home office phone rang. It was the field superintendent for the tunnel project and he was not happy. A truck load of rebar had shown up and all of it was the wrong size. I will not bore you with any more facts than to say, this was nearly twenty tons of rebar that could not be used. And as it turned out it was all my fault.
I was crushed. In all my years I had never made such a major error. First thing on Monday, I called in offering to resign. My boss was kind and refused but for weeks I was frozen, the stress of this mistake made it just about impossible to do my job at all. The most terrible thing is I had nowhere to turn, I felt I needed to carry this burden all alone.
Have you ever been there? Already stressed and then you are hit with something that is added to your load, either because of something you have done or not. What can you do? My answer back then was to internalize it and allow it to eat me alive. What I did not know then was that God even has a plan for times like these and all it requires it that we are willing to trust and obey.
I would like to share some of the verses that have helped me in my times of stress. But they only help when I am willing to let go and know Who is really in charge. That nothing I do today is so important or so terrible that it will change His love for me or for you. Try praying a few of these and see what happens:
“When I was hard pressed, I cried to the LORD; he brought me into a spacious place. The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? (Psalm 118: 5-6)
“Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands give me delight.” Psalm 119:143)
“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” (Psalm 55:22)
“But those who hope in the LORD will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 4: 6-7)
There are so many more, seek them out if these have not helped or just listen to these words of Jesus, and believe: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11: 28-29)
I did none of this during that stressful time. I lived with the burden and it led to months of my life being lost in worry and stress. I cannot change what happened then but know that today neither you or I need to feel we are alone. Stress or not Jesus will help, lay your yoke upon Him today.
Blessings and Happy Sabbath,
John
8/3/18
