NCFI CARES: Respond to Stress by Praising the Lord

Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth. Break out in a joyful shout and sing!

Psalm 98:4

Have you ever had one of those days, when you are running around, and your stress is escalating?   Recently, while teaching an all-day class, my phone vibrated continuously with urgent voicemails needing my attention, my phone buzzed steadily with multiple texts exclaiming endless problems, and my email in-box filled up with crucial questions that only I could answer. I won’t even get into the family crisis that raged throughout the day. UGGH!!

At the end of the day when I got into my car to drive home, a worship song playing reminded me of when I worked in the hospital. As a cardiac nurse, my colleagues and I had many crazy hectic days. We even had horrible, chaotic days when the entire unit couldn’t keep up with the emergencies and the multiple crises. We would run from one cardiac resuscitation, intubation, stat surgery, to the next stroke alert, anaphylactic reaction, and family emergency. Forget lunch. There were days I didn’t go to the bathroom, nor get a drink of water.

In the midst of this chaos, a colleague of mine would start singing: “Praise be to God, alleluia.” To say he would sing, is not really correct; he would proclaim loudly! “PRAISE BE TO GOD, ALLELUIA!” We knew our everyday chaos had hit a certain peek for him, when his praise would echo across the nurses’ station and down the halls: “PRAISE BE TO GOD, ALLELUIA.” Keep in mind, I worked at a non-Christian hospital. A few other colleagues and I were the only Christian believers on our unit.

This memory brought a giggle to the end of my stressful day. I thought, “Hmm, maybe I should try proclaiming a praise song amidst my next crazy day!”

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