Stress

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a worrier.

I'm pretty familiar with the Bible, being the daughter of a church leader and wife of a minister. There is one section of the Book of Matthew with which I never could find common ground:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than
food, and the body more important than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable
than they?
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[1] ?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these."

Those verses never made much sense to me. Oh, I understand verse 27, for what does worry accomplish? Nothing! But as for the rest of it.... Of course the birds don't worry! In the first place, they have no human mind that recognizes their fate and the possibilities thereof. In the second place, they certainly do not sow or reap or store away in barns because they don't need to. They don't have to worry about rent or mortgage, life insurance, health insurance, house insurance, taxes, electric bills, heating bills, phone bills, medical bills, or college tuition. They don't have to buy clothes so they don't have that expense. I can be "dressed like one of these" in all my glory too (just like God created me, in my birthday suit) but I'd be arrested the minute I stepped out of my house, which, by the way, is my current source of stress. The house, I mean, not my lack of clothing.

The more we aim at simplification, the more stressful it becomes! We have two weeks until the house is officially on the market. Yikes! So much to do in two weeks! Some of it is dependent on other people doing their part. Our son-in-law will be here Saturday to finish installing a new floor covering in the pantry. Our son will hopefully be here soon to help me move the computer et al up to the second floor and out of the dining room. And my husband, who is the absolute slowest person I have ever met, has countless things to do, which, yes, I worry about getting done.

Downsizing may reap benefits later - after the majority of it is accomplished - but meanwhile it is stressing me to no end!