If you have ever snapped at your kids because you were exhausted and then carried the guilt of it for three days, you know this feeling. You have probably bought a book or two meant to make you into the person you already know you should be.
That is spiritual stress. It is heavy, and your body does not file it separately from every other kind of stress.
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What spiritual stress is
We have talked a lot about stress here because it is so big. Usually when I talk about stress, I mean emotional stress, mental stress, and physical stress. There is one more.
Spiritual stress is when you are living out of alignment with what you know should be.
If you are living with shame, you are experiencing it. If you are living with fear, you are experiencing it. If you feel like the love in your life is not adequate, not abundant, you are experiencing it.
You are a whole person. Body, mind, spirit, diet, and environment. You cannot divide one of those out and just look at that one part.
You cannot take yourself out of the environment around you. That environment is always contributing to your health, and what you eat is always contributing to your health. How you feel emotionally and physically impacts what you eat.
Everything works together. Today we are mostly talking about spirit.
Why this is still stress to your body
Stress leads to inflammation. Inflammation leads to disease, including autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto’s.
I am a nurse, and I have spent years watching what chronic stress does to a body. Your body does not sort your stress into acceptable categories and unacceptable ones.
The stress you can name gets counted. So does the stress you have never said out loud.
That is why I could not talk about stress and Hashimoto’s for this long without eventually getting here.
A mistake is not the same as falling short
I am a perfectionist. Firstborn, Enneagram one, however you want to describe me. I am always acutely aware of falling short.
I always have an idea in my mind of how I could be better, and I constantly fall short.
Some of that is not wrong. When I send out an email and it has a grammar mistake, I feel horrible. I notice it, because I read my emails the next day, and I know that I screwed up.
Is that wrong? No. I just made a mistake.
But are there other things I do every day that are wrong? Yes.
If I do not show love to my kids. If I get impatient and irritated and yell at them because I am tired.
That has nothing to do with them. It has to do with me being tired, or being selfish, wanting to look at my phone because something interesting was posted, and putting that phone over my kids.
That is wrong. And I should apologize, because I fell short.
Falling short of what you know should be happening is spiritual stress. Otherwise known as sin.
Why the self-help shelf never quite works
There is an entire industry built on this. It is the self-help industry.
How many books and courses and programs are there designed to help you become who you know you should be? How many things are out there to help you overcome this misalignment?
You know that you are not doing what you were designed to do. You are not being everything you could be. Where you are right now, body, mind, and spirit, is not where you know it could be.
Every single religion that has ever been or ever will be has an end goal. Everybody is striving to accomplish something.
And the thing is, we all fall short.
None of that is a character flaw. Hashimoto’s is not your fault, and neither is being human.
Where the consequence comes from
I did not create the world. You did not either.
When I am the creator of something, I get to decide how it is going to go. I also get to decide what happens if it does not do what I designed it to do.
God is the creator of the world. He said this is how things should go. If people fall short, that is called sin, and there is a consequence.
Every single religion has consequences for falling short. They might call things by different names. They might have different consequences and different ways to make up for it.
The creator of the world has said that the consequence of falling short of holiness is death. It is separation from God.
I believe, and I see in the Bible, that God is love.
Some people picture God as a judge. A strict, angry dad up in the sky, waiting to pounce and say you did this wrong. That is not what I see in the Bible.
I see a God of love. I see a God who has very defined guidelines. If you fall short of one, you crossed a boundary and you get the consequence.
That is not anger. That is following through with what He said.
One of the most famous verses in the world is John 3:16. Here it is with the verse right after it, because together they show you what kind of God we have.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
Jesus was a historical figure. There is plenty of evidence and plenty of writing from around that time to prove His life, death, and resurrection in a court of law.
The Bible says Jesus is the Son of God, and also that Jesus is God. Fully God and fully man. I know that does not make sense.
One of my goals here is to take concepts and make them simple so you can understand them and apply them to your life. This one has confounded people for two thousand years, because our brains are not big enough to wrap around it. I believe it to be true.
If you are curious about the Bible, or if you are reading this wondering about anything I’m saying, there is a podcast series called A Field Guide to the Bible from 1517. They cover the story of the Bible from beginning to end, for people who do not know anything about it or who have questions.
How to release spiritual stress
Spiritual stress is knowing that we are not in alignment. Knowing that we have fallen short.
So what do we do about it?
John 3:16 says whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but has eternal life. John wrote something else, in a letter later on. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That is the whole step. Confess. Apologize to the one who already took your consequence.
It is already done. The gift is yours. All you have to do is accept it.
People will absolutely overwhelm you with complications here. It is not complicated at all.
I describe this gift to the kids in my Sunday school class like this. If I buy a present for you, wrap it, and put your name on it, is it yours? Of course it is.
If I hold it out and you turn around and go play on the playground, it is still yours. Even though you have not taken it yet.
Jesus has already paid the price. He has taken your consequence. Your forgiveness is already sitting there with your name on it.
Look to the thief on the cross
Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution. It was designed to be as painful as possible. It was designed to be humiliating.
There were three people crucified together. Two thieves and Jesus.
One of the thieves did exactly this. He confessed that he was a sinner. He told the other thief that they were under the same sentence of condemnation, that they were suffering justly, receiving what they deserved for their deeds.
Then he turned to Jesus and said, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus said, “truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
If anybody ever tells you that you have to get baptized, or prove that you have turned your life around, or check any boxes first, compare it to the thief on the cross.
He confessed his sins and asked Jesus to remember him. That is it.
If anybody ever tries to lay a burden of proof on you, do not accept it.
You confess your sins to Jesus. Not to anybody else. Not through another person. We talk directly to Jesus.
What you do not have to carry
Spiritual stress is very heavy, because we all know we can never live up to perfection. We will always be falling short. Every single one of us.
But Jesus said “come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Another spot in the Bible says to “cast your anxiety on Him, because He loves you.”
You are loved. You matter. You are valuable.
A lot of what I teach is about getting one percent better every day. This one you can get 100% better.
You do not have to do anything to prove it. You confess, and you are forgiven, just like that.
Does that mean a perfect life from here on out? No. Absolutely not.
But you do not have to carry the shame and the guilt of not living a holy life. It is too heavy for any of us.
Some traditions heap that burden heavier and heavier. They hand you a long list of things you always have to be doing.
If you are finishing this and thinking that you want to go to church, look to the thief on the cross. If the church you are looking at would not accept the thief on the cross as saved and forgiven, it is probably not a good church.
[GRAPHIC NEEDED: Quote card in Mauve Shadow and Antique White. “You confess, and you are forgiven, just like that.”]
Questions women ask about spiritual stress
You are loved
My prayer for you is that you know you are loved by God. That you know you are valuable. And that you know, all the way down, that you can be forgiven, because it is already paid for.
You know now that spiritual stress is real stress, and that your body counts it right alongside the deadlines and the poor sleep and everything else you are carrying. You also know that this is the one stressor with a release you do not have to earn.
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