Trading Anxiety for Peace, Part 1

Welcome to a new four-part holiday blog series, Trading Anxiety for Peace. I’m celebrating one year since my Christmas Peace for Busy Moms online Bible study began. First, let’s dig into dealing with stress.

Dealing with Stress

What’s your go-to way of dealing with stress year-round? Does it intensify between Halloween and New Year’s Day? Mine certainly does. This time of year, it spirals out of control.

My automatic stress-soother is sugar. I LOVE sugar–its brightness and sweetness helps me escape an anxious moment with a quick dopamine rush.

After Halloween, my home sugar supply spikes. Candy calls to me from the glass pumpkin dish. Desserts at Thanksgiving tantalize me. Christmas cookies and hot cocoa tempt me daily. Sugar has a monstrous power over me this time of year, especially in stressful moments.

For Lent 2017, I gave up sugar for the first time. My sugar fast didn’t accomplish what I had hoped. I thought it would break my sugar craving, but instead, it made everything taste so bland and boring.

I don’t plan to give up sugar in this season. Sugar makes my holidays sweeter. But I need to trade my anxiety for peace without using sugar.

A New Plan

I stepped on the scale this morning. And I wasn’t happy with the results. My weight has crept higher after months of sitting too long and not exercising enough. It’s reached uncomfortable heights because too much sugar has passed over my lips.

If I don’t do something different, my weight will be out-of-bounds by January 1. I can’t face the holiday sugar parade without a plan, just as I can’t face this anxious season without God’s Word. I want to turn to God for peace instead of sugar in this busy season.

So I’ve gathered ten scriptures to help me face those times when sugar tempts me. To keep me on track, but also to remind me where my source of peace really lies (in God’s presence). I’ve made them into a printable so I have them in front of me when temptation or anxiety strikes. Here’s a sample of the verses that are helping me:

Psalm 19:9b-10 NIV

The laws of the Lord are true;
each one is fair.
They are more desirable than gold,
even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
even honey dripping from the comb.

Psalm 63:4-5 NIV

I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Psalm 119:103 NLT

How sweet your words taste to me;
they are sweeter than honey.

Check out the new printable of these verses in my Library. Use it every time you’re tempted to cram sugar in your mouth during a stressful moment. This printable can refocus your mind on God’s Word during the anxiety-provoking, sugar-laden holiday season, friend.

Questions for you:

• What do you mindlessly turn to when you’re feeling anxious?
• Which verse helps you fight your food cravings?
• In which area do you need God’s peace most this holiday season?

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