Distress

FRI., JULY 13, 1984, 6:03 AM
FARM, STUDY

You have seen the word, o son, but you don’t feel distress, so you’re not sure how it applies to you this summer morning. Nevertheless, it is written and it shall be the theme for this meditation. Stress is a “fact of life” in your culture, here in the earth, and distress is that form of stress that is the most uncomfortable.

I say that it is the most uncomfortable but not necessarily the most destructive of physical health. This means that eustress, or the pleasant, desirable stress, can be equally harmful to body structure and function. But stress, in one form or another, is essential to the kind of life in which spirit grows, so the alternative of trying to avoid stress is a foolish one. But what about avoiding distress?

There is a certain wisdom in this, but there is such a reciprocal relationship between “good and evil” that this is rarely possible. You can remember a summer morning years ago on this Farm, the wedding of your oldest son, a time of pleasant stress. Yet the memories of that beautiful summer event are tarnished by the distress that the actual working marriage brought, with divorce as the closing stressor. The wonderful stress of union is the precursor to distress that arises in an unhappy marriage.

More fundamentally, without the happy stress of Peter’s birth and young life there would have been no basis for the distress of his death on the highway. And the married life of you and Lenore would have suffered less distress if you had had fewer, or no, children. But such (a) preventive behavior is foolishness when measured against the overall purpose of earth life. You just must suffer some distress if the spirit is to grow.

Then… if these forms of stress are worthwhile, why should they be potentially destructive of bodily health? Again it is a matter of rhythm and balance. And it is also another instance of “to him who has shall more be given…” A person with a strong, developed spirit finds that the spirit buffers distress, making its effects less damaging and less lengthy. Thus, having an already strong spirit is the best means of developing even more spiritual strength, with the least negative results. Conversely, one with a spirit less well developed may suffer more from a distressing event and this may interfere with spiritual growth. It seems unfair, and it is, in earthly bodily terms, but it is true.

You contemplate certain future events that are potential, and you try to anticipate the nature and intensity of distress in each. There is some value in this, as long as this potentially distressing mental and emotional exercise is followed with a reaffirmation that whatever happens, in and around you, If you have your hand in Mine no distressing circumstance can harm you. The knowledge of My love and the grace I offer (and that you have accepted) is the ever sufficient balance to any distressing circumstance.

If you were not an active part of a culture that values money and things, then loss of income or things in life would not be distressing. The more you have, which presumably makes life more pleasant (often eustressful), the more potential there is for distress from loss… or even from less gain than is expected.