According to most psychologists, the holidays have been formally identified as a source of stress. The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale is a psychological too that measures the amount of stress that a person can be under. The scale lists life events and assigns each a score.
In 1967, two psychiatrists, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, began to study whether or not stress contributes to illness. They surveyed more than 5,000 medical patients and asked them to say whether they had experience any of a series of 43 life events in the previous two years.
Each event, called a Life Change Unit (LCU), had a different “weight” for stress. The more events the patient added up, the higher the score. The higher the score, and the larger the weight of each event, the more likely the patient was to become ill. The death of a spouse scored 100 points, divorce started at 73 and could climb to near 100. Marital separation was 65. Here are a few of the other life events:
Jail term (63); Death of a close family member (63); Personal injury or illness (53); Marriage (50); Fired at work (47); Marital reconciliation (45); Retirement (45); Change in the health of a family member (44); Pregnancy (40); Gaining a new family member (39); Business readjustment and changes at work (39); Changes in personal financial state (38); and Death of a close friend (37).
The list continues charting items that happen in everyday life. Even the expectations of the holidays (25) and gathering together at the holidays (13) score points on the scale. To determine your own stress level add all of the things that have happened in your life over the past twelve months. The cumulative total can be astonishing. All of those items seem to come crashing together at the holiday season and gatherings.
For most people, family gatherings are rarely stress-free. Maybe it’s because of a cousin that ruins dinner by igniting political debates, maybe the turkey isn’t cooked properly, or relatives that won’t quit asking when you are going to get married. Maybe it’s the expectations for the event that seem to never be realized. Sometimes the situations are small, but the unpleasant feeling lingers.
Over the next several weeks, we are going to look at the many stressors of the holiday season and examine ways from the Scripture that they can be managed and controlled.
Let’s begin by trying to keep life’s events in perspective by focusing on God’s faithfulness rather than the events themselves. That is not always an easy task. It is difficult to remember that God’s faithfulness, in good times and bad, can be a source of strength, security and peace.
Let me share with you a story of an ordinary man who did extraordinary things with the help of an extraordinary God.
Thomas Chisholm, who sometimes described himself as “just an old shoe,” was born in a Kentucky log cabin in 1866. He was converted when he was 27, became a pastor at 36, but had to retire one year later due to poor health. He spent the majority of the rest of his life as a life insurance salesman in New Jersey. He died in 1960 at the age of 93. During his life he wrote over 1200 poems, most of which no one will ever hear.
But back in 1923, at the “way past his prime age of 57,” Thomas Chisholm sent a handful of his poems to William Runyan at the Hope Publishing Company.
Hope Publishing Company was just as ordinary as Chisholm. Hope was a family-owned Christian publishing company born in a one-room office in Chicago in 1892. Henry “Harry” Sheperd Date immigrated to Chicago with his family in 1861, at the age of thirteen.
In his role as an evangelist, Date strongly felt the need for a songbook, to be used in their evangelistic meetings, but when he embarked upon the project he found the task too large for his funds. His brother lent him money, but this too was soon exhausted. Finally, he decided to publish “Pentecostal Hymns Advance Pages,” a paperbound, 64-page book, which would precede the complete work. To house the project, Date rented a small office on Fifth Avenue. It held only a desk, a portable pump organ, and the stock of the small songbook.
“I had very limited funds but a great deal of hope,” said Date, reflecting on the company’s founding. “In fact, all I had was hope and that is how the company got its name.”
Runyan was particularly moved by one of Chisholm’s poems and sought to set it to a melody that would reflect the response of wonder and gratefulness to God’s faithfulness conveyed in the lyrics. Apparently, he succeeded.
The song quickly became a favorite Moody Bible Institute, and later George Beverly Shea sang it at Billy Graham crusades. Now it’s known all over the world and has been used to encourage millions of Christians to trust in a faithful God.
Chisholm’s hymn is by far my favorite hymn. The faithfulness of God is lifted before us as a standard, an encouragement to God’s steadfast promises during life’s events. The sun, moon and stars stay their courses to proclaim God’s strong hand. There is no variation or shadow due to any flicker of change in the person or nature of God.
If you have not guessed the hymn at this point, reflect with me on the chorus of Great is Thy Faithfulness.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, even during the holidays, Lord, unto me!