on worry

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

- Matthew 6:27, NIV -

Over the course of my adult life, worry has transformed from a part of my type-A-ish personality to an all-consuming fear. So much so, in fact, that within the last few months I have sought help through both counseling and medication. And so I am trying to find a new way to live. I am trying to retrain my anxious brain to stop assuming the worst. It is not easy. As soon as I make the mental shift about any one particular issue, my inner worrier catches me off guard and tells me that it's not right to be calm in the face of whatever anxiety source I'm currently facing. "How can you be calm right now?" it screams at me. "Don't you realize what's going on?" 

This is totally me. 

Yet all the worry will not get me anywhere. And of all the times my mind has assumed the worst, how many times has that turned out to be the truth? Not very many, if any at all. Are bad things going to happen to me and to those I love? Yes. But twisting myself into knots over things I cannot control, and particularly over things that have not even happened, will not change the course of events in any way. 

Either God is God, or He's not. And if He is, then all my fretting won't do a darn bit of good. The best I can do is to present my fears to Him, and then let them go, trusting that everything is in His hands. 

Like so many things in life, this is much easier said than done. But every day I will wake up and try again... 


There is much more I could say about this topic, but I will perhaps save it for another time. For now, suffice it to say that I think I am on the road to a healthier way of living, that my husband is the most loving and patient person in the world, that God knew what He was doing when He put Aaron and I together, and that God most certainly knows what He's doing with my life, even when it doesn't make sense to me.

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

- Philippians 4:6-7, The Message -