I am not a worrier by nature.
I tend to look at a problem and immediately marshal available resources to find a solution.
But sometimes, there is really. truly not one single thing I CAN do and it’s then I fall prey to those niggling “what if” thoughts.
You know the ones.
The kind of things that keep you from drifting off to sleep at night or visit you in your dreams when you do.
Read the rest here: Battling Anxiety/Seeking Peace: Shape Worry Into Prayer
Sit. Soak. Sour.
It happens to milk left out of the fridge and it happens to people too.
If all I do is sit in a chair, soak up the news, social media rants and talk show ravings, I’ll end up sad and sour.
I don’t want to do that.
So I get outside and soak up the sunshine and fresh air instead.
I know everyone doesn’t have the option to walk for over a mile on their own property but even in the strictest of the locked down states, there are parks, sidewalks and other outdoor spaces you could visit.
Sit on your stoop if you have to.
But just get outside, for goodness sake!
Turn off the screens screaming fearful headlines, walk away from the four walls that feel like they are closing in on you, open a window at least and stick your head out.
If you really, truly can’t manage any outside time or fresh air, grow something.
Remember when you were a kid and mom or grandma cut the tops off carrots and put them in a shallow dish? They will grow fluffy greenery in a few days.
Watching the progress of any living thing is balm to a weary soul.
Even grocery stores sell potted plants or herbs in most places. Buy a few. They’ll improve indoor air quality as well as providing a diversion from worry.
When all a heart thinks about is death, destruction and dire news, it shrinks into a hardened ball.
It becomes increasingly difficult to feel anything but fear or anger or bitterness.
Sour. Dour. Persnickety. Cranky. Grumpy.
That’s not how I want to be and it’s probably not how you want to be either.
So get up. Break the habit of soaking in bad news.
Get some fresh air and sunshine if you can or at least create your own little corner of green.
Refresh your soul and feed it hope.
I am not a worrier by nature.
I tend to look at a problem and immediately marshal available resources to find a solution.
But sometimes, there is really. truly not one single thing I CAN do and it’s then I fall prey to those niggling “what if” thoughts.
You know the ones.
The kind of things that keep you from drifting off to sleep at night or visit you in your dreams when you do. The unbidden and unwelcome scenarios that flash across your mind when the phone rings too early in the morning. The spiraling downward plunge of your heart when headlines scream disaster and it seems to be coming closer and closer to your own home and your own family.
Paul tells the Philippians to shape those worries into prayers:
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 MSG (paraphrase, not translation)
I think I was in my mid-thirties, knee deep in raising and educating my children and experiencing some health problems when I realized that worry is really all about trust.
Do I trust God or not?
Is He the loving, perfect, faithful Father the Bible tells me He is or not? Will He bring me through (either physically safe and whole or onto Heaven) or not? Is there a single thing on this earth (disaster, disease, schemes of men or even the devil) that can separate me from His love or not?
I DO believe God is a loving, perfect and faithful Father.
I DO believe He holds me in the palm of His hand.
I’ve had many, many times when I needed to remind my heart that was really what I believed. I’ve had to drag out those promises, write them down, post them on my fridge and bathroom mirror and ignore all the ways the world and my own mind drove me to worry.
When Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, it almost destroyed my trust in God.
Not my faith that He IS or that He is in control, but rather that what He allows is so absolutely awful.
I had to start over and learn again to shape my worry into whispered prayers.
Don’t worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 PHILLIPS (translation)
There is no magic to lift the weight of worry from my shoulders. I must choose, as an act of will to take whatever is pressing down on my heart, making me anxious, speaking lies to my soul and give them to God.
When I do that, He is faithful to set a guard over my heart and mind.
Jesus invites me to pour out my worries at His feet. He begs me to lay down the burden I am unable and unfit to carry and let Him bear it.
He promises to replace my questions and fears with His Presence and His peace.
Schools closing, businesses closing, the world practically shutting down all while a virus makes its way across the globe and may already be at your door is enough to make any heart fret.
For many, it may be the very first time they feel as if there’s truly nothing to DO to protect themselves and the ones they love. And that is its own kind of panic.
Even here, even now Jesus is waiting for you to wrap those worries in prayer. A whispered prayer will do.
He hears.
He cares.
He will overwhelm your anxious heart with His peace if you let Him.
If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.
Julian of Norwich
I do not expect that I will necessarily be safe from this disaster but I know I will be kept safe in His love.
QUESTIONS:
PRAYER:
Lord,
These are trying times.
So, so many things to fear and so, so many things out of control. The very people I could normally depend on to guide the way or save the day are just as impotent as I am to fight this battle.
It seems the whole world is hiding away and hoping against hope it won’t get as bad as some predict.
But I am not without hope.
I have a Great and Good God who welcomes my petitions. I have a Mighty and Merciful Savior who loves me and wants to bear my worry burden.
Help me shape those worries into prayers. Help me hand off the things I can’t control to the One who can. Help me rest secure in the promise that nothing -No. Thing.-can separate me from Your love.
Let this be my watchword: “What time I am afraid, I will trust in You.” ~Psalm 56:3
Amen
I know as a believer in Jesus I’m supposed to be able to look beyond “this mortal veil” and treat death as a mere “address change”.
Well, I can’t.
Death is the enemy and I do not experience it as simply a transition from one state to another.
The last enemy to be abolished and put to an end is death.
~I Corinthians 15:26 AMP
Death is a reminder of all that is wrong with this earth. It’s a reminder that sin is costly. It’s a reminder that this world is not my true home.
It’s just plain wrong!
I hated death long before I counted my own son among the casualties.
Living on a farm, we have buried everything from domestic livestock to random wildlife that wandered up, wounded and we tried to save. I have hatched eggs found in disturbed nests, loved on baby rabbits, squirrels, deer and woodchucks, nursed abandoned kittens, lambs and goat kids. Many of them didn’t survive and every one took a bit of my heart when they breathed their last.
I have said “good-bye” to my 99 year old aunt, my grandmothers, my grandfathers and my own son.
There is nothing pretty about death. It wasn’t in God’s original plan and I hate it.
Lately, I’ve been worrying about my “therapy” cat-Roosevelt. He’s aging. And all things being equal, he won’t last much longer.
He sat in my lap as I recovered from numerous surgeries and hospitalizations.
And he stayed with me as I received concerned family and friends when Dominic ran ahead to Heaven. I don’t know what I would have done without his warm weight holding me in the chair when all I wanted to do was run away and hide.
He has been a compassionate companion in many sad and lonely moments-never asking for a thing and giving so much with his presence and unconditional love.
Every night he sleeps beside me, snuggled down tight against my neck, purring peacefully.
But he’s getting old and I am becoming fearful that I don’t have too many more years left with him. I hate that most nights I drift off to sleep thinking he won’t be here much longer.
And then I feel guilty.
Because the death of my cat (when it happens) can’t begin to touch the depth of pain of the death of my son. It seems, though, that every death taps that wounded spot in my soul.
But every death-whether a person or an animal I love-opens the floodgate of sadness I work so very hard to keep behind the dam.
I know I’m not supposed to borrow trouble from tomorrow and I work hard not to do that.
I’m working hard to cherish each moment with everyone I love without worrying that it may be one of the last.
It’s a fine line I walk every day.
I am much, much better than I was the first two years after Dominic ran ahead to heaven.
I’ll be honest though, sometimes all it takes is the tiniest trigger to make my heart race, my hands shake and my eyes well with tears.
It still surprises and frightens me that anxiety is so close to the surface.
But I guess when your world has been shattered violently and utterly by what you never imagined would happen, that’s a reasonable response.
Read here Why Anxiety is Part of Child Loss.
If you live in the city or a heavily-developed neighborhood you may only see a few birds. But out here in the country, with plenty of cover and a variety of bugs, trees and weeds, there are dozens of species living within earshot of my house.
And I love, love, love hearing their songs.
Sometimes it’s the keening wail of a hawk flying high and searching for something to eat. Sometimes it’s an owl calling to its mate or warning off another suitor. Often it’s the chitter-chatter of wrens or robins or cardinals as they go about their daily business and fuss over patches of ground finding food.
The blue-jays chase the squirrels.
Mockingbirds dive-bomb crows.
Each one doing what it was created to do, not worrying about a thing.
A veritable chorus fills the air.
And at night I get a lovely bonus-a whippoorwill’s voice drifts toward my window through the dark reminding me that not everyone is ready to fall asleep.
All these songs make my heart sing too.
They lift my spirit and fill me with hope.
They remind me that I have also been given a song though I often forget it.
Yet in the light of day, the Eternal shows me His love.
When night settles in and all is dark, He keeps me company—
His soothing song, a prayerful melody to the True God of my life.Psalm 42:8 VOICE
But when I choose to remember and sing, it calls courage to my heart.
thelifeididntchoose 