The Perfect Time to Worry...The Perfect Time to Let Go

One of my enduring traits has been my tendency to worry. I come by it honestly. If I inherited my mother’s generous spirit and stubborn kind of “strength”, I surely inherited my father’s artistic gifts and his proclivity to worry about things beyond his control. Yes, my daddy was an extremely talented musician, a gifted teacher and a world-class perfectionist and worry wart. My mother has teased me my entire life about inheriting my dad’s anxious tendencies. I have a tendency to overthink, to ruminate. To play out the worst case scenario as the most likely outcome. I actively fight my desire get it right, whatever that “it” may be – motherhood, ministry, lawyering, hair, dress, relationships. I am daily at war with my inherited perfectionism and the worry, the anxiety it produces.

And yet, my anxiety, my tendency to worry, my perfectionist need for answers and control of things that are beyond me are real. I live with an anxiety disorder. I contend, in a very real, very tangible way with my inability to control circumstances beyond me every day. And like so many of us and our brothers and sisters around the globe, this global health pandemic has poked, prodded and threatened to rile my anxiety to new heights and pull me into the depths of worry. My thoughts cannot keep pace with the rate at which things are changing. The helplessness and waiting and not knowing and constant change, for someone living with anxiety, is beyond difficult; it can suffocate you if you let it. If you are a worrier, this is the perfect time to worry.

So at this moment in time, I am thankful for the wisdom of my mother. I don’t know how she walked with my dad, her husband of almost 41 years, as he worried, but I remember her words to me even as she teased me about being a worry wart like my daddy. The first day of school was always hard for me. It was chock full of worry. I didn’t know the new teachers. I didn’t know if I would be able to meet the teachers’ expectations; I didn’t know if I would be able to meet my own expectations. So the day before each new day of school, my mother would open her arms, tell me to come to her and as I laid my head on her chest she wrapped her arms around me and said something like this:

"Beautiful girl, my baby. I know you don’t like change. I know you are worried about whether you’ll do well or if you’re going to make it through this year. I know you’re scared because you don’t know what to expect or what is going to happen. Change is the only constant in life. I know that’s hard for you to accept, but I need you to remember this…you’ve never not made it through."

So as I get up each morning and talk to God while I dress and prepare to head to my job at a huge hospital and minister at the bedsides of people who are grappling with their own worry, their own fear, their own unknowns I think of my mother’s words to me. I remind myself that I am not required to do more than take the next right step until more is revealed to me. I remind myself that God has promised to walk with me, even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I remember that seasons change and times change. I remember that change is the only constant in life, and these times we are in are going to change. I remember even in the midst of crisis, what a privilege it is to be invited into people’s lives to remind them of God’s presence with them. I am reminded that this season will pass.

So as you work from home, and school your children from home be encouraged that God, our Creator, our Sustainer is right there with you. The social distancing may just be an invitation to draw closer to some things, some people, some relationships that get lost in the busyness of everyday life. As we live our lives in a world where the baseline for normalcy right now is thin and fluid, remember to breathe slowly. Exhale the worry that’s trying to suffocate you. This is the perfect time to let it go. Remember to speak life over yourselves and your families. Remember to sip your coffee, your tea, your wine slowly and savor the fact that you have NEVER not made it through.