The Day I Forgot to Worry

After three weeks of stomach pain and nausea for my nine-year-old son, and a previous doctor visit that didn’t provide answers, I took him back to the pediatrician on a Saturday morning. The outcome of the visit was an immediate trip to a hospital’s emergency department to rule out appendicitis.

There were incredibly tense moments throughout the day as my son’s symptoms worsened. But after nine tiring hours of lab work and three different kinds of imaging, everything “scary” had been ruled out and a probable cause identified. It wasn’t until we left, overwhelmed with equal parts exhaustion and relief, that it hit me: I’d forgotten to worry about everything else that day except my son. All the things I normally spent energy on took a backseat. There had been no room in my thoughts for less urgent things.

That experience was more shocking than one might expect—a Twilight Zone moment where the world had gone on around me while time stood still inside the hospital. My husband had taken our youngest child to a birthday party. Did I care that I hadn’t picked out his clothes before I left that morning and that they might be mismatched? No, though normally, this would have seemed important. My fifteen-year-old worked a shift at a local restaurant that afternoon, and it was her sixth day on the job. During her first five days, I’d spent the entire time wondering how she was adjusting and if everyone was being nice to her. I still cared about those things while at the hospital, but I didn’t let myself worry about them. She was fine, and my other daughter at home was fine, too.

There were so many things I’d wanted to accomplish that day, but nothing on my “to do” list mattered in comparison to my son’s needs. When I realized all the things I neglected to worry about, it was proof that letting go of worry is possible, though it had come at a price. And that got me thinking. What if, instead of letting worries be pushed aside only by bigger, more pressing worries, I let the Word of God take their place?

Our Lord taught that worrying about day-to-day things is unnecessary. In the familiar passages of Matthew 6:25-34 and Luke 12:22-31, Jesus speaks of how the Father feeds the birds, and how He clothes the grass of the field. God knows what we need, and since we’re more valuable to Him than birds and grass, we can trust Him to take care of us, too.

Jesus also said, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” (Matthew 6:27 NKJV). This rhetorical question begs us to stop and ponder the futility of worry. We can worry all we want, but it won’t change anything.

Obviously, there’s a difference between necessary concern and worry, between reasonable diligence and panic. I care about all the things related to my family’s well-being, but I don’t have to worry about any of them. In my flesh, that’s extremely difficult for me, especially as we face continued illness in my family.
May the Holy Spirit help us all to give our cares to Him daily.

Cast all your anxiety on Him, because he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7 NASB

Originally published on AriseDaily.com.