Worry and peace

The older I get, them more I realize how fear-filled most of us are. My friends who public-school their kids worry that the world will whisk their children away, among a myriad of other fears. My friends (and myself) who homeschool carry a whole host of other worries: will our kids get a good enough education? Will they resent us for keeping them home? And so, so many more. Education is just the tip of the iceberg though. There are all the other worries about our kids' health, our health, parenting in general, the world at large. Life has proven to many of us that it is not be trusted. You can't read the news without coming away feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. People we love get sick, die. Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people. Everywhere we turn we see injustice reigning. Life just feels like a crap shoot sometimes.

A lot of nights, even days, anxiety gnaws away at my chest and in my gut. The what ifs and the what nows just overwhelm to the point that I feel physically ill. I try to pray and leave it all with God and yet the darkness lingers. I've always wondered why that is, why I can't let go of worry. Today in my devotional, Nancy Leigh DeMoss shed some light onto something that I probably should have noticed long ago:

"You can and should pray about (worry), of course. But praying is not all you can do. "Do not be anxious about anything," the apostle Paul wrote, in a much-loved passage of Scripture, "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Phil. 4:6). Then what? "The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (verse 7). When prayer teams up with gratitude, when you open your eyes wide enough to look for God's mercies in the midst of your pain, He meets you with His indescribable peace. It's a promise: prayer + thanksgiving = peace. Prayer is vital, yes. But to really experience His peace in the midst of problems, you must come to Him with gratitude. Costly gratitude. The kind that trusts He is working for your good even in unpleasant circumstances. The kind that garrisons your troubled heart and mind with His unexplainable peace."

And that is the key of the whole thing: gratitude. Thankfulness. Seeing what is already before you and remembering to praise Him for it. Instead of worrying about whether my child is going to get some deadly disease, I need to thank God that they are healthy today. Instead of worrying about how we'll stretch our finances in the next few months, be thankful that today there is food on the table. Rather than worry about how our kids will turn out, be thankful that there is a God Who loves them even more than we do. And that kind of gratitude works against any worry that implants itself in our hearts.

** Things have been quiet on my blog lately due to some stuff going on in my personal life. But I am now back to regular posting. **