I had quite a week a few weeks ago. It started with a stomach bug that ripped through my family, mid week a never ending work problem that seemed to keep getting worse occurred, and the week ended with someone hacking into my iCloud account and tangling a huge mess of problems including putting stolen credit cards into my account. Listen, I am not a tech person. I can figure basic things out but start using words beyond “download” and “click to purchase” and my eyes glaze over and my face goes numb. This is basically my face when you start talking about tech stuff to me… 
So, as you can imagine after spending hours on the phone with Apple security discussing things I barely understand, I felt beat up at the end of the week.
Friday night I was rocking my son to sleep and I felt exhausted, beyond tired, my brain hurt. In the peaceful quiet of his nursery I recounted my week and I realized why I was so completely drained. I had literally worried myself into this state. It wasn’t just the events of the week that that wore me out, and don’t get me wrong, they were tiring, but it was the fact that I let them consume me. When I got sick I worried I would have to go into work sick (when you own a business sick days don’t exist). I worried that I would get the rest of my family sick. When the work problem hit I worried about my client, I worried about my business’ reputation. I feared bad reviews and financial loss. When I discovered the iCloud hack I worried that my entire identity had been stolen, that this person now had my social security number, my blood type and my family ancestry… ok not really but you know what I mean. I worried, I fretted, I lost my appetite, I jumped to conclusions, and I went over completely made up scenarios over and over again in my mind.
And what good did all of this worrying do? Well let me tell you; I did go to work sick but I survived. The rest of my family (except Miles) got sick. I even had the pleasure of learning how to remove blue pedialyte vomit stains from my white carpet (so fun!) My client was the sweetest person and ended up being a delight to deal with when the problem hit. She did not write a nasty review and my business will survive to see another day. I had to get a new credit card, which was inconvenient but the Apple people were a pleasure to work with, fixed the problem quickly, helped me with further security and are investigating the hacker with stolen credit cards. I imagine Kate and Castle are on the case and will find him or her momentarily. (side note…. I miss Castle everyday of my life and since it went off the air there is a hole in my heart no show can fill) 😭
Anyway, all of these outcomes happened regardless of my worrying. My worrying literally did nothing except make me miserable. There are approximately 1,563,400,012 quotes, inspirational sayings and Bible verses about not worrying, yet most of us still do it. Especially us moms. I am not athletic at all, but if there was an Olympic sport for worrying I know I could medal. But instead of holding my medal high and proud, I’m mortified that I can worry at such an Olympic level. I’m a Christian, I try to live my life as much like Jesus as I can everyday. I take his words seriously, and he told us multiple times in scripture not to worry. Not only did he say not to worry, He took it a step further and told us to have peace. WHAT?!? I’m sorry but I have so disassociated the word peace from my own lifestyle that when I hear the word peace all I think of is hippies and symbols from the 60’s.
I have an almost 4 year old and a 1 year old, own a business, I’m a wife, and have a house to clean and bills to pay. Who has time to feel peace? But, something hit me when I started reading the words of Jesus. He didn’t say “Have peace when your kids are grown.” or “Have peace when you retire.” or “Have peace when you become a millionaire.” He said in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Jesus is telling us that we are capable of having a peace that surpasses all understanding because He gave it to us. We are capable of attaining this peace, even though this world gives us worries and trials and heartache. But it’s not so easy to attain, is it? I know when I ‘m going through something worrisome I go straight to over-analyzing, it’s how I’m hard wired to respond. I actually have to fight my natural reactions in order to feel peace. My flesh is filled with sin and almost always wants to act differently than the Holy Spirit. So, I have to consciously choose to change my mindset in those moments. 1 Peter 3:11 says “…They must seek peace and pursue it.” This shows action on our part. So, Jesus tells us in John 14:27 that He’s giving us His peace, a peace that is not of this world. But, 1 Peter 3:11 reminds us that this peace will only come if we seek it and pursue it. I’m going to be honest and tell you, it’s HARD to put this in action. But, it is so worth it.
After I had my revelation about my worrying that night in my sons nursery I wanted to put an end to it. Next time something comes up, I will not worry, I told myself. Well, guess what? Yep, another messy, super annoying work problem appeared. A perfect situation for me to spend hours worrying over. But this time every time my mind wandered into worry territory I caught myself and would say “God help me.” or ” God I trust you are handling this.” A few times I actually had to visualize myself carrying my worry to the foot of the cross and leaving it there. I felt glimpses of peace but after a few days of this I felt I was just white knuckling it. It was only a matter of time before I jumped back into full blown worry mode.
Finally, desperate for the peace Jesus promised us I laid flat on my face on my bedroom floor. Seems kind of dramatic, I know. But, 1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us to “Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” I couldn’t think of a more humble position than flat on my face before the Lord. From that position I poured my heart out. I told him why I was so worried. I told him every emotion I was feeling. Then, I told him that I felt guilty for worrying because Jesus told us not to and for some reason I feel the need to act perfect, when in reality I’m just an imperfect sinful human. And can I be honest here, since we are friends and all? I have never felt a peace like I felt after my heart cried out to God. I’m not kidding, I’m not being dramatic to make this a good story to read. When I finally lifted my face off the floor my body actually felt lighter. It was like God scooped the worry I was lugging around off my shoulders and filled me with a peace that truly surpassed any understanding. I don’t even think I can describe how good it felt. This combination of joy, peace, and love felt like it was pouring out of me. I finally felt content, whole and above all PEACEFUL.
Of course God already knew all of these things that I was pouring out to him before I even said a word, and he could have taken my worry away days before. But, I truly believe humbling myself before him, getting on my face and meditating on the fact that he is a huge, awesome and mighty God was what finally allowed me to fully give him my burdens and anxieties. I wasn’t ready to let go of them until that moment. I wanted him to be like a magic genie and just take the symptom of worry away, but I still wanted to solve and control the problem. I wasn’t trusting all of it to him, but in that moment of pure worship it happened. He did what Jesus said he would do and gave me peace.
After all was said and done, my work problem eventually passed and my sense of peace stayed with me the entire time. I am fully aware that more problems will come, whether at work, or home, or with family or friends. Unfortunately, troubles are part of life. But I am so grateful that God taught me this lesson now while going through seemingly small problems so I can keep seeking and pursuing his peace, it is so important. Anxiety and worry have horrible side effects on us, which further proves to me that we weren’t meant to live that way. So, why not turn to the one who can take all the worry away? An ever present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1) He wants you to cast your anxieties on him because he loves you. He loves you more than you’ll ever know. He doesn’t care whether your problem is small like your garbage disposal keeps breaking or huge like your child has an illness or diagnosis you can’t fix. He just wants so badly for you to realize that he is God and for you to trust him enough as your Heavenly Father to take your anxiety and replace it with peace.
Before I end this post I want to tell you a quick story about why I named this post what I did and why I wrote it at all. I so strongly felt that God wanted me to write this particular post and I’m not exactly sure why. I haven’t written anything in over a month. I wanted to but any topic I thought of seemed kind of lame, or I wasn’t fired up about it enough to write. That night, while rocking Miles to sleep that I mentioned earlier, I felt God say to me “use your worry, use this, this is what I want you to write about.” But I felt like a hypocrite. I worry so much, I am not going to tell other people not to worry when I can’t even do it myself. I tucked the idea away and kept rocking Miles. Suddenly the Bob Marley song “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” popped into my head. Probably because I was sitting there thinking about worrying and that song seems like a logical departure from worrying. The beautiful words and reggae tones will instantly transport you to a beach somewhere, where worries are few and far between. So, because it was in my head I started singing it to Miles as I rocked him to bed. Once asleep, I left his room and went downstairs still wondering if I should write about worry. When I got downstairs I saw that my other son, Hunter had pulled a card game out from the cabinet and had thrown the cards all over the floor. It was a pop-culture game with different celebrities on each card. So, I bent down to start cleaning them up, now mind you there are at least 70 cards on the floor. The very first card my hand touched I flipped over and Bob Marley’s face was staring up at me. At that moment I knew I had to write this post. I felt Gods hand in it from start to finish. Was it a coincidence that that particular song about not worrying randomly popped in my head and 5 minutes later I’m holding a card with a picture of Bob Marley on it? Could have been, but I doubt it.
I call those God winks, little winks from God to show me that I’m on the right path or that I’m following his will. After seeing Bob on that card and accepting to write about this topic God still had work to do in me. I hadn’t at that point had my surrendered moment of worship that lead me to peace. However, if I hadn’t listened to that small voice that told me to write about worry I wouldn’t have dug into my Bible seeking God’s wisdom on the topic, and what I learned was life changing for me. So, I pray that this post spoke to you and gives you hope with your own worries and anxieties. But, if this post doesn’t help anyone but me, I will still stand here incredibly grateful and humbled that God took my miserable week of worry and not only taught me something from it but turned it into something beautiful. And I’m oh so grateful that God has a sense of humor and orchestrated a Bob Marley card to appear on my floor to get my attention. 
Thanks for taking the time to read this post! Until next time!
Xoxo- Sarah
the Way, the Truth, the Wife 