NOVEMBER 2015 - Perspective is everything, especially in the rear view mirror.
The calamitous car trouble that rocked our world last week coincided with another anniversary of sorts. It was three years ago last week that E made that fateful decision to take a rope swing into Armuchee Creek.
The resulting compound fracture started us on a journey of surgeries, x-rays and doctor visits that consumed me with anxiousness, anxiety and angst. Four days after E was discharged from the hospital, my wife was in the emergency room. It took six days in the hospital for doctors to discover her life-threatening perforated ulcer, and over the course of that week, worry became my companion and conscience.
My days looked like this: Get A to and from school as she attempted to find a sense of normal while the health of her support system deteriorated. Rush back home to take care of E, who was groggy from the pain medicine and unable to get out of bed without assistance. Find someone to stay with him so that I could head to the hospital to be the advocate and find answers for my wife, who was sedated due to her intense abdominal pain. I felt I was always one step behind where I needed to be. I was a mess of worry and fear.
I don’t ever want to go back to those days, but looking back this week, I see a powerful lesson that resonates with me.
Three years later, I can see that the worry was fruitless. Everything worked out. It took three surgeries, wound care and a bone-growth stimulator, but E's leg is fully functioning and stronger than the 12mm titanium rod he carries with him. Worry was not a factor in his healing, but faith was. The ulcer, pancreatitis, hernia and scar tissue that had caused excruciating pain for my wife are repaired, and there are no residual effects. Worry didn’t play a role in that. We paid out our out-of-pocket maximum on our health insurance two years running, yet miraculously stayed on course with our debt-retirement plan. No amount of lost sleep helped make that happen.
Nothing good comes from worry. It is emotional debt, bankrupt faith. Worry drains your account and leaves you no equity. Worry accomplishes nothing, but God? He accomplishes much.
Why, then, would I waste time worrying about mechanical failures and finances? We’re going to be OK. The timeline may be extended. The frustration may rise, but, in the end, it'll work out. God takes care of us. Matthew’s gospel–specifically chapter 6, reveals God's love for us and how that relates to worry.
Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?...Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry.
Like I said, perspective, especially when supported by hindsight, is everything.
I don't have to worry about tomorrow, because I have a lifetime of yesterdays to prove that God cares.
The only sensible answer, then, is to take care of today. A few verses earlier in Matthew 6, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray.
Give us this day our daily bread. That's what Jesus prayed. He did not ask for tomorrow, only for today.
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