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| October, 2012 |
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 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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