Do Not Wear Worry

“Sue, I just read both Monday and Tuesday’s posts,” she wrote yesterday. “Well as your ‘crazy’ moment was about turkey, my UGLY moment was about what our young adult kids chose to wear to church on Easter Sunday. I went off before we left the house and ended up being the naggy mom. So, instead of just being happy that they were BOTH going to be in church with me, I was more worried about how they looked. Talk about being a Pharisee!! I did not buy either of them new Easter outfits (which I have not done in a few years) even though both my husband and I had new clothes due to a wedding that we had attended in January. So, my expectations were not communicated well and I definitely turned getting ready for church into a drudgery which is the COMPLETE opposite of what I had intended. Lesson learned.”

“SO thankful that God loves us, imperfections and all,” she concluded. “Our kids love us warts and all, just like we love them.”

“Thanks for being real with all of us!!” she added, “LOVE the family pic!!”

“You make me chuckle,” I emailed back. “I have seen that UGLY pop out of myself, and biting our tongue about clothes wore to church can be a regular occurrence as we pile into the pew with our sleepy-eyed young adults. Thankfully God blesses our big “I” messes!”

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Matthew 6:27, NIV).

Jesus asks a good question. What happens when we worry? Expansion of life or diminishment? Is it possible for our worries to become life-giving when our angst drives us into an honest conversation with Jesus? Might our worries simply be a personal invitation into oneness with God?

My friend admits, her UGLY moment came from worrying about how her kids looked, how she might be judged with kids looking that way.  And why do you worry about clothes? (Matthew 6:28a, NIV). We will each have our own answer to this convicting question, yet I suspect all of our answers will have more to do with our big “I” than our the Creator of our universe, the great “I AM.” Getting to the inner root of our outer UGLY can reveal to us the place where God is most at work in us this very moment.

Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need… But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what he wants (Matthew 6:32-33a, CEV).