Photo Credit: Bible Verse Images
The weight of worry is something we have all carried…a burden never meant for our own shoulders. Over the safety and future of our children. Over our ability to provide adequately for our families. Over the meaning of the lump or the dizziness or the pain. Worry fills our mind to no good end. Joy and peace are pushed out, for no good reason.
Sure…there is plenty to drive us to worry, but we are too small, too fragile ourselves to fix everything we want fixed. Worry is futile.
My Mom was once a world-class worrier. She would lose nights of sleep in worry mixed with prayer mixed with tears. I remember, as a teen, waking to her muffled crying (from another bedroom, hoping not to wake Dad with her fitfulness). Do I go to her, or would that make her sorrow worse, to have waked up one of her children? I stayed and prayed.
However, for any of you who had the joy of knowing Mom, the best of her life story is that she learned to trust. Not just for herself but for all those God placed in her path.
When Mom got cancer and fought it futilely for the last three years of her life, her faith in God grew as it only can in suffering. Through chronic pain and cancer treatment that only made her sick, and left the cancer untouched. Mom was radiant in her faith. While we all prayed for healing, she only prayed for God to be glorified…and He answered her prayer (our also but in Heaven, as He called her Home). She had lamented one time years earlier of how she wished God would speak plainly to her so she could know it was Him. In her last days, I asked her was God talking to her through her experience with cancer. She looked at me with those bright, beautiful eyes of her and that radiant smile, and answered, “All the time”. All the time!
She prayed His will and He showed up strong and with grace upon grace. She endured, and He showed up. That intimacy with God was worth it all for Mom.
What I learned from Mom in the worry of years earlier and in her walk of faith with God in the end changed my life forever.
Does worry still rise up in its mean life-stealing phantom form? Yes.
If we pay attention, God will point us to what is true, through His Word and through precious brothers and sisters, reminding us of His character and His ways for us.Photo Credit: Daily Verses
I’ve already written earlier this week on the teachings of Canadian author Tim Challies, but his most recent posting stirred today’s blog.
[Challies lost his son, Nick, recently…just a few weeks ago. Suddenly… without warning. Nick was 20 years old. Challies has been writing about the loss of his son in a series of blogs. Here is one: The Cruelty of Quarantine: A Lament.]
He writes most recently on the day he drove his daughter, Abby, to the airport to return to her Freshman year at college (after spending the holidays together, grieving the loss of their son/brother). It was at college that Nick died. Anxiety over releasing Abby to God…as parents have to do over and over again in life…overwhelmed him…
“How, then, can I let go of such anxiety? If I have learned any antidote it is this: deliberately submitting myself to the will of God, for comfort is closely related to acquiescence. As long as I fight the will of God, as long as I battle God’s right to rule his world in his way, peace remains distant and furtive. But when I surrender, when I bow the knee, then peace flows like a river and “attendeth my way.” For when I do so, I remind myself that the will of God is inseparable from the character of God. I remind myself that the will of God is always good because God is always good. Hence I pray a prayer of faith, not fatalism: “Your will be done. Not as I will, but as you will.”
“So I will pray for the desires of my heart, I will ask God to bless and protect my girl, I’ll plead with him to bring her home to me in May. But the steel thread woven through the fabric of such a prayer is not “my will be done” but “thy will be done.” Ultimately, if there is to be comfort, it will not be grounded in the hope that nothing bad will happen to me or to the people I love, but in the perfect God whose perfect character is displayed in his perfect will.” – Tim Challies
In his reminding of the goodness of God, no matter what, he also brought to mind the great old hymn It Is Well With My Soul. If you don’t know the powerful story of the writing of this hymn, take the time to read it in the link below.
History of Hymns – It Is Well With My Soul – Horatio G. Spafford
Would you worship with me? With the words of this song my mom loved as must Tim Challies…and so many of us. Sung by Audrey Assad.
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul
It is well
With my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul
It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul
It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul*
I’d like to close with the last verses of the hymn (not included in Assad’s version above):
“For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.
And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
A song in the night, oh my soul!”*
Hallelujah!
*Lyrics to It Is Well With My Soul – Songwriter: Horatio G. Spafford
Worship Wednesday – the Embattled Jesus – Withstanding Every Assault and Then Rest Comes – Deb Mills
Worship Wednesday – Rest, the Lord Is Near – a Reminder by Steve Green – Deb Mills
4 Practical Things to Do Instead of Worrying – Becky Thomton
YouTube Video – Like a River Glorious (Stayed Upon Jehovah, Hearts are Fully Blessed) – by Frances Ridley Havergal – a favorite hymn of mine growing up
Look Again and Think – My Utmost for His Highest – Oswald Chambers – Devotional for today, January 27
A Facebook post from a friend came up today on Memories – the Chambers devotional for today (see above). God is always good.