Today in my Jesus Calling there was a phrase.
Don’t try to make today fit into yesterday’s mold.
And it’s not that I am in love with yesterday. It’s more that I teeter on the edge of fear for tomorrow. How will this all unfold? What if the worst that could happen did? How would I function and cope then? And I need not borrow trouble, or worry about tomorrow when today has it’s own worries…and blah blah blah…but this girl does worry, especially when it comes to her kids. She just does.
So if I worry…and I know I cannot worry my children into a corrected pattern of behavior…what do I do then?
I have to ask myself how it functions. Because if it isn’t functional, and most especially if it creates dysfunction, I must choose to hang onto it or do something different.
Again, I’ve tried to squash the worry, and I can’t. As I lean over my son in the early hours of the morning, his 13 year old frame looks so tiny in his bed. I want him to stay there. Where I know he is safe, and warm, and protected. Tears pour down because I know there are things, and will be even more, I cannot fix for him. All the worrying in the world will not keep him sheltered and nestled in a protective bubble.
And these moments are not bad. They are real and raw and breathy. I wouldn’t trade the desire to protect him for a moment of apathy. But it’s what I do with the worry that matters.
Prayer and petition.
I have to move myself from frantic and panic to prayer and petition.
Sometimes I don’t pray because I wonder if it makes a difference. I know God will hear me, I just don’t know if He will do anything about it. It seems more comfortable to not ask, than to ask and deal with the rejection I feel when prayers appear seemingly “unanswered”.
And the logical part of me knows it’s not about rejection. His plans are greater, deeper, and wider and His perspective is so much bigger and better than my own. But it feels like rejection and hurt and disappointment. And a failure to protect. When I ask for different/better things for my children, I desperately want Him to protect them.
At the core, I just want today to fit into yesterday’s mold.
Yesterday they were safe. Yesterday I was able to shield them. Yesterday I could block the technology that scares me, tell them they can’t go here or there, ensure that sources of temptation are not accessible, get them resources, and continuous support. But that won’t always be the case. It just won’t. And this is where I have to pray and trust.
That God’s good is always way more than good enough. That His protection is perfect, even when I think it looks less than adequate. That His plans really are great and that my fears of “unanswered” prayers will not move me to a place of refusing to pray at all.
Because He is good. He knows. He never changes. He never fails. Not me. Not His children.