Worry

Have you ever read the annual skin cancer articles in wormen's magazines? I do every year....I don't know why I do this, I suppose because I am a native Texan, fair complected, and have spent years out in the sun and on the water. I look at the pictures of skin cancer and think, thankfully nothing on my body looks like that. About 30 minutes later, I look at a large freckle or mole on my arm and think - did that always look like that?A seed of worry tries to plant itself in my mind. If I let it, I will be frantic to get an appt with a dermatologist. (I am not suggesting that we ignore suspicious spots or growths on our skin!) Worry is a sin...I remember how flabbergasted I was when I first discovered that fact. I thought wow, many women in my mother’s family worry about everything. I take after my father’s side and rarely worry. That side of the family tended to have other types of sin….such as control instead of worry.

As I read some of the verses pertaining to worry in the book of Matthew for the 1st time as an adult 25 years ago, it dawned on me if I worried, I was not casting my cares on Jesus, I was lugging them around with me.

Jesus talks about worry, He says:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I want to obey our Lord, so when a seed of worry tries to plant itself in my mind, I usually pray out loud against worry or begin to praise God. The worrisome thought is usually gone in less than a second. Besides, I cannot afford to worry, my face has enough lines and age spots as it is!