I found a discarded fortune from a fortune cookie yesterday. The clear wrapper was nearby, the sweetness of the cookie consumed by someone else…..the fortune left behind. For me? Perhaps. "A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work. " It seemed a perfect message for my day….one left behind by someone it didn’t fit for someone it did.

Worry. It is an exhausting state in which to live. Yet, I’ve found myself there a lot lately. There seems to be much to worry about…..the state of the world….the unending war…..upcoming elections….the state of the church….friends who are ill or injured…..change and transitions….our children, their future,their present….other people’s children, their future,their present….the list goes on and on. Even writing this, I can feel the muscles in my arms growing heavy with ‘worry exhaustion’.

Worry…"to feel distressed in the mind, be anxious,troubled or uneasy" is the most common definition. But also, worry means "to pluck at, push on, repeatedly, in a nervous or determined way"….or…." to harass or treat roughly with or as with continual biting or tearing with the teeth". Most often, at least in my case, worry begins with the second definition as I pluck or push on a detail or feeling in a determined way leading to the second….a nagging feeling of distress and anxiety. And before I know it there is gnashing and tearing, perhaps not of  teeth, but of spirit and soul. It is a vicious cycle, one that is almost always self perpetuated, one that is always self-destructive.

The root of worry is, I believe, a lack of feeling in control….of a situation, a feeling, another person. And while I have learned over time that it is an exhausting,harmful, distracting and in the end, useless, state of being, I still find myself there sometimes.  Do you?

In what was perhaps him most famous sermon, Jesus talked to ordinary people:"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God feeds them. And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your space of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these." Matthew 6

Thanks to the person who left their fortune behind. It was a gift. Today I want to learn from the birds at our feeder and the lilies blooming brilliantly in our garden. Today I will trade worry for faith. Join me?

Have a wonderful, worry-free weekend………………………