Lucky Charms are really not magically delicious

I have miles to go before I sleep today.

Literally.

I have about 34 minutes to get my face and hair looking presentable and head out the door for a full 14 hours of travel and hangs with the Fab Four…so knowing this on Monday I had mapped out what I would write each day.

If you know anything about me, you know that I have been riddled with doubt each and every morning as I followed through with the outline but I am forging ahead in faith that this is a word for someone, even if it is just for me <3

In dealing with my various levels of trying to figure myself out over the years, I have uncovered a strange motivator for my “worry and anxiety” tendencies.

At some point as I prayed to have God remove this from me and was blaming it on my own mom’s extreme cases of getting herself worked up to the point of needing bed rest and meds…I came face to face with the reality that while yes, I had learned some of it…I needed to own some of it too.

So as I thought back through the years to my childhood, I began to wonder when I went from the wild child with off-center pig tails who played til she dropped into exhaustion and morphed into someone who manages to drum up all the possible ways things could go wrong even if all we are doing is making plans for an outing to the zoo.

As I prayed it through and asked God to help, I began to realize that at some point in mid-grade school I began to develop a theory that seemed to prove true all the way through my high school years.

If I was off somewhere having fun and enjoying myself, somehow when I got home I would have forgotten the time or to check in or my mom didn’t know where I was and had been calling out for me for quite a while.

She would be worried sick.

Literally.

And it heaped guilt on me for my thoughtless and careless ways.

However; if I worried and kept nagging doubt hanging over me whilst playing in the creek down the street or riding my bike to friends in the next neighborhood or taking an extra long time to get home because I had crammed 10 high school kids in the gray Nova and was dropping them off one by one around town…(there were pre-cell phone; pre-seat belt days my friends)…it seemed she hadn’t even given a thought to it and was surprised I was home so soon.

So I started to equate “worry” with being in good graces with my mom.

It’s weird, I know.

But we do this.

We establish a pattern of the lesser of two evils and lock ourselves into a prison that Jesus blasted the door off of when we received Him into our hearts.

We live like we are chained when we are free.

Not free from responsible behavior.

But free from the binding laws we have made up in our own minds that we think will keep us safe and comfortable.

What is freeing is realizing that I will encounter trouble, but He is with me.

That I will not be able to avoid the pitfalls of this world by following some sort of five step plan.

I will pray and think He’s not hearing, but He is.

I will feel alone and confused and there will be times when the rut of worry, fear, dread and anxiety will look familiar because I have run the wheels of my life down that road many a time.

But each and every time, as I acknowledge that I am back in those well-worn tracks and I cry out for help to rise again, I will.

That’s freedom for me.

My mom also experienced freedom in the last five years of her life.

Somehow in the midst of her physical and mental breakdown after caring for my Alzheimer-ridden dad for far too long, she met Jesus face to face.

In her delirium, He broke through and she finally knew the One she had given her life to as a little girl.

The change in her was dramatic and marked and incredible.

I am so thankful for the kindness of God that sets us free.

Now I must be off, but I pray you know His freedom in your own areas of lock-down today <3

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