emergency button
I woke up worrying about just about everything. My career, my income, my debt, my savings, my house, the expense of a wedding, the state of my wardrobe, and the whens and hows and whys. I wanted to curl up in a ball and just not go to work. That’s what happens when I worry - self-imposed paralysis and the desire to give up. I managed to get up and get dressed. I managed to get to work, in the rain. I managed to smile at co-workers and greet folks kindly even though my general attitude has been absolutely rotten for at least a week or two now. I needed to press the emergency button. It hasn’t failed me yet.
Here’s my emergency button:
"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." Bible, NIV Version, Book of Matthew 25:34 - the words of Christ in His sermon on the mount.
…The only thing that can get me to calm down when I get like that.
