Today my son leaves for a few days to points north. He
travels a couple of hundred miles to a picturesque valley nestled in the Great
Smokey Mountains.
But in order to get there, he has to traverse a few imposing
mountains. A winter storm is imminent—and cell phone service is sketchy.
Though he hopes to
arrive a couple of hours before the storm blows in and temperatures descend
into the teens, this mom is battling fear over his travel plans.
I don’t even know if he has a pair of gloves.
I ransacked the house for cold weather and roadside
emergency gear and assembled them in a bag.
Yeah, I know. He’s a grown man. He’s an Eagle Scout for
crying out loud. Trained to be prepared. But it’s so hard to turn off the Mom
button.
And the “what if” thoughts assault.
When I was recovering from Posttraumatic stress, one of the many
challenges was to allow God to change my thoughts.
Imagination can be a wonderful thing. But there’s
a dark side to having a huge imagination. The enemy can run rampant in it. Thomas
Jefferson said, “How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never
happened.” Mark Twain echoed the thought, “I am an old
man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
The apostle Paul declares, “Do not
conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his
good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).
I had to learn any sentence that began
with the words, “what if,” could produce anxiety. In time, I learned to replace
those thoughts with the truth of God.
“What if we suffer a financial
reversal?”
“And my God will meet all your needs
according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
“What if I run out of ideas for my
writing?”
“But we have the mind of Christ” (I
Corinthians 2:16).
And in this instance, “What if something (and
I could come up with a hundred something’s) happens on my son’s trip?”
From Psalm 34:7, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.”
It simply comes down to whether I’m going
to trust God with everything, or whether I still feel it’s up to me to control
my little corner of the universe.
And I know for sure, that we’re in big
trouble if it’s up to me.
So, I give my son to God, once more.
If you’re like me and tempted to fret over
something beyond your control, anyway, here’s to thanking God for turning our
fretting into the freedom of trust.