I’m pleased to have my good friend Sue Davis Potts as a guest blogger today.
Although my mother didn’t become a Christian until she was in her sixties, she was always a good moral person. She has been gone for nineteen years now, and I still have people that she worked with telling me what a good friend she was to them. My mother did have one major flaw. She was a worrier.
She worried about everything. She worried about any of her loved ones that were out of her sight and especially family members who were making unwise choices. She worried about the possibilities of what could happen when she would leave home. Her purse was proof. She had everything she thought she might need in her purse. This was one reason she was such an amazing friend at work, if any of her co-workers needed anything from aspirin to a packet of ketchup; she had it.
She worried about having the money to pay the bills, which often prompted her to go into work even if she was sick. When she cooked, she worried about having enough food prepared to not only give everyone a good meal, but so they could also eat all they wanted. If we had company or if it was a holiday meal there was always enough food to feed an army.
The worry didn’t stop there. She worried about storms. Because of an incident that happened in her childhood, she was terrified of storms. I remember many nights her waking my sister and me out of a sound sleep to get up and get dressed because it was coming a thunderstorm. It never made sense to me to get up and listen to the storm when you could stay in bed and sleep through the whole thing. But, it wasn’t in my mother’s nature to sleep through it; she worried.
Even though I believe that Mama improved after she became a Christian, she always struggled with worry. I somehow think that my creative writing ability may have come from her. She wasn’t a writer, but she certainly had a vivid and alive imagination. The scenarios of possibilities never stopped going through her head.
When I think about my mother in heaven, I think about what a relief she must have felt when all her worries were taken away. Just imagine how free she must have felt when that burden was lifted. Just think what freedom she would have felt if she could have laid down that burden in her life on earth.
God doesn’t want us to wait until heaven to give him our worries. In the NIV version of the Bible, 1 Peter 5:7 says, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. God wants to carry the burden of our worries for us if we will let him.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)
John Trapp a 17th century, English Anglican Bible commentator said it this way, “It is our work to cast care, it is God’s work to take care. Let us not, by our soul dividing thoughts, take his work out of his hands.” I’m sure my mother would now agree.
Click Tweet: What reigns in your heart today? Worry of God’s peace? -Sue Davis Potts https://ctt.ec/Cf5fA+
Sue Davis Potts
Sue is a freelance writer from Huntingdon, Tennessee. She is mother to her beautiful, college age daughter, Jessa.
She enjoys writing for both children and adults. She has been published in several anthologies and magazines including Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse, Clubhouse Jr., and Ideals.
Her blog Potts Pages can be found on her website, www.suedavispotts.com. Her book 101 Life Lessons From Uno (The One-Legged Duck) is available on Amazon.
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/SueDavisPotts/
Start the discussion