Matthew 6:25-34
"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.
In 1998, about a month before my mother died, we were visiting with her in a nursing facility near our home town in PA, we live in NC. My mother had been the home for about a year at that point. It was a very new place, very well appointed and well staffed. During our visit my mother, always the worrier about everything, all the time, said, "I didn't want to come here but the past year has been the best I've had in the last 10 years because I didn't have to worry about anything, food, clothes, the furnace, the water heater, the taxes, the mail, my medicine, nothing." Her Parkinson's caused some dementia but most of the time her worries kept her focused. Worry can be a good thing. It keeps your mind occupied.
ReplyDelete