Thoughts on Worry

I'm reading through Iain Duguid's commentary on Esther and Ruth...actually, just the part on Ruth for now. I don't think I've ever really read a commentary before, and I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. This morning I came upon a wonderful little nugget of truth in the chapter I was reading...I pray it inspires you as much as it did me. In the midst of writing about Naomi's bitterness as she returns back to her people, Duguid writes on worry...

"In the dark night of our souls, we imagine and worry about the worst possible scenario. In fact, we often conjure up contradictory worst case scenarios to worry about, events that cannot all happen to us. [this describes me to a T!] We persuade ourselves that God has abandoned us and that we have no prospects. How much unnecessary turmoil do we put ourselves through! God doesn't promise to give us the grace to survive all the scenarios we can dream up--but only to give us the grace to enable us to make it through whatever her actually brings into our lives. In fact, much of what we worry about turns out in the end not to be part of God's plan for us after all; our worry was wasted work! Of course, Jesus told us this himself when he said, 'Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?' "

I so often do what he describes in the opening sentence...I think back to when I was pregnant, worrying about what life would look like after a baby. Imagining the worst case scenario and fretting about that. Or even wondering if we would come back to Charlotte, worrying about how I would handle going somewhere else....fretting over it. And now looking back, I really see that all of my worrying was for nothing. How much wasted time and mental energy have I spent worrying over things that have not even come to pass? Let alone realizing that God WILL give me grace for whatever He has for me. I don't necessarily have grace to handle what He has given others or even what He will bring my way in 5 years from now. But He has promised Grace for today. What peace that brings to my soul!