Worry is defined as a state of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems. While in many cases, we may have some control over the outcome of situations, that is not the case in everything.
One morning, you may get up and realize that snow was just dumped on by snow while you were asleep in your cozy bed. You do your best to rush through your morning routine so that you can attend to your driveway just enough so that you can get in your car early enough to get on the road and head to work. You have a meeting first thing when you get there and no matter what the circumstances are, this meeting just cannot be cancelled according to your boss. While on your way, you usually make a stop at the local coffee shop to buy a little pick me up latte. Today in your rush, as the server hands you your drink you manage to fumble and drop it right on your lap. Of course, you do have a set of clothes that you do keep with you in case something like this happens, but there is just no time to change. You do your best to wipe yourself off with the napkins and hope that the neutral tones of your clothing will hide the spill enough for people to not notice. You get back on the road and half way there, you come to a train crossing and the arm is down. But there is no train. You sit for a few minutes and still, no train. It turns out that the arm is stuck and you have to wait for repair men to come and fix it and there is no way to turn around. . . . The story goes on.
Now your days may not always look like this but, stuff like this happens. You may be able to avoid the coffee spilling in your lap if you didn't worry so much about arriving to work on time, but the snow dumping on your house or the train crossing arm, you have no control over that. Yet often times we experience that word worry. While it can be beneficial in some cases causing our adrenaline to kick in and put us in to action, like when your child falls out of a tree and breaks there arm, or a giant bear is coming after you, in our everyday lives, it can cause serious damage to our bodies. If you cannot learn to control your worrying, you could experience many mental and physical symptoms such as:
- Anxiety Disorder
- Panic Disorder
- Social Anxiety
- Distress
- Disability
- Difficulty Swallowing
- Dizziness
- Dry Mouth
- Fast Hearbeat
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Inability to Concentrate
- Irritability
- Muscle Aches
- Muscle Tension
- Nausea
- Nervous Energy
- Rapid Breathing
- Shortness of Breath
- Sweating
- Trembling
- Twitching
- suppression of the immune system
- digestive disorders
- muscle tension
- short-term memory loss
- premature coronary artery disease
- heart attack
Of course, these are all things that we want to avoid when at all possible. I bring up this topic today because I know for me that it is a huge struggle each day. It is easy for me to want to have control over each thing that happens in my life, but sometimes, there is just nothing I can do. The only one who can help me in those moments is God because He IS in control. I often have to remind myself of His control through scripture. A few verses that come to mind are:
". . . Be still and know that I am God. . ." Psalms 46:10
"Cast all your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken." Psalms 55:22
"Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
God is in control and He can give you rest. Rest is a very important part of taking care of your body, and if you cannot give your worries to God, you will certainly have a hard time being able to rest. You are also causing your body stress on top of it. Releasing hormones such as cortisol causing your waistline to increase in size therefore making you more susceptible to a number of other symptoms and diseases. Take care of what God has given you and let Him do the worrying when you cannot control something.
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