Are you someone who can take life as it comes, ride any wave that comes your way with ease, shrug off life’s uncertainties? No, me neither.  I tend to think everything to death, chase down every bunny trail, and try to plan for whatever may come.  That leads to a lot of worry.  What could happen next, how would we handle it, am I prepared?  That tendency became reinforced during my cancer battle. After all, I was fighting for my life.  I had to anticipate any and all things that may kill me, right?  Living like that is no fun, nor is it really living.  Every day is such a blessing.  So many others will not have that opportunity.

I have been following two sweet little children who are fighting different types of childhood cancer.  They were both diagnosed at age two.  Numerous surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy later, both of them had relapses and one has passed.  The other seems to be out of options, as it has metastasized to his lungs and bones. It just doesn’t seem fair!  Their lives were just beginning.

So, in a world where so many unthinkable things happen on a daily basis, how can you worry less?  I am not unrealistic enough to think we would not worry at all, but that is definitely my goal.  One of my favorite quotes by Corrie tenBoom, a Nazi concentration camp survivor, says

Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength–carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.

What wise words, from someone who had every reason to worry.  Few of us will ever experience the level of emotional and physical distress that she did, and yet God gave her a spirit of peace in the midst of it.  I think that’s the lesson for me.  Life will provide many opportunities for worry, but God has promised to never leave us during those times.  He never promised we wouldn’t have to walk through them or that it would be easy, but He promised we wouldn’t have to do it alone.  In that promise is great hope.  Let’s face it, today needs all the strength it can get, so let’s send worry packing!