Worry and Hope. Is one Pointless while the other essential?
The recurring theme of worry has been surfacing lately. In work & personal life. I was thinking about my next blog topic, as my mind is usually (maybe always, though that's a strong word) thinking........and then.......
(this scenario happened last week)
Unloading and loading the mountain of dishes that's growing in my home, and trying desperately to NOT do the pans that have been in the sink since Saturday (it's now Thursday)....
Let me give antidotal background on the dishes. I do most of them. I am quite certain there would be some defensive comments about this, and it's not for an argument, rather I understand my schedule is more flexible and thus, somehow I have accepted this chore as mostly mine. However, I have made it clear, if I"m not home or don't eat the food, I am not doing the dishes. So...Saturday, eggs made in a pan. Put in sink. Sunday, another pan used. Put in sink. Monday I go to work, work until late...come home and they're still there. What? Then Tuesday. Same thing. Wednesday. I make a crockpot of bbq chicken (by the way, I'm vegetarian and don't eat the meal), and come home after 10pm from working, the pans from Saturday remain, along with the crock pot (left over chicken removed, thankfully) .....left in that sink. I"m perplexed, how long am I going to have to suffer looking at these pans before it bothers someone else. In nearly 20 years I've never done this experiment and it's nearly driving me batty letting it go.......
So my story has nothing to do with the dishes...but that was what started my thought process today.... come on, we've all been there, right? Worrying about something that in the grand scheme of life (I sorta loathe that phrase, but not sure how else to explain it) doesn't even matter.....
So....in thinking about what I was going to write, and the worry that has been omnipresent for a myriad of reasons this past week, I come across an old song from one of my favorite Christian musicians, Steven Curtis Chapman. "With Hope." I wasn't even planning on writing about this, and there it happens again, the topic chooses me rather than me choosing the topic.
I remember years ago a ritual I had in going to funerals for members from my job as a cancer support community program director. The fact that I had any ritual at all tells you how often it happened. As a young adult (now either in or approaching middle age, yikes!), I've attended way more funerals than anyone else in my peer group. I attended as many as I could, some more difficult than others depending on the relationship I had with the member. So driving to one funeral of a member named Patty, I remember having SCC's cd in my car and put this song on. Bawling on the way to the church, I sang this song, feeling God's grace and comfort through the encouraging lyrics ".....We can cry with hope. We can we can say goodbye with hope. For we know our goodbye is not the end......We can grieve with hope....there's a place where we'll see your face again...."
And I thought, wow....something this hard to process and understand, and seemingly final, if in the midst of this I can find some sort of peace and comfort, maybe the rest of my worries aren't that significant after all.
It shifted a little for me that day. It's odd sometimes when that happens, a time/place when we can actually pin point a shift in thought, but I remember it happening.
Maybe that is around the time when I started my journey towards understanding my own peace....a sense of peace to do the work I was "called" to do, and a way for me to not allow the grief and worry to consume me and prevent me from living the life I have. I do not do it perfectly, as many around me can attest, but I do strive for balance and when my mind wanders too much into the "worry".....I remember this.....
"They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world; someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for." Tom Bodett.
By definition, by said list (albeit mine less traditional than some might suspect)....I have found happiness in this life. Hope wins...and thus, no need for worry.....
Until the next time I need a reminder...
Peace.....