Are you a worrier?
Or am I alone in this perpetual habit?
My tendency to worry gets more all-encompassing when I am facing a change in routine. Like going down to a courthouse on Monday morning (not to mention Halloween).
Yesterday, I had jury duty, and I worked myself up over stupid worries all morning.
- What if I get lost going downtown? (If you don’t know me well – I’m quite the pro at arguing with my gps – “You say 0.1 miles, what does that mean exactly? Here? Here? Did I miss it already?”)
- What if I forget my jury summons?
Or the kicker…
- What if I get picked?
- (Yes, I believe it’s my civic duty, but I think a fair number of us still worry about the consequences of multiple days away from work and family.)
Once I arrived at the courthouse, I had new (and perhaps more rational) worries to consider like:
- What if this low tire pressure light that came on while driving here means I’ll come out of the courthouse to a flat tire?
Worrying sometimes can be put to good use though.
- In case I got lost, I left home super early.
- In case I forgot my summons, I googled “what if you forget your summons” and figured out they had alternative plans for that.
- In case I got picked, I had everything ready for my boys Halloween and plans ready for work.
- In case of a flat tire, well… that would have sucked.
But being prepared for most of my worries let me to enter the courthouse in a more rational frame of mind being (somewhat) okay with whatever happened that day.
It let me let go enough to talk to the women next to me, one of which walked her portable air pump to my car in the parking garage once we were finally dismissed and gave me enough air to feel comfortable making it home.
Some worries we can prepare for and others necessitate trust that God will show up and do the rest.
“God’s love calls us to move beyond fear. We ask God for the courage to abandon ourselves unreservedly, so that we might be molded by God’s grace, even as we can not see where that path may lead us.” St Ignatius of Loyola (my favorite saint)
