Worry and Concern Meet the God of Hope: Allegory Part 2

​WORRY AND CONCERN MEET GOD

Have you ever felt worry bubbling over inside your mind? A few years ago, we visited the story of two women, Worry and Concern, and followed a portion of their days. We wondered what might have happened to them between then and now.

Will you join me as I venture into the allegory of Worry and Concern, Revisited?

WORRIED ABOUT MANY THINGS

She remembered that when she last felt the shackles around her feet, she had collapsed onto the floor of her home. It was the worrying over that very home that had consumed her.

After all, this constant companion that seemed to dog her every waking hour was a worthy opponent: worry about her health, worry about her abilities, worry about her shelter, and finally, worry about her life. Where was the answer?

She could not find the answer, so she began pacing around her room (as was her habit). The shackles tightened with every pass. How would she ever find a way to live out her final days? Was what the doctors said true? Had her illness now progressed to terminal?

CONCERNED BUT FINDING HOPE

Across town, another woman was also facing a memory. She had told her neighbors that she knew God would take care of her, even if the diagnosis of her illness continued to get worse. Could she believe her own words?

The weight of the concern upon her heart threatened to pull her down. How would she manage this new terminal diagnosis? Where was the hope for living out her days in this lonely home?

She knew where her answer lay, so she pulled out her Bible and asked the Lord of her life to meet her concerns (as was her habit). She searched the Book, opening to the page she had studied just the day before:

Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I will sustain you, and I will rescue you.  Isaiah 46:4

She felt one lone tear trickle down her cheek—then the floodgates opened. Her name was Concern, and she knew where to cling for hope.

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GOD STRIPS WORRY AND GIVES REST

I am immensely thankful for those of you who have prayed for me as the Prayer Coordinator of Chronic Joy’s Prayer Pond—but I have a confession to make: I have been both the women in this allegory that the Lord has given me.

Worry runs so deeply in my family that I vowed never to become a worrier. So, instead of voicing my worries to everyone, I tucked them inside and thought no one would ever know. Ah, but it does no good to tuck worry away—it will always find a way to manifest itself.

Over the years since my first chronic illness diagnosis, God has stripped away the layers and revealed to me the ways that worry has eaten at my heart. Then, when my husband joined the ranks of chronic illness sufferers, and we were faced with his terminal diagnosis, I heard another whisper from my Lord.

Will you let me slow your pacing and give you a place to rest?

He reminded me of Isaiah 46:4, first given to us decades ago when we faced a cross-country move with our two young children. Many thought we were crazy even to consider such a thing, but when a friend called me and shared this verse that she had been praying for us, I knew that God was confirming our move.

More recently, when He brought the same passage to me four times during the week that we learned about the closing date on the sale of our home, I knew He was being very specific with me again.

My own pacing, worrying, and even concern would not save me. No, God is the only one capable of carrying His dear children, young or old, as He fulfills His purposes for their lives.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Where will we go from here, with one of us carrying multiple chronic illnesses (each disease having no cure) and one of us with a terminal diagnosis limiting his time on this earth?  This is uncharted territory. Will my worry and concern meet God and find hope in this uncertainty?

We had not planned on downsizing and selling our home, moving into our daughter and son-in-law’s home, and retiring early. Yet when God sets the seasons and the times, who are we to question? He is our true and faithful LIVING HOPE, and He will bring the blessings of His sustaining grace.

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WORRY AND CONCERN MEET GOD AND FIND HOPE

Would Worry and Concern meet God today?

Worry heard a strange sound at her door. It was such a light knocking that she might have missed it had she not collapsed on the floor. A stooped and weak woman stood before her with a book in her hand.

“Would you mind if I came inside and read a passage from my favorite book to you? I know this may seem strange, but I feel HOPE will find a way to meet with both of us today.”

The Lord of Life looked on from above with a smile. He knew His children were going to be changed as they shared. Worry was about to get a name change, and Concern was about to be filled with a joy that would overwhelm every heaviness she had ever carried.

Worry and Concern, Part 1