Worry, Don’t You Lie to Me
Response to the prompt, “In what ways are you inauthentic? Why?”
I have a growth mindset. According to Harvard Business Review:
“Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset.”
I spend countless hours learning new things. I take online classes (even wrote about that once). I watch educational videos on YouTube. I read books and attend conferences and take copious notes on what I hear, see and think as I learn.
Last weekend I reviewed each of the journals I’ve kept, and the worksheets I’ve completed and saved in a nice manilla folder labeled “learning” and I realized one thing … I am not changed.
Oh, maybe I’m changed in some ways. I’m older, for sure. And with age comes wisdom, or so they say. I’m a more experienced wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend … and that means I’ve learned how to navigate much of life’s challenges related to relationships. But I am not changed in the ways I’d like to be.
I haven’t learned how to deal with Worry.
My faith as a Christian tells me, quite literally, to cast Worry aside. Paul very clearly instructed the people in Philippi, as it says clear as day in Philippians 4:6, the same thing I know God has tried to teach me over and over again:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Instead, I worry about my kids. I worry about my husband. My parents. My self. My pets.
In the course of any given day, I worry when my adult children get on the roads to drive somewhere. I worry that my husband spends too much time working and staring at a computer screen. I worry that each of us in our households might be exposed to COVID-19 and I ask ceaselessly, “did you wash your hands,” or “did you use hand sanitizer,” or “did you come too close to anyone?”
I pray. I remind myself that I have asked God to look over each of these situations countless times.
I do yoga. I walk. I meditate. I journal. I paint or draw or color or sing or dance …
Yet Worry seeps in.
How does a woman, a wife and a mother, who has tried to model strong faith and a growth mindset for years, let Worry get the best of her this way?
Worry tells me God isn’t paying attention. Worry tells me my kids aren’t safe. That none of us are safe. Worry tells me that we are not doing enough, that they are not doing enough, that I am not doing enough. That I am not enough.
Worry is a dishonest and deceitful foe.
When the time comes that I am living my most authentic life, it’ll be when my faith leads my behavior instead of my behavior leading my faith. It’ll be when the tools I’ve studied and learned and practiced elevate me about my enemy. The enemy in my life.
THE Enemy, by another name, is Worry.
