Don’t you just love Spring? Of course around here, we’re still mostly waiting to see if Spring is ever going to spring. It has been chilly! The jonquils have bloomed and some of the trees are pushing out blooms, but we need a few warm days. We’ve been having plenty of water. Rain makes the flowers grow, I suppose, but it also makes the field muddy. Especially when cows are tromping around in it. Makes for some gushy walking in the pasture fields.
One of our cows found the grass greener on the other side of the fence this afternoon. My husband is up in Cincinnati getting ready to sing at a church there in the morning, so guess who got to try to put the cow back in the proper field? You got it. Me. Trouble was, I didn’t know where the old girl’s hole in the fence was. I kept trying to herd her back the wrong way. But she knew where it was. From the looks of the stomped up path, the whole herd has been knowing where it is over the last few days. Somebody’s going to have to do some fencing come Monday morning. Until then, I may go walk in a different direction. Especially if neighbor dog Roxie, the big St. Bernard wants to walk with me. She’s a really good dog, but she does like to chase the cows. So I usually take a wide berth around the herd when she’s with me or hold her collar till we’re past them. I didn’t catch her collar fast enough today. And even when I do, I keep wondering what I think I’m going to do with a 150 pound dog if she decides to take off. The smart thing would be to let go, don’t you think?
Have you ever worried about something until you were nearly sick? I know it tells us in the Bible that worrying is useless and shows lack of faith. And I also know that most all of us do some worrying at times. Our teenage son is late getting home — we worry. Our daughter is having a baby — we worry. We get an unexpected bill we aren’t sure we’ll be able to pay — we worry. We are supposed to turn our worries into prayers, and I try to do that. But I have to admit sometimes I keep yanking those worries back, saying, “Wait a minute, Lord. I’m not quite through with that yet.” As if just sitting and stewing and worrying can change a thing. Now prayer, that can change things.
At any rate, I’ve been doing some stewing and worrying the past few months about my just finished book that I sent off to the editor. I waited and waited and waited for news. Good news, I hoped. But then the weeks dragged on. It’s been my experience over the years that good news comes relatively quickly from editors and bad news can be a little slower. So when the time passed when I thought I should have heard, I began to worry that the editor didn’t like the book. I worried it wasn’t a good story. That I hadn’t done a good job. All that worrying messed up my head until I couldn’t seem to get going on my new idea. Then I finally talk to said editor last week and she hadn’t even read the book!! She’d been extra busy and had sat on it. I’d made myself sick for all the wrong reasons.
That’s not to say it was good that the editor hadn’t made time to read my book. But it does say that I was worrying about the wrong things. That’s usually the way of it. We worry that this or that will happen and then something altogether different happens and we haven’t done anything but get gray hairs and frown wrinkles from worrying. Praying is much better and I’m going to try to remember that as I start a new countdown on waiting for news. Pray. Pray. Pray. I believe in prayer. I truly do, but sometimes I don’t act very much as if I do. And then I have to pray for forgiveness and start over at square one. Aren’t you glad the Lord is so forgiving? That He gives us another chance and another chance and another chance if we ask for it.
Well, that’s my sermon of the week. Remember — worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Hope you have a blessed week ahead. And no reason to worry.