I am learning I should not believe most of what I think.
I think I know what is true. But really, much of what I think is just plain wrong.
Last week, I worried about my daughter’s chemistry test. Well, I worried about lots of things, but this is the one that most noticeably grabbed my attention. She came home from school one day afraid that she failed her midterm.
Failed?
My worry train chugged out of the station. Because if she failed? (Chug, chug, chug went the train.) If she failed, her grade in the class could slide! Her GPA might go down! She might not get into the college that she would have gotten into if she hadn’t failed this one thing! Life as we know it could have changed, never to be the same!
It’s what I spent the morning thinking, as I did the dishes and puttered around the house and typed a few words here. I wondered and fretted. I felt sick and nervous. I ruined my own day.
And none of it was true.
First, she didn’t fail the test. She actually did OK.
But more than that?
How do I know that a failing grade would have been a bad thing?
It could be the best thing that ever happened to her. It could be a great gift. Maybe failure here would open a door, or change a situation, or be a foundational event that took her someplace new, exactly where she needed to be.
I say I believe in a good God who loves us and carries us. I know this good God tells me not to worry. Everyday, I try to pray Fr Keating’s Welcoming Prayer, where I say I let go of “my desire for power and control, for survival and security, for affection and approval.”
But it doesn’t take much for me to forget all this and to act as if worldly success is my savior, my daughter’s savior, too. When will I remember that it’s not? It’s actually an empty path that leads away from true happiness, which is found in God’s love and presence alone.
I know nothing of the future. I know nothing. I need to remind myself of this, over and over. The things that seem so good to me? The things that seem horrible? I need to hold them lightly. What I know for sure is that God loves us and is for us, that all things work together for good, and that it’s not my job to keep it straight or understand it as it unfolds. To welcome “everything that comes to me today because it’s for my healing” as Fr. Keating says, from the hand of a God who loves me? That is where I want to start. And being free of worry, living without it? That would be wild, and lovely, and new.
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