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“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:34 NLT).
Am I the only one who has never fully understood this text? I mean, okay. We aren’t to worry about what’s ahead. I get that. We are to live one day at a time. I get that, too. But what about this last part? “Today’s trouble is enough for today”? How comforting is that? Not very, if you ask me…
Perhaps, however, I simply did not fully understand of what this means… Until last fall…
It all started last September when the leaves began to change in our little corner Canada. Now I realize I’m in the minority, but I’ve always hated fall. I see the leaves changing colors and think about how I’ll soon have to be raking them. I’ll feel the cooler temperatures and remember that winter is on its way. I’ll see the days shortening and shutter with dread at the shut-in feeling in January and February… It doesn’t help that I have a mild form of seasonal affect disorder and often feel depressed in the fall; nor does it help that I tend to get sick in the fall more than in any other season. As a result, my normal pattern through those autumn months is to feel depressed, sick and totally incapacitated with dread.
Since retirement, my husband and I have joined the ranks of Canadian Snow Birds, determining to never again spend winter in Canada. Last year, however, amidst the global pandemic, I didn’t even have the thought of “fleeing” to warmer climates to cheer me up…
It seemed, however, that God wanted to teach me a lesson or two last fall. In mid-September, He put it on our hearts to take our tiny travel trailer to the Georgian Bay off Lake Huron, and while there, I began to see, perhaps for the first time in my life, the vividly breath-taking colors of fall. All during that little break from the realities of the pandemic in our home community, every time a negative thought about fall came to mind, God simply wiped it out by directing my attention to the intense reds and yellows and oranges and greens. I came to a new level of understanding of Matthew 6:34 during that little trip. I realized that by worrying about the upcoming winter, I was blinding myself to the blessings of the fall. Yes, winter would come, but I didn’t need to worry about it. Instead, I was to rejoice in the moment.
That idea carried me through the first week of October. Even back home I found myself excited by the vivid colours and the ever-changing landscapes of the season. Unfortunately, however, in my mind, this lesson only seemed applicable to the seasons, for I found myself continuing to worry about everything else…
It wasn’t until Canadian Thanksgiving that God finally got through to me about the full meaning of Matthew 6:34, and He chose to do so through my mother. As mid-October and Canadian Thanksgiving loomed near, we were forced to watch our province plummet into its second wave of COVID infections. Naturally we had plans to be together as a family in the small little social bubble we had maintained over the summer with our university son and my aging, shut-in mother; but with the dinner ingredients already purchased and some of it cooked, new provincial regulations came into place: We were to only share Thanksgiving with those who lived in our own homes. That left our son and my mother all alone for Thanksgiving…
Since all of us were particularly cautious about taking COVID precautions seriously, we decided as a family that we would still have Thanksgiving dinner together; but that we would begin respecting provincial regulations the next day. When I discussed this with my mother, however, her response took me completely by surprise. With a shake in her voice, she asked: “But what about Christmas???”
That’s all it took. I suddenly realized that this one question mirrored my entire view on life. I could never rejoice about what I had because I was always too focused on what I might not have in the future, and my single-minded attention on the presumed difficulties of tomorrow actually made it difficult to resolve the real problems of the day! That’s when I finally began to fully understand Matthew 6:34. I don’t need to worry about tomorrow. Instead, I need to focus on the challenges of the here and now, and in the process, God would reveal to me the beauty and blessings of today!
This change in perspective has really made a difference over the past year, and it is helping me through yet another fall season. My prayer is that I will remember this lesson whenever challenges arise. I also pray that someone who also struggles with worry will read this story and be helped as I was. Let’s not let tomorrow’s worries distract us from how to make it through the here and now; and let’s not waste the beauties of today by worrying about tomorrow!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two adult boys, Author -- "Aboard God's Train -- A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer", Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, The Illustrator, a four-times-a-week internet newsletter, and the Sermon Illustrator website, all with Answers2Prayer Ministries.
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