Worrying

When we departed Mississippi to go serve as missionaries for the first time, we said goodbye to our families, and we assumed that we would not see any of them for four years. Traveling overseas today is so very common that it is hard to remember that nearly 40 years ago most people who traveled internationally were wealthy. Today the airports are packed with business travelers, people going on vacation and those visiting relatives.

We departed for language school in France, and we left our parents weeping at the gate—long ago, greeting passengers and saying goodbye at the gate were common experiences—knowing that we would not see them for a very long time. What we did not count on was that our parents would be highly motivated to come see us as we had the only grandchildren on either side of the family—Jason was 3 and Jeremy was almost 2. The real surprise was that my parents decided to come spend Christmas with us after we had been away for only 6 months.

My parents’ travel experience included trips to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Rock City, Smoky Mountains, and to west Texas to visit with relatives. So I never dreamed that they would come to France to visit us. But they sold a few cows and an old pickup and bought three tickets (for them and my baby brother who was 13 at that time).

We drove from Tours to Paris to pick them up at the fairly new terminal at Charles de Gaulle airport. It is the “old” one now with the escalators in the center of the building where you can see through the glass windows the people who have just arrived, coming down the escalators. We waved at my family and they waved back at us, but there was something visibly wrong with my mother. When we grabbed them to give them a hug my mother said to us: “I will never get on a plane again in my life!” She is a bit claustrophobic, and the long flight in a small space was too much for her.

Cheryl and I reminded her that in order to get back home she would have to get back on the plane. She thought for a minute and then said that she would get on that plane, but it would be the last time in her life that she would fly.

Thirty-seven years later my mother still has never flown again. All the years we lived overseas she never came to see us again. My dad would not come to see us either because he did not want to come without my mother. However, when we lived in London, we talked him into coming to visit us. We had a good time introducing him to the tourist attractions in and around London. He even went to a theater production and really enjoyed it—The Buddy Holly Story.

After about a week he started talking about things that he needed to do back at home. He was anxious and fretting about needing to plant his garden and about the animals—at the time the only animals he had were a dog and cat!

We assured him that all was well back in Mississippi. He made it through the first week, but the second week he was to be with us was the week before Easter. He talked about how bad it was that he wouldn’t be planting his corn on Good Friday because that was the very best day to plant corn. We talked about how Mom and everyone else back home would be taking care of things, but he still fretted. Then one night he had a dream. In his dream there were hundreds of people coming over a hill (he was overwhelmed in downtown London with the multitude of people walking down the streets) and they were headed to his house to eat. In his dream he worried about what he was going to feed all those hundreds of people. He decided in his dream that he had to get home and prepare peas and cornbread for all those people headed to his house. That did it! The next morning he said, “I have to go home now.”

I told him that it would cost extra to change his ticket. He said that would be no problem because that dream was a sign that he needed to be home to plant his garden.

Nothing was going to change his mind, so we arranged an earlier flight for him, he arrived home before Good Friday, and he got his corn planted.

Once he made up his mind, there was no way to change his decision. My dad is a worrier. He still worries about me when I travel—that is a lot of worrying! He worries about threatening weather, about the price of gas, and about any news of one of the family having to go to the doctor—even for an annual exam or a cold.

My dad knows the Bible, and he knows scriptures about worrying, but the fact is, he is a worrier. I can talk to him about worrying, and he listens, but he does not hear.

I resolved long ago that I was not going to be like that (this begs more writing for a later post because as I get older I find that I am doing some of the same things that I said I would never do!), and I believe that I have been successful with this one. However, I regularly have to go back to The Word to be reminded of what the Lord says to us about worrying and anxiety.

A couple of my favorites are:

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” Psalms 94:19

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.“ Matthew 6:34

When you find yourself starting to worry, go to The Word for promises that God already knows all of our challenges and He WILL guide us through even the darkest moments. And best of all, I don’t ever have to pray asking God to “come and be with me” because He has promised that He will be with me until the end of the earth. That’s something to bank on and lean on when times get rough.