"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life...Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Mt.6:25-27,34)
Trying to remember this as we prepare to launch two of our children into college.
We're packing up Janie this week for her freshman year, and if the North Hills Target has run out of merchandise, well, you know who to blame. I'm quite sure we've bought one of everything--and I mean everything--in the store. If they sold kitchen sinks, I'm betting we would have purchased one of those as well...and all the cleaning products to go along with it...and a few picture frames to go over the sink. Our debit card is smoking.
But in addition to expending vast sums of money on pop-up laundry bags, duvet covers, and hanging shelves, it's also just plain stressful and bittersweet sending your children off to college. The bottom line? I simply do not like change of any kind. I want my children to stay home and not grow up and leave us. I want my dog to be back under the kitchen table. I want my memory to stop deteriorating and my hair to cease graying. I want my friends and family not to suffer losses...of any kind whatsoever. Here's a great idea: let's just all agree to maintain the status quo...out into the far distant future.
Unfortunately, this option does not seem to be available to any of us. Life means change...but God is in the midst of the change and challenges us to embrace it all. He wants us to walk with Him through this crazy, ever-changing adventure of life. Trusting that He is not only with us and beside us and behind us...but He is also just up ahead of us in whatever that unknown future holds for us and our loved ones. He's already there in the future...and if He's already there, well then, that's where we want to go too!
And so we launch our children into the big, wide world, trusting our Father has them and loves them infinitely more than we do. We release our loved ones, our friends, our hopes, our dogs, our dreams, our futures into His nail-scarred, omnipotent hands. We pray--and in our better moments, we know--He has them all. And His ways and plans are always best.
So back to Target. I'm thinking of contacting Guinness to see if we've broken the world's record for the most trips. I think we have a good shot at it. But I'm choosing to place my trust in God's Word by refusing to be anxious for tomorrow. If God's got the birds and the butterflies, He's certainly got us...and our college students.
Almost ready for launch...after a few more visits to Target. But God will be there too.
To God be the glory.
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