Releasing Worry

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?”   Matthew 6:25

 “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”   Matthew 6:27

These questions were asked by Jesus over 2 millennia ago.

I’ve struggled with worry most of my life. As a child of a man who was not only an alcoholic, but a narcissist, I worried about every word I said. I was often in trouble for having a different opinion or perspective. There was no pleasing him, and I was always in trouble. What was worse, he always took it out on my mom. Life was better for my mom if I did not speak my truth, my thoughts or my ideas. It was better not to say much of anything around my dad while I was growing up, and I worried about every word I spoke and what was going to happen when I did. He had a way of taking things I said, and transposing them into things he thought I was “really” saying from his perspective. To correct him was to invite wrath. To keep peace for my mom and for me, it was better to let him think what he wanted, and let him believe he was right, because that was more important to him. As long as he was right, we lived in peace. While my mother and I constantly worried, we found life to be better if we acquiesced and agreed he was always right about us, and kept ourselves quiet and out of arguments.

Worry led to negativity and overly critical thinking that only heaped more piles of stress onto me. Over time, I was plagued by many ailments, asthma, sensitivities to all kinds of environmental triggers, thyroid disease and an ability to catch every virus that going around along with delayed recovery rates from each one.

Because so much of my life was spent with others closest to me telling me to “Shut up” and “You don’t know what you’re talking about”, I eventually “lost my voice” so to speak. I wasn’t heard. I was oppressed by what I allowed others to transpose onto me. When I did speak the truth plainly, what I often said fell onto deaf ears, which is strangely odd, because I’m the one who is actually deaf.

I love how God gently brought me to a place of healing. He knew I could not be healed living where I was when I began this journey toward better health.

 “Captivating” by John and Stasi Eldredge was the beginning of this journey to healing. It was the most spiritual and loving gift any man had ever given me. The first time I met Fabulous Husband face to face, he placed this book into my hands. That day, I not only began to heal, but to live and to love and to trust. I had no idea the depth of spiritual healing I needed. This one book reached into my heart and began to salve decades of wounds that had gone unchecked and unattended. It forced me to revisit many hurtful events and words, to acknowledge them, and to realize God doesn’t hurt people – hurting people hurt people. I could start letting those things go and look past them to a God who created me with a beautiful soul that was meant for love, to love, to be loved… and that I am loved.

Through all this, I learned a major truth.

The opposite of worry is trust.

By releasing all worry, I am embracing trust. Trust that God not only cares about me, but provides for me. He provides things I don’t even realize I need or want. This is deeply profound.

By releasing worry, I am allowing God to take care of me as a loving, healthy Father takes care of his children. It took me a long time to understand this, because my own father was not a reflection of the kind of Father that God is.

God loves me and wants me, but often I had measured God by which I measured my earthly father. I had this backwards. My earthly father really should have followed the example God Himself had set. Unlike my earthly father, God wants the best for me, loves me unconditionally and showers me with gifts in spiritual and material realms - on earth as in heaven.

When I look at the attributes of Jesus, I see unconditional love, compassion, kindness, gentleness, wisdom, provision and healing. Jesus didn’t just preach. Jesus fed the hungry, healed the sick, and spent time with people of every walk of life. He brought peace to those who were seeking peace, rest to those who were weary and seeking rest. Even in the midst of the storms on the sea, he was peaceful and brought peace to his shipmates by causing the sea and the storm to calm.

If Jesus released all worry and exemplified peace and wished peace for us, shouldn’t I, too, embrace peace?

Jesus is also quoted as saying, “Peace be unto you” and “Fear not”.

Since I’ve started this healing journey and learned this truth about releasing worry, I’ve had fewer illnesses and asthma attacks. I was directed to an audiologist who was astute enough to realize that the symptoms I was having was not from my chronic ear disease, but something else, and she saved my life by sending me to a surgeon who performed a necessary surgery. (My thyroid had nodules, had grown into my neck and wrapped itself around my windpipe. It not only was slowly choking me to death, it was pressing against a nerve that was causing me to fall down all the time-since the surgery, I’ve not fallen down as before.)

I learned about Reiki during the month I was diagnosed and had my surgery. God provided me with the tools of using self Reiki to aid in my recovery, not just for the physical healing, but the emotional healing as well. Through classes provided by Reiki by Rickie, I relearned Biblical truths which brought exponential healing and health this past year. There are five Biblical truths that Dr. Usui calls the Five Principles of Reiki. They are:

Just for today, I release all anger.

Just for today, I release all worry.

I shall earn my living with integrity.

I shall honor every living thing.

I shall show gratitude for all my many blessings.

Worry has been the main issue I’ve had to deal with most in my life. Today, looking back, I can see how God strategically placed people into my life to bring me to this lesson, this truth.

Each moment I release a fear or worry is a moment I embrace trust, peace and healing.