I should win a major award.

No, wait, there would be a big ceremony, and a red carpet, and lights flashing, and paparazzi, and I’d have to give a speech...

That would be bad.

I’d worry myself to death.

I am a worrier. It’s my overactive imagination. If one of the kids isn’t home when they are supposed to be, I immediately imagine some fiery crash, an armed kidnapping.... something horrible.

So I am asking myself, Why don’t I imagine something good instead? Why does it always have to be the worst of all possibilities? Why can’t it be the best? The kids are late because they found a million dollars in an old knapsack and had to stop off at the bank. They are sitting at McDonald’s at 1:00 in the morning because they have just come up with the “next new thing” - the next iPod say -and they are working out the details.

Why can’t I think that way instead?!!

Here’s the hard part. Bad stuff happens. Boy, do I know that. But still, God is always in control. Somehow, it will be okay in the end. That’s what I need to learn to trust in. What I need to get myself to really believe. Because, really, that’s what I am afraid of, that things won’t be okay. And so I worry.

And the thing is, God doesn’t want me to worry. No, he commands me not to worry! Worry just steals away the joy that he wants me to have. Well, it steals away his joy, the joy he would have in sharing in my joy. I am stealing from him when I let worry take over.

I gotta stop doing that!

So I whipped this little thing up, just to give myself a nudge when my mind starts wandering into places it shouldn’t...