On Worry

This week I completed my 5th treatment.  5, of 8.  Over half-way done.  Hallelujah.

This was the first of the second half of my chemotherapy...a new batch of drugs.  I had to have the drugs over two days because everyone (not an exaggerative use of the word) told me to expect an allergic reaction.  "Expect it," they said, "we just don't know how severe it will be."

Enter my old nemesis, worry.  It is hard to stand in the face of medical professionals, others who have had this therapy, and yourself in the mirror when all you hear is "worry!"  

Friends, worry is a thief of joy, a stealer of hope, the robber of grace.  Did you catch that?  Worry takes all that is good and replaces it with distrust, sadness, hopelessness.  What a terrible trade.

So, there I was, Wednesday morning.  Preparing to receive my all-day infusion of chemo.  The words ringing in my mind that I would, in fact, have some sort of allergic reaction.

Then I opened God's word.  Our Psalm of the day, Psalm 56.  It says (twice), 

"In god, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid."

Good word, Lord.  Thank you.

Then I read my sons their morning devotional, aptly titled, "DO NOT WORRY."

I'm sensing a theme at this point.  Are you?

God so desires our trust!  He has got this friends.  Listen to me, this cancer thing is scarier than anything I ever would have chosen to enter in.  It is the facing of my mortality as a young woman.  It sucks.  And yet, HE HAS GOT THIS.  

I need not worry or fret because He loves me more than the birds of the air and the flowers in the field.  I sat down to have my chemo Wednesday morning and had no allergic reaction.  Zero.  It was fine.  God's got this.  

Oh how I laid there in my hospital bed (all doped up on Benadryl) giving thanks and praise to Him.  He gently redirected me the morning of my treatment and whispered, "I've got this."  And then, in His faithful way, delivered.

Are you worried about things today?  Do you bear the weight of big, scary things (or little, nagging ones)?  Friends, He wants nothing more than for you to hear His gently whisper, "do not worry, I've got this."

(image source)