Worry for Chocolate

Worrying Accomplishes Absolutely Nothing.

Worrying is Not Good for You.

Worrying is the Opposite of Trusting God.

Worrying Puts Your Focus in the Wrong Direction.

 

 

 



When I was a child, the Lenten season almost always meant giving up candy or at the very least chocolate. (Yes, I developed a sweet tooth at an early age.) It was maddening. But I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that in a mere 40 days, I'd be chowing down on chocolate eggs and bunnies till I was sick. This was the pattern--six weeks of deprivation followed by overindulgence.  From my innocent perspective, it made Easter that much more joyous--because it painted such a dramatic black and white contrast for me. Lent was sad and barren with no chocolate and Easter was happy and overflowing with guilt-free chocolate to my heart's content.

As an adult, I discovered another approach to Lenten fasting. This approach maintained that whatever you gave up for Lent, you simply gave up. You wouldn't revive it---or overindulge in it--once Lent ended. I found this theory very interesting but I just didn’t know if I could do it.  I had never met anyone who had succeeded in this approach.

 

Still the idea of changing a habit for good was intriguing to me, and led me to this Lent's extraordinary journey. Instead of chocolate, I decided to give up something that was even more precious to me than chocolate, but something that I could (and, in fact, wanted to) live without for the rest of my life. I chose to give up worry. I had no idea that it would prove to be far more challenging than any chocolate deprivation I had ever tried.

 

Now in case you're thinking that this is some kind of cop-out to the discipline of giving up sweets, you need to understand that I have long considered myself the "Princess of Fret" being the royal daughter of the "Queen of Worry." I never intended this moniker to be a self-fulfilling prophesy--but there is power in words. Claiming myself as a worrier contributed to my being a worrier. (It came close to serving as a kind of valid excuse. 'Well, you know, I am the Princess of Fret after all.) Worry felt like a part of my DNA.

 

Giving up worry was a total game changer for me. I found myself saying things like, "Well, I just can't worry about that because I gave up worry for Lent!" And I sincerely wasn't trying to be flip. I was just trying to practice of discipline of letting go and trusting. I was actually surprised to discover how many times the habit of worry had crept into my daily existence. It was far more prevalent than chocolate. So the clever response became my practice, and the practice began to change the way I viewed situations in my world.  

 

As often happens when one is in tune with the universe, I was given lots of signs and encouragement in my resolve to rid myself of worry. One such encouragement came in the form of a simple gesture that I learned in an online book group. It was proposed as a way to pray. A person was to think about something they were clinging too closely to and then close it tightly in one’s hand. The next step in the prayer was to open wide the hand and give it over to God. It is a gesture of trust and surrender, and a willingness to give up control. This, I knew was at the heart of my worrying.

 

I began to apply the gesture every time that I felt worry creeping in or whenever I felt that I needed to control a situation that was obviously out of my control. I simply make a fist and then open up my hand and send my worry on its happy little way.

 

I am marching forth into a future that has much less worry in it. Happy Easter!!