I carry with me an imaginary cardboard box. You haven’t seen it, mainly because it is imaginary, but I try to have it with me all of the time. It is important that I have it with me because I’ll never know when I’ll need it. It serves a very important function in my life, and hardly a day passes that I don’t use it. Sometimes I do have a hard time finding it, normally because I have tendencies that keep me from using it.
I am like you, I face situations every day that cause me stress or anxiety. Anyone who has children, a job, friends, a body that is susceptible to illness (as we all do), family, bills, a house, a car, or any responsibility will face stress, worry, and anxiety. The reason we face this potential for worry is that we cannot control all (or any) of the things I just mentioned. We can do our part, work hard, take responsibility seriously, but at some point we reach a point in which we have done all we can do. We have done what is “on our side of the street.” It is when I reach that point that my imaginary box becomes useful.
In my mind’s eye, I take whatever I’m dealing with, I ball it all up as tightly as I can, and I place it in this imaginary box. By the way, on the front of the box is written “God’s Hands.” I close the top of the box, I say a prayer, and I leave it there.
If I am honest, I have the habit of taking it back out of the “God’s Hands” box. I turn it over and over in my mind, and I call that worry.
There are some small things in this box, things as simple as a minor car repair (hoping that it is truly minor). There are some bigger things in the box. These often have to do with people, and failing health, and life choices. There are some things that when I place them in the box they seem to dissolve, and others that have been there for a long time.
Although I’d rather not admit it, often it takes me quite some time to put something in that box. I normally will spend a few days (or weeks) thinking and persuading and manipulating to the best of my ability. When this has gone on for more time than I’d like to admit, I reluctantly pull out the imaginary box called “God’s Hands,” I gather it all up, and I place it there. There it sits alongside many other things in my life over which I have no control. It is not easy, but I trust that when it is there it will be taken care of.
An interesting thing, and probably the most important thing…up to this point in my life, whenever I have placed something there, God has always done His part. Not some of the time, not most of the time, but 100% of the time. I can’t explain it. Sometimes (most of the time) God takes care of it in a different way than I’d hoped or imagined, but God has always taken care of it.