Handing over My Tangled Mess

Do you ever worry? Do you ever pray Jesus, I trust in You, all the while coordinating your best backup plan just in case?

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I do.

Sometimes my to do lists churn into sticky-note reminders for my kids' to do lists and I'm troubleshooting things that haven't even happened ...for jobs that aren't even my problem. Sometimes, I wake up the next day to find that all that busy work I did while I couldn't sleep at three in the morning...was completely unnecessary. I really should have listened to the answer gently placed on my heart.

Peace.

Pray more.

Give your worries back to Me to manage.

Don't rely on resolution for your peace. That's not surrender. That's not trust.

Trust is handing it back to Me,

unresolved and tangled up

...and trusting that I can work with it

and renew you through it.

When you pray, all the while trying to find solutions or fixes, that's not trust in Me, it's trust in you.

It's pride. It's you pretending that you don't need Me.

I've heard this quote attributed to St. Augustine, St Ignatius Loyola, Martin Luther and Dave Ramsey:

“Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.”

But I don't think the work refers to busy work and back up plans.

Praying works best when I acknowledge what I'm worried about and also acknowledge that my worrying isn't actually helping

...and when I finally say

Lord, please take care of this tangled mess for me.

Jesus, I trust in You.

...and I fall back asleep.

Copyright 2016 Monica McConkey.
Images copyright 2016 Monica McConkey, www.EquippingCatholicFamilies.com. All rights reserved.