Casting Anxieties

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.  1 Peter 5:6-7

This verse should be my new motto.  I tend to be a worrywart....no actually, I am obsessive about worrying and planning if I am completely honest.  Since my illness began, I seem to have adopted a more relaxed, laid back attitude.  I'm not sure if that was more of a defense mechanism because I simply couldn't handle anything more, or if my illness showed me that all those worries were truly meaningless.  Either way, I've been cruising by without too much stress until recently.  Out of the blue, I'm swamped with worries.  Worrying about starting chemo, worrying about medical bills, about finances, about friends, about family members with illnesses, about teenagers, mothers, and things way beyond my control.  I wake up in the middle of the night every night (partially due to the steroids, but mainly, I think, due to the worries) and lie in bed with my mind racing.  In typical me mode, I try to make plans and determine the way that **I** can fix things.  Only I cannot fix anything.  My devotional keeps pounding me over the head with that knowledge, morning after morning.  

Yesterday it told me that God is the God of surprises and that He is not limited by the things I am limited by.

Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible."  Matthew 19:26

The day before that it told me "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" Psalm 37:4

And the day before that, I heard "Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." Psalm 62:8

Am I sensing a theme here?  Our family puts a weekly verse on our chalkboard fridge for memorization and this week's verse is "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" Psalm 119:105  I need to take this to heart.  His Word is here to comfort and to guide me.  I need to learn to rely on it and on Him, and to stop trying to rely on myself.