I apologize for the long space between devotions. The reason? Worry. It sure can get us can’t it? Sometimes I believe worry also includes so many fears – some imagined. My mind runs almost continuously and then I do what I call snowballing if I am not very watchful. Let’s just say this is not a fun winter pastime. 

Snowballing is when fear and anxiety creeps into your mind and worry accelerates for reasons you sometimes know but sometimes cannot put a finger on. And yet the snowball grows with ever increasing speed as you draw yet another worry or fear in to join what started out as possibly one or two worries that were on your mind. Then you come to a hill and without thinking of the ramifications, you decide it is a great idea to push that already rather large snowball with all sorts of bad stuff sticking out of it on every curve over the edge and the speed of the snowball naturally accelerates beyond control and rushes down the hill with you flailing after it adding more and elements of your life that create worry or fear in you. By this time, you even think it’s okay to pull things from your childhood and toss them in just for the non-fun of it. 

You do not end up with a magical winter snowman of beauty and grace. It’s more like you have single-handedly created a full blown, from a night terror, gargantuan Yeti who is definitely not even a tad happy with you and is, yes, downright menacing. Yet now that you’ve created it, you can’t get your mind to even call forth an August summer sun to melt the mess that is threatening you. 

And it is sometimes even more difficult to connect with God, our Savior, who could take care of it even more quickly. Ever happen to you? Then you know what I’m talking about. If not, then raise up genuine prayers to God for those of us who DO know it intimately. And there are many of us!

Some of you know that my Aunt Dorothy died this year. She was very special to me. Her family was so gracious by placing a catalog of some of the things she owned online and we could indicate our interest in different pieces. She had a large print Bible she used that I placed my name down on barring that anyone in the immediate family wanted it. I recently received this treasure that belonged to a woman of very strong faith whom I loved very much. 

I have been looking through her Bible and have found some marked text and this passage has worked within me to quiet my worries and fears. It is a familiar psalm in parts. Perhaps it speaks to you. 

Psalm 139 (Christian Standard Bible)

1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I 

     rise; you perceive my thoughts 

           from afar.

7 

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your 

          presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you 

     are there; if I make my bed in the 

           depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the 

     dawn, if I settle on the far side of 

           the sea,

10 even there your hand will 

       guide me, your right hand will hold me 

         fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness      

       will hide me and the light will become 

           night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be 

        dark to you; the night will shine like the 

            day, for darkness is as light to 

            you.

23 Search me, God, and know 

        my heart; test me and know my    

            anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive 

         way in me, and lead me in the way 

            everlasting.

Aunt Dorothy, I thank God that you left me a clue and a comfort for my oftentimes anxious heart. This passage offers me stability and comfort and I am ready to lie down in the peaceful pastures of another familiar Psalm. May the message rest in my heart and hopefully I will return again and again to this Psalm for restoration and comfort knowing that our help comes from the Lord but sometimes he uses people to deliver the message, even diminutive 99 year old aunts – her diminutive stature was a kindly trap, but the best kind of trap to be caught in. Just so you know: She believed in catch and release. 

Release from worry for a time – how refreshing. Like a cool drink of water – perhaps from the living well. 

Live well, Devotioneers! Live well and stay close. 

~Shauna Weil

A devotion provided by the Devotion Ministry of Goodrich UMC 

The following song by The Afters speaks to those who worry and fear, which might be all of us at times, right? It is worth preparing yourself to hear ‘I Will Fear No More’. 

Peace to all…….breathe……