no, worry, i'm not listening anymore

i was getting ready for work yesterday and was worrying about some things going on in my new job. the thoughts were just a swirling 'round my head like the smoke 'round santa claus' head from smokin' his pipe. but this wasn't a pleasant site like at christmas time, no! i recognized this once again as the old familiar destructive pattern of WORRY!

i've been a really good worrier from little girl forward, yes all my life i'm quite sure.  my mother taught me inadvertently that it was related to my horoscope sign and for christmas one year in junior high (speaking of christmas a second time now) i received a beautiful green felt banner i hung in my room that said i'm capricorn: i worry.  i don't believe in horoscopes but this time it was right on.  i didn't become my horoscope i promise but it has always been true of me - i do worry.

so yesterday, once again, i determined to say no to worry and on the spot when i recognized the sin of worry, the angst of it, i took a lip pencil out of my of makeup stash and wrote on the mirror "no, worry, i'm not listening anymore."  (if you plan ahead, you can use a dry erase marker to write reinforcing truth messages like this. washes off better than makeup!) i wish it was that easy - tell myself to stop and it's done - and maybe it is for some folks. maybe applying God's Word which tells me a gazillion times DO NOT WORRY is easier than i make it. but then i think: well, if it was that easy, would He need to tell me that many times?

i do believe it's a besetting sin for me, one that trips me up on a regular basis, worry flowing through me as if having it's own personal bloodstream.  it's so automatic that there i was doing it again getting ready for work, putting on my makeup and had i not been listening and paying any attention to my inner world, that inner voice, my thought life (which God instructs us to pay attention to) i might not have recognized it's sneaky self.

the worry is revealing my idolatry of man:  what do the people at work think of me, what do the doctors think, do they think i know enuf for this job? how long will they give me a learning curve before they fire me? in my private practice it was just me, myself and i plus my clients. this is me plus a huge clinic of doctors, therapists and admin staff so i'm feeling quite exposed, thus the "will they like me and find me competent enuf" questions. it's also revealing the idolatry of self instead of trust in the Lord. here are some verses that are meant to help me with all of this since worry is a mix of anxiety and trust issues. maybe they'll be of encouragement to you if you can relate to what i'm going through where you are. 

psalm 118:6-9

the LORD is for me; i will not fear; what can man do to me? it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.

2 corinthians 1:9b

we should not put our trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead!

luke 12:22-25

do not be anxious (worry) for your life as to what you shall eat, nor for your body, as what you shall put on....which of you by being anxious (worrying) can add a single cubit to his life's span?

matthew 6:34

therefore do not be anxious (worry) for tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. each day has enuf trouble of its own.