Choosing Worship Over Worry

Spending week after week getting bad news has a way of wearing you down. At least for me. I feel like I’ve been crushed under a mountain of discouragement. And all my brokenness and bleeding was cleaned up in a vat of salt water and scrubbed off with sandpaper. It hurts. And it sucks. Days are hard to get through still. Although the last few have been a little lighter, and I found myself able to have the energy to meet grumpy kids with tickles instead of my own tantrum, another wind of disappointment blew through the house again today.

It’s so easy to downplay the stress of my life, but my body has a very obvious way of letting me know I’m stuffing all my stress deep inside to hide and ignore. I have stress induced eczema on my hands, and the more i stuff, the worse it gets. Alternatively, if I deal in much more healthy ways, the flesh on my fingers stays intact.

Since I happen to hate my fingers burning like acid and the intense ferocity I use to remove that painful skin, I’ve been trying to deal with this bad news parade one moment at a time.

See, I’ve found that though I have no clue what to do with myself most days, or how to make it better, I can still worship. And not because I’m some super Christian who has it all together, but because worship is the only thing I’ve got. I don’t have the strength right now to walk with intense faith, but I can, from my emptiness, declare God’s faithfulness and goodness over my life. Some days I believe it, and some days I declare it because I know I need to believe it, because I know if I forget, then I’m lost.

So right now I’m choosing worship over worry. Choosing, intentionally, to drown out my fears and concerns with songs that declare my God’s faithfulness, kindness, and goodness. And I know that the end of the story is good, even if I don’t care for this chapter. So I keep trusting in His faithfulness, singing his praise because it’s all I’ve got, and knowing that worship brings me freedom.

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