Worry and Hope. Is one Pointless while the other essential?

The recurring theme of worry has been surfacing lately.  In work & personal life.  I was thinking about my next blog topic, as my mind is usually (maybe always, though that’s a strong word) thinking……..and then…….

(this scenario happened last week) 

Unloading and loading the mountain of dishes that’s growing in my home, and trying desperately to NOT do the pans that have been in the sink since Saturday (it’s now Thursday)….

Let me give antidotal background on the dishes.  I do most of them.  I am quite certain there would be some defensive comments about this, and it’s not for an argument, rather I understand my schedule is more flexible and thus, somehow I have accepted this chore as mostly mine.  However, I have made it clear, if I”m not home or don’t eat the food, I am not doing the dishes.  So…Saturday, eggs made in a pan.  Put in sink.  Sunday, another pan used.  Put in sink.  Monday I go to work, work until late…come home and they’re still there.  What?  Then Tuesday.  Same thing.  Wednesday. I make a crockpot of bbq chicken (by the way, I’m vegetarian and don’t eat the meal), and come home after 10pm from working, the pans from Saturday remain, along with the crock pot (left over chicken removed, thankfully) …..left in that sink.  I”m perplexed, how long am I going to have to suffer looking at these pans before it bothers someone else.  In nearly 20 years I’ve never done this experiment and it’s nearly driving me batty letting it go…….

So my story has nothing to do with the dishes…but that was what started my thought process today…. come on, we’ve all been there, right? Worrying about something that in the grand scheme of life (I sorta loathe that phrase, but not sure how else to explain it) doesn’t even matter…..

So….in thinking about what I was going to write, and the worry that has been omnipresent for a myriad of reasons this past week, I come across an old song from one of my favorite Christian musicians, Steven Curtis Chapman.  “With Hope.” I wasn’t even planning on writing about this, and there it happens again, the topic chooses me rather than me choosing the topic. 

I remember years ago a ritual I had in going to funerals for members from my job as a cancer support community program director.   The fact that I had any ritual at all tells you how often it happened.  As a young adult (now either in or approaching middle age, yikes!), I’ve attended way more funerals than anyone else in my peer group.  I attended as many as I could, some more difficult than others depending on the relationship I had with the member.  So driving to one funeral of a member named Patty, I remember having SCC’s cd in my car and put this song on.  Bawling on the way to the church, I sang this song, feeling God’s grace and comfort through the encouraging lyrics “…..We can cry with hope.  We can we can say goodbye with hope.  For we know our goodbye is not the end……We can grieve with hope….there’s a place where we’ll see your face again….”

And I thought, wow….something this hard to process and understand, and seemingly final, if in the midst of this I can find some sort of peace and comfort, maybe the rest of my worries aren’t that significant after all. 

It shifted a little for me that day.  It’s odd sometimes when that happens, a time/place when we can actually pin point a shift in thought, but I remember it happening. 

Maybe that is around the time when I started my journey towards understanding my own peace….a sense of peace to do the work I was “called” to do, and a way for me to not allow the grief and worry to consume me and prevent me from living the life I have.  I do not do it perfectly, as many around me can attest, but I do strive for balance and when my mind wanders too much into the “worry”…..I remember this…..

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world; someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” Tom Bodett.  

By definition, by said list (albeit mine less traditional than some might suspect)….I have found happiness in this life.  Hope wins…and thus, no need for worry…..

Until the next time I need a reminder…

Peace…..

 

peace. not hope?

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at an event for our church/school entitled “Advent by Candlelight”, an annual event for women of our parish, most of whom have school aged children.  Each year four women are asked to speak on the following topics:  Faith, Hope, Love and Peace.  I was hoping for “Hope”…..

My husband and I have 2 children.  When we had our first child, we had a boy and girl name picked out.  We had a boy.  Four years later, we had a boy and girl named picked out.  We had a boy.  As time passed, thoughts of whether we should be having another child passed through from time to time.  Sometimes I’d see a sign, literally (of the girl’s name) and wonder….was it’s God’s plan or mine (and my husband’s) to have another child?  I wasn’t ready to shut the door to this chapter in my/our life.  Not that I wasn’t thrilled to have 2 beautiful boys, I am!  I think I’m more blessed than I deserve to be for the children I have.  However, decision-making has never been my strong suit for fear that I’m going to “make a mistake” and forever live in regret.

For a myriad of reasons, the thoughts became less and less common and the decision eventually was no longer on the table.

Our “girl name” was “Hope.”

As the years passed, I learned the lesson for me wasn’t to learn so much to make decisions more decisively (although I’m sure many around me would be elated if I did one day learn this skill), rather to be at peace with whatever happens in my life.

When I was asked to speak about “peace”, I found my message from God.  Although I had been signing my name in cards, emails, etc as “peace, …..” for quite some time, it wasn’t until I was asked to speak on “peace” that I understood my message, perhaps just to myself or the world, was “a journey towards peace.”

I stood before a crowded grade school auditorium, composed of my friends/peers/and Parish Priests, and began to tell for the first time in public my story of my own journey towards peace.  Nervous.  Voice quivering.  Face flushed.  I told my story.  A calm soon came over me, and I realized, my story really is anyone’s story.  We all have decisions we are uncertain are correct, disappointments in life, people we care too much about and who care too little about us, family/friends who hurt us, goals we don’t achieve, promises unkept, dreams that don’t come true….but the reality is, as trite as it might be, that’s life.

When I think of my belief, of my practice of living a more peaceful life, it isn’t so much to do with a decision I made, rather a continued practice of trying to follow a greater plan.

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf. 

So I try to live life from a place of peace, in accepting life for what it is rather than hoping for a life that may never, and perhaps was never meant to be.  It is in that space, that true peace and happiness has come to me.

Peace…..