I Worried by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers 
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not, how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better? 
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless 

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

I generally do not think of myself as an anxious person, and yet every line of Oliver’s poem rings painfully true to me. I do not realize how anxious I am about things until I finally let them go. I will carry in my hands all the things I love: my children, my husband, my church family, my extended family, my comfort, my home, my health, the world at large. I will hold all of the love I have for these good things, and I will feel a weight of responsibility that I was never designed to feel.

I will hold it all in my hands with this panicked feeling that if I drop one thing the world will bottom out from under me. Like a distressed juggler, I believe that if I stop thinking about these important things, if I stop holding them at the front of my mind, then everything good will instantly disappear. I am like a caricature of Atlas, except instead of strong shoulders holding up the world, I have shaky hands squeezing the life out of it. I will allow myself to be plagued by fears of losing all of these good gifts, and through a litany of what ifs I will empty myself of the joy these things ought to bring. 

This occurs, not because I love them too much, but because I think too highly of myself. I think that I am the controlling power over these good things. I, in all absurdity, come to believe that I am the sustainer of my own universe. No wonder I find myself frenetic and distraught, at war within myself. These anxieties arise because I think too little of God. I forget that he is the giver of all good gifts, the sustainer of me and all that I love, and he is also the sovereign and good hand that chooses the route of the river of time. He will give and take as he pleases and it will bring about the ultimate good of his people and his ultimate glory. 

How wearying it all is. To think I can hold all of these things in my hands, things that I cannot change or control, things that I was never meant to hold at all. 

Life leaks away in my worries, and instead of treasuring up the joy-filled moments, and turning to praise the good God from which these gifts have come, I get caught up in this frantic delusion of power, wasting what he has given me. I could be resting in the peace of God and giving him thanks for the multitude of good things he has put into my life, steeped in the knowledge that should something that was given be taken away, then too I can be at peace, because I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he shall stand upon the earth. No sorrow can steal the joy of knowing that Christ has purchased me for his own. No loss can cause me to doubt the goodness of the God who sent his own Son to die in my place and to give me eternal life with him. No worry can overshadow the reality that as one who is united with Christ  there is now nothing that can separate me from the love of God.

As Paul reminded the church at Philippi, writing as he was from the darkness of a prison cell, in a beaten and weary body, “The Lord is at hand. ” (Philippians 4:5b). What need have we to be anxious when we can go directly before the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and ask of him anything? When we can lay every burden and concern into his gentle hands, torn as they are for our sakes, how could we possibly find anything but peace?

I was never made to hold these things. I was made–like Mary Oliver so aptly wrote–to sing. To rejoice, to praise, to trust the one who has the power to control and change and hold the entire world of existence in his pierced hands. And as he gently peels away my white-knuckled grip of this world, I am reminded again and again that I can have confidence in his steadfast, unchanging love.