I don’t know if any
of you cats out there struggle with anxiety but if the statisticians haveanything to say about it then there’s probably quite a few of you. I have mild anxieties about the kids, life,
money etc; the usual cast of characters, but it manifests itself in a little bit
of an odd way for me (which I’ve heard is fairly common for anxiety). Confession time: I have to check the front and back door are
locked twice before I go to bed and usually the same amount each time I leave
the house. This “tick” provides a fair
bit of amusement and confusion among my family members but they go pretty
easy on me and for the most part leave me to my oddity.
We were off to
church on Sunday this week when halfway down the road I realised I was out in
back yard putting out the washing (cast your stones if you must, LOL!) and
there was a chance I had left the back door wide open. From that moment on it was all I could think
about so I asked my husband to go back so I could check. He did so without comment (because he’s cool
like that) and what do you know? The
door was indeed closed and locked.
Surprise, surprise…
Back in the car daughter
number one piped up “why do we always have to do this?” [Patience my young Padawan, your time of
worry will come] to which my husband replied “when you are worried about
something it’s all you can think about but if you can check the thing you are
worried about and discover that it’s OK then you don’t need to think about it
anymore and you can go on to think about something else. Kind of like death really; Jesus took away
our fear of death so now we don’t have to worry about it anymore and we can
think about other stuff”.
Nailed it! One of the greatest comforts we have as
Christians is that death has lost its sting; its worry; its terror. When Jesus took our punishment for us on the
cross he took away all fear of God’s anger and judgement after death and we can
instead look forward to a post-humous world without fear, pain or anxiety. This is a great load off our minds and now we
are free to think/worry about everything else in the world; like whether or not
the doors are locked.
On this mountain the Lord of
hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 25
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