Dear Mr. Doubt,
“Therefore, do not
worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient
for the day is its own trouble.”
-
Matthew 6:34 (NKJ)
There is oddness about today, my friend, as I write you this
letter, one in which I cannot put my finger on but lingers over me like a
spider web on a full moon. I can see the shimmer of the web. I’m not sure if
this odd feeling has any great degree on my state of mind, but it is there.
My mind
or the quality of my thoughts this last week has been up and down due to the
lack of sleep and me starting a new job. The pay is better, and I’m slowly
starting to rise from my poor lot in life. It is a physical job, a lot of
mindless lifting heavy things in the back of a warehouse, but it is a good job.
I have
always said in my letters to you that I believe every thinking man should work
with their hands. There is a blessing in the tore of the day. A need in the
work of life that is good for the soul. I often dream about being a teacher,
writing for a living, and having a small farm to take care of at the same time.
I do not want to lose the physical side of work. It is needed for all people,
and it is good for the mind. A healthy body is a healthy mind, after all.
I
thankful for the job, for it is where the Lord wishes me to be. I grateful for
the work, for it will force me to take better care of myself.
And
yet, there is a soreness I must overcome from this new job. One I haven’t had
in a while, but my body soon will be okay with the activities of work.
I must
share some good news while I’m writing to you. I am heading back to school in
the Fall or, at the least, in the winter. Which then, I plan on looking into a
school where I could get my master to allow me to teach.
Sometimes,
I’m unsure if the Lord has called me to be a teacher, and then He places me
somewhere in my day where I can teach someone something new. The other day I
showed a friend some drawing techniques. I walked away with great joy in my
heart.
At
church, I was speaking to some people on the subject in which I have been
reading about, how hope is built on faith, and the way they were listening to
me, put more joy in my heart. I couldn’t tell you if I was right on the idea we
were speaking about, but in truth, that doesn’t matter to me, all that matter
is people were thinking as they walked away from me. I do not mind being wrong.
I hope I am; then I have something to learn.
Great
things are building in my day, but as I laid down in bed during this week, the
anxiety of tomorrow plunged me into a pit close to despair. I couldn’t sleep
close to the edge of this pit and would wake with my days painted in the gloom.
I tried my best to mask the dullness of emotional night by not paying attention
to the anxiety.
It failed.
The
beast, which is my anxiety, only grew with every passing day. I couldn’t escape,
and the only remedy I could find was to do as Poe did in the Raven, read.
Here I
am with all these blessings falling into my lap, and my days are seen as bad to
me. The work is good, honesty, rightful, but it is not where I want to be. I
keep seeing myself wasting my days in this lot in life when the Lord has given
me gifts. It is a sin not to use the gifts the Lord has given you. I wondered
if not the greatest sin of them all. It weighs on me that I am failing the
Lord. Everyone else been damned, I do not care what others think of my
failures, because I do not have to answer to them, but the Lord –
Ah, I
only hope I can say I did my best.
On the
way home the other night, the terror of tomorrow had me thinking about how to
handle this anxiety. I recall one time when I was meeting a friend for lunch. I
step out of the car with a smile on my face, and he asked me how I was doing?
Bad, I
said. I’m having an awful day.
Then
why are you smiling?
Because
I have something to overcome now.
It is
the only way I know how to handle bad days.
But I
can’t overcome my bad days alone, and let me explain because I hope this helps
you with your anxiety. We have spoken on the matter here and there in our
letters. I know it plagues you deeply to the point of almost making you not get
out of bed in the morning. I have been thinking about a way to help you
overcome this hardship. In since you are a believer, a person of faith, then I
will speak to on those terms, something we both share.
A hard
day or a mere lousy day gives you something to stand up against, I have
learned. It allows me to grow in my faith because on those hard days; I can
turn to the Lord to help me get through them. I put my trust in the Lord. Not to make the
day better but to let me know I am not alone in the struggle of it. That the
Lord is there with me to help me carry my cross when I need it, not to carry it
for me.
We too
often want the Lord to use His great power for our will and wishes, and not to
trust in Him that He has the best in mind for us. That sometimes, the ‘no’ or
the agony is better for us because we have to grow closer to Him. The mere bad
day gives me the chance to say, “Lord, I know You are with me, and with You,
all can be done. Even overcoming a bad day.”
That is
the blessing of an ordinary bad day.
Then
what about the horrific anxiety of the future and all the terror it being with
it?
I
believe – and I have given this some thought as of late – there are two ways to
look at this quagmire. I hope this helps you, for they have helped me.
The
first is to see the anxiety as a good thing because it means you have a goal in
which you are reaching for in the future. You still have dreams and passions
for your life, and the fear of failing in those dreams is what is causing the
anxiety, but you have them, and you are making moves to carry them out.
Yes, you made failed; that is a possibility in life, but not trying to is worse
than any failure.
Having
the anxiety is far better than seeing tomorrow or the next ten years as just
another day or another year. A shrug about it all and nothing more: you have
given up, no point in trying because you have already failed, but the anxiety,
hopefully, we will keep you moving.
Yes,
the terrors of tomorrow can be real. Indeed, the anxiety is genuinely a foe
within your soul, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t battle it. It is an emotion,
and all emotions must be felt to be overcome. But it is an emotion which
you can use to feed you, or you drown in the despiser with it.
Anxiety
means you are alive, and you have goals, something we must see it as. A bad day
is a blessing just as much as the good days.
The
second way I’ve found to handle a bad day is to remember the Lord is with you,
as it says Zephaniah 3:17 NIV;
“The
LORD your GOD is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great
delight in you; in His love, He will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over
you with singing.”
Or –
As a
friend once said to me,” God suffers with you.” This has to be true, for do you
not feel agony when you see a loved one in pain? Do you not weep with the heartbreak
of those who you love? If God – and He is - our Father and loves us as His
children, then does He not weep at our foolish suffering? But He is with us in
our hard days – in the dark of our minds. He is there.
So,
what does this mean for a bad day or the great monster of the future?
It
means you are not alone in it. For what truly is a bad day in your life but a
storm within your mind? The monster we so fear about things yet to come is
nothing more than the Shadows of our minds toying with us. Is this normal,
mere, suffering of our lives not afflicted on to ourselves by ourselves?
Yes, I
would agree, there are days worse than others where you can’t control the
outside events. A car wreck is out of your hands. A girlfriend breaks up is not
in your will. The death of a loved one is a roll of fate. But those days, we know
we must turn to God for help. We turn to Him in those worse days all the time,
but why don’t we do so in our mere bad days?
Are
they too small for Him?
Are
those mundane bad days our punishment we cast on ourselves for some greater
sin? Or – are they simply meant because everyone has bad days. It is a part of
life after all, right?
But God
calls us to gather Joy from Him. He is our Joy, expect, what? On a mere lousy
day? Where our minds are our greatest foe? On those days, we don’t call to the
Lord, but why?
It on
those days that we should call to Him. The mere bad days, rather a fact of life
or making of our own, it is the place we should turn to the Lord. Not to make
the day better but to be there with us, which He has said, “The LORD your GOD
is with you.”
God is with you, my dear friend. He
is there in your suffering; do not turn your back on Him. For He is the harbor
in the storm, the flower on the grave, the Joy after the hellish night of being
in the fray with the devils. He is there with you.
A bad day is a great day to turn to
the Lord.
I hope this helps, my friend.
With a handshake,
Chase
Note Fifteen
Draft 2
By: Chase L. Currie
I met Him
On the
pier,
With a
pair of,
Holes
in my,
Heart.
I put my feet
In the
Summer water,
Of a
childhood fancy,
Where I
can,
Only
find smiles,
Filled
with Joy.
He gave me a
Fishing
pole,
Under
his yellow,
Straw
hat,
We sat
for,
A while
in,
A quiet
wind.
I met Him
In a
gallery,
Of lost
souls,
Those
who turned,
Their
backs,
On His
love,
He did
not weep,
In
front of me,
But He
did weep for them.
I met Him at a
Coffee shop,
alone and lost,
After
hours of pushing
Thorns
into my bones,
I weep
in front of Him,
The
hurt won,
The
tears real,
I cried
to Him.
And He reached out,
Taking
my hand,
Asking
me to tell Him,
A tale,
I met Him -
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