I added a new app to my phone Saturday night. It is a cute little thing that provides me with my horoscope on a daily basis.
I have always found horoscopes fun. Especially since they are usually written in general enough terms that everyone can find something that applies. I love to speculate about different scenarios and figure out how they would fit.
Sunday morning I awoke early, so I clicked open the app as I was drinking my coffee and read an inspirational message about how worrying does no good. The ‘scope of the day said that I should put all those things that are out of my control out of my mind. It only wasted brain power (or words to that effect).
Right. As if I could stop worrying just because a paragraph written by a person I have never met suggested it. I had legitimate things that I needed to worry about. Big things. Things I could not just push aside.
About an hour later my family and I were dressed and ready for church. I will admit that I wore my cloak of worry to church, and was only able to fold it and lay it aside as the first prayer was said. I felt lighter without that suffocating cloak, and more able to enjoy my surroundings.
My mind drifted a bit as I watched green, blue, and purple dots of light dancing around the church. Even though I knew that the effect was caused by a combination of wind, trees, stained glass, and the sun I could not help but watch.
By this time the homily was in full swing. I might have drifted through the whole thing in a dot-dancing fog if a single word not caught my attention. Worry.
I shifted forward a little and listened carefully, only to discover that the topic of today was worry. Worry was useless. Worry could only do harm. Worry distracted us from the things that were really important. We needed to put away thoughts of things that we could not change and focus on those we could.
Gulp. Two times in two hours from two different sources I had received the exact same message. Well now, I didn’t think I needed to have a third message sent my way before I got the point.
As I left church I also left behind that old cloak of worry. And if it finds a way to follow me home I will pack that cloak of worry away in the attic, where it can end its days as all attic dwellers do, forgotten among the dust and spiders.