Worry is Fruitless

I think God is teaching me several lessons at the moment.

An ongoing lesson seems to be that worry isn't necessary -- it does no one good, and can do a lot of ill.

A small example is one from this morning.  The university where I work was offering free health exams (blood pressure/taking blood) and since I've been needing to go to the doctor, I thought this might be a small step in the right direction.  So I made an appointment and penned a reminder note and then pretty much let it drop.  Until yesterday, when I realized they were doing a blood test.

Worry set in.  Would they prick my finger?!  I have a horror of pricking my fingers.  I've had bad experiences (I've had so many bad experiences I'm surprised I do anything any more) and last time was so awful that I've had a thing about pricking ever since.  (I can relate to Sleeping Beauty and her sure diagnosis of PTSD)

So I worried and worried and worked myself up and then talked myself down to realize it was mostly my pointer finger I was worried about (?!?!).  Apparently that finger is the most sensitive and I could imagine myself pricking my thumb (if only to relate to Agatha Christie's By the Pricking of my Thumbs story) but I still kept worrying they would insist on my pointer.

Luckily a friend dropped by the office this morning and assured me they were taking blood from the arm.

Well. I can do that, as long as I have a book to read.

This put my worries to rest and I skipped off to my appointment with a lighter heart.  (Even though butterflies were racing through my stomach -- I haven't seen a doctor in a few years)

In the end, the appointment was painless and quick.  I sat down, handed in my paperwork, they took my blood pressure (which, surprisingly, was perfect.  We do have a history of good blood pressure in my family, despite our high cholesterol, but I thought maybe I'd stressed out for so long it would make a difference), then they took my blood and that was that.

A five-minute exam that I worried about for well over 24 hours.

There are other, more serious examples, of course, but this is when I realized, again, that I worry too much about things I can't change.

I can't change whether I'll have a job in six months or not.
I can't change my friends' circumstances.

I can, however, be less worried about everything.  Which sometimes makes all the difference.

If I let myself get worked up over everything, not only will I have a shorter life-span, but I will have a poorer quality of life during the shorter time I would have.

Now to find some good techniques to clear the worry.  Bible verses?  Art projects?  Writing?  Prayer?

Or maybe chocolate.  It's hard to worry when you've got hazelnut luxe milk chocolate to snack on.