Step by Step

     Occasionally one of my loved ones will lovingly say to me, "Honey, you ought to get paid for worrying, since you do such a good job of it." We giggle over it, but unfortunately it's been only too true far too much of the time.

     Worry and anxiety have been one of my great weaknesses ever since I was a tiny child. And it only increased many times over as things happened to me that were worse than anything I ever dreamed of.

As shocking trials overwhelmed me, I was totally consumed with worry and anxiety over the future. The emotional anguish was so intense I couldn't even imagine how I could make it through the next few minutes, and when I would think of years down the road I would feel almost suffocating panic.

     How would I ever be able to cope with the pain of my broken heart and day after day? What else would happen to take away any remnants of comfort in my shattered life?

     Questions like those overwhelmed me again and again. It was so foolish because I needed every ounce of energy I had to deal with the pain of the moment. I didn't have even a tiny bit of strength and emotional resource to waste on future suffering.

     Then one day my Heavenly Father showed me this verse:

* As thou goest step by step, I will open up thy way before thee. Proverbs 4:12

     That has been several years ago now, but I've never forgotten the comfort that filled me to the depths of my soul. It was a simple promise, but such a comforting revelation in a time of deepest need!

     I only had to go STEP BY STEP. Just one second at a time. I didn't have to even think about the next second. Jesus was with me holding my hand, and opening up the next step, and the next, and the next. It helped me beyond all measure, to just get through each moment and not even think beyond that.

     And as I took one step at a time my Savior has held my hand, and I believe even carried me through the worst of that anguish. Now, years later, it usually doesn't take all my energy to just survive through each minute as it comes. He has opened my way with comfort and joy that I didn't even think was possible. But I still have the same great need to take life just a step at a time as He gives it.

     I still feel very overwhelmed if I think too far into the future. I wonder if my dearly loved ones with frail health will have gone to be Jesus. I wonder if I will have my lifelong dreams. I wonder if at some point I will experience again the depths of pain and brokenness that I found nearly impossible to cope with.

     And once again I have to stop and remind myself that my precious Savior is opening my way before me, and I'm only supposed to be taking ONE step right now. I'm only supposed to be doing the next thing, not fretting over what I'll be doing a year from now.

* 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

     There are still some nights where it's difficult to sleep much because I'm anxious and worrying, but I know that my Heavenly Father doesn't intend for me to spend nearly sleepless nights filled with anxiety. He promises me that He will never sleep, so that I can rest in peace! Those are the times when the next step in life is to sleep, with my hand in His, and TRUST Him.

* He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he shall...neither slumber nor sleep. Psalms 121:3-4

     My precious little niece is such an example of trust to me. When we are out walking side by side, and the ground gets rough and rocky, she just looks up to me with the most perfect trust in her beautiful big eyes, and holds out her little hand to me. Of course I immediately grasp it, and she just plants her feet firmly in front of her, and takes the next step, and the next, and the next. There's not a whimper or fear or anxiety, as long as I'm holding her hand.

     None of us knows what the future holds. We don't know how rough and rocky the path may be before we reach the end of it. But I've learned that we don't need to know where we are going as long as we know WHO is holding our hand and opening up the way before us.

* The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the Lord. Psalms 37:23

     Sometimes those steps lead us to the mountaintop where there is breathtaking beauty and sunshine. Sometimes they lead us through darkest valleys where the pain and anguish are so deep it seems that we'll never feel sunshine again. But His plan is as perfect in the valleys as it is on the mountaintop. Some day one of those steps will be off of this rough rocky pathway onto the golden streets, where there will never be one more heartache or tear. Then we will look back on our life here in this vale of tears, and see each and every step through His perfect wisdom, and I'm absolutely certain that we will thank and praise Him for every one of them through all eternity.

2004 A Sister In Christ