My Greatest Fear

I am a worrier. I try very hard not to be, but I come from a line of worriers so it's a nature and nurture thing. I worry about weather, cost of living, icy roads, and a whole bunch of other things that are outside my control. This leads to me being a control freak about things I can control, like having a multi-step tornado safety plan, and an emergency fund that would make Mrs. Ramsey proud.

However, what's harder to see from the outside is that all my worrying and control freakness stem from a single source: what will happen to my animals if something happens to me.

If I lived alone, I would be carefree. I think I'd be so depressed and miserable on a regular basis I wouldn't get out of bed other than to go to work, but I wouldn't worry anymore. Frankly, I'd be waiting impatiently for God to take me out of this increasingly insane world.

I worry about how I can protect my charges during disaster or emergency. Or Rapture. The Rapture bothers me a lot, but so does being dragged off to jail for being a Christian with my door open, and my little ones left to fend for themselves. That thought makes it hard to breathe on my best day. 

They're just things, Turtle.

No. I have things, and I don't care about what happens to those when I die.

Animals are not things to me, no matter what the law says. They're lives. Too many lives, it can be reasonably argued, but lives nonetheless. I won't abandon them in case of fire. I won't get myself downstairs if one of them is upstairs. I won't risk an auto accident if it means I become paraplegic, and they go to the shelter to die ('cause that's what happens to 99% of cats in shelters. They die).

Is this a stupid way to live? Yeah. My head knows that, but my heart runs these things, and I don't know how to control my heart. I can't be the person who thinks only of herself when seven other lives depend on me for their subsistence and overall protection. I don't want to be that person.

So I worry. I know it's a sin. What I don't know is how to apply God's grace to cover my critters. He and I have talked about it a lot, and the conversation shows no sign of concluding.

Just know, if something happens to me, my one and only remaining concern is that my critters be cared for. This is why I made a will. This is why I won't commit suicide (because they wouldn't get their hefty insurance payment that will provide for them for the rest of their natural lives). This is why I wrote this post.

My first Bible study of this year will be "peace." Seek, and you will find. I'm seeking, Lord. 

Keep the faith.