Part 1: You Have One Job!

Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.

Proverbs 12:25

When I received the unexpected bad news of breast cancer on Good Friday almost ten years ago, my main heartache was my impressionable twelve-year-old daughter watching the ordeal of cancer from the sidelines. I did not want her to worry, and I did not want to miss being there for her wedding day someday in the future. I did not want to be away from home and unavailable to greet her as she came home from middle school.

I will never forget hugging Kali in the foyer before my mastectomy. In fact, God has continually used this particular mother-daughter interaction in both our lives. Many years have passed since that day, yet it still seems as fresh as yesterday. As we were saying our good-byes in the foyer, I looked at her and said, “You have one job while Mommy is away.”

She looked at me with those beautiful, almost-teenager eyes and rolled them as if to ask, “Do I have to empty the dishwasher, vacuum, and blow the leaves off the back porch?”

Catching her nonverbal response, I said, “No, your only job is not to worry! You see, Mommy is in the best hands possible—the Lord’s. So are you and Daddy. And I am not afraid because I will not be alone, and God loves me and you and Daddy more than we can imagine. As a mother with ‘crazy love’ for her beautiful daughter, my biggest fear is that you will be worried about me! I want you to enjoy your school and friends and your dad while I am in the hospital. I want to not worry about you because that will be much harder for me than the mastectomy!”

She got the biggest smile on her face. Every now and then in the days that followed I would ask her how she was doing with her job. It became our thing—no worries! God gave both of us courage in cancer not to worry!

There’s more to the story in tomorrow’s devotion.

Can you name the biggest worry of your life? Write it down, then write the words of Proverbs 12:25 over it. God does not want His children to worry.