Letters to Susan Part 11: Use the 24 hour plan

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Deuteronomy 33:25 “As your days, so shall your strength be…”

Part of this post is my response to a devastated parent who emailed me asking how she could help her prodigal. (Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.)

Dear Susan:

You said that you are “really just beside yourself,” and I don’t doubt that. Learning that your beautiful child has been harming herself and finding out that drugs are part of the issue had to be devastating. It must have filled your heart with fear and with all the questions that fear brings to mind.

I heard your fear and the unspoken questions behind your statement of, “I so desperately want to help her in tangible ways.” If you’re anything like me, the questions that keep you awake at night are never about what might happen if/when Missy gets into recovery, gets a good job or begins trying to fix the damage she’s done to your relationship.

It’s more likely you’re asking questions like, “What might happen if she…?” and “What will I do if she…?” “What’s going to happen to her tomorrow, next week, next year? And why in the world would you and I imagine something small when we’re so perfectly capable of imagining something catastrophic?

You say you know that “all you can do is pray.” But actually, you can do something more. As you continue to pray, you can use the 24-hour plan. What I mean by that is you only have to do this for today. Not as an AA/Al-Anon/Celebrate Recovery slogan, but because God’s mercies are new every morning. (Lam 3:22-23)

We had custody of two of our grandkids for three years, and they were about to be transitioned back home to their parents. To say I was concerned is like saying Hurricane Katrina was a little thunderstorm. I was devastated and frantic with worry.

A precious friend helped me by baby-stepping me through the process. Every time I was overcome with fear about the future, she would gently ask me, “What is your reality right at this moment?” And my reality at the time was that the kids were safe in their beds upstairs.

Every time I would project what might happen, she’d bring me back to the present by reminding me I can’t carry tomorrow’s problems with today’s strength. Neither can you, Susan. Trying to do so is self-defeating and exhausting, but that’s what we’re doing when we worry about what “might happen” in the future.

Your reality right now is that Missy is alive and safe in the hospital. That’s a hard enough thing for you to carry today without adding to that load what “might happen” tomorrow. That’s going to be true every single day of your wilderness journey because each day’s burdens will sometimes drain you physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. You can’t afford to waste today’s strength trying to carry tomorrow’s burdens.

It’s a tough path that God has called you and me to walk. But you and I have a promise from the God who cannot lie who says He will go before us and will be with us and not fail us. (Deuteronomy 31:8) And this faithful God searches and knows our hearts and knows our “anxious thoughts.” (Psalm 139:23 NIV)

I find great comfort in knowing that God knows my every thought, my every concern, and my every fear. And more than just seeing, He understands. I can depend on a God who hears my voice and my supplications, who inclines His ear to hear my prayers. (Psalm 116:1-2) And so can you.

There may be rough days ahead for you and for me…so rough in fact that we may sometimes feel like the Heavens are brass and God doesn’t even hear our prayers. That’s the very time we need to depend on God’s mercies that are new every morning and to rest in His unchanging love…just for today.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, stopped trying to carry tomorrow’s problems with today’s strength?