Letters to Susan Part 13: You don’t have to pitch a tent and stay there

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Letters to Susan Part 13: You don’t have to pitch a tent and stay there

#thinkonthesethings #choosejoy

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Please "Like" & "Share" with your online friends.

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Philippians 4:8 “…think on these things.”

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:

Some time has passed since you first found out that Missy was in trouble with drugs. Your initial shock has probably worn off, but that doesn’t mean you have your hurt, your anger or your fear under control. Even after you’ve been walking this path for a while, you will still sometimes worry and even be overwhelmed with fear.

If you’ve reached out for help and adopted the “24-hour plan,” it will be easier to face whatever comes. If you’re doing the other things we’ve talked about, all of them will help keep you from going to that “dark and scary” place in your own mind. However, there will be times when both your mind and your attention will go there in spite of all you do.

To keep from getting stuck there, you might ask yourself what your worry is accomplishing. My husband often tells me, “You must think your worry is very powerful since you do so much of it!” And, of course, my worry isn’t powerful at all. Neither is yours. Jesus is talking about the futility of worry when He asks, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Matthew 6:27)

If you’re like me, you might find yourself thinking you need to know everything Missy has done and might do and how all this is going to turn out. You can’t know the last two, and you don’t need or probably even really want to know the first. In any case, “knowing” only gives us the illusion of control. And worrying about these things will steal your peace and even make you sick. So how do you let it go?

Although our minds are wonderfully creative, they are only capable of entertaining one thought at a time. If we’re focusing our attention on things that are “honest, just, pure, and lovely,” those things will dominate our thinking. When we’re meditating on things that are “excellent and praiseworthy,” our minds can’t obsess about negative things. (Philippians 4:8)

It isn’t only people who are new to this journey that struggle with worry. I still have days when my mind keeps going back to the negative things going on in my prodigal’s life. When that happens, I set aside 30 minutes…I mean I literally make an appointment with myself, say from 3:00 �" 3:30 in the afternoon. During that time, I worry and cry and pace the floor as much as I want. However, the other 23½ hours of the day belong to me.

Every time my mind tries to go there, I remind myself of that appointment, refusing to worry until then and choosing to focus my thoughts on more positive things. If that sounds artificial or useless to you, just think how useless your worry is. That doesn’t mean you’re in denial, Susan. It means you know that this thing with Missy is part of your life, but you realize it is not your entire life.

Loving a prodigal is a tough path to walk, and you won’t do any of this perfectly. But you don’t need to. All you have to do on any given day is the best you can with the emotional energy you have on that day and sometimes just in that moment. Accepting that your mind will sometimes go there in spite of everything you do is part of it. The other part is realizing you don’t have to pitch a tent and stay there.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, chose to focus our thoughts on the positive rather than the negative?