Dear friend,
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.
I have been thinking again about the way anxious feels less like one large weight and more like a dozen small ones, each demanding to go first.
Yesterday I offered you Philippians and the instruction to bring the noise while it is still loud. Today I want to look at it from another angle, in 1 Peter 5:6-7, where Peter tells his readers to cast their anxieties onto God because He cares for them. I notice the verb. Cast is not fold neatly or set down gently. It is the word used for throwing something you cannot keep carrying, the way a man might cast a net he cannot haul in slowly. Peter does not ask you to arrange your worry into something presentable before you hand it over.
I think of the mornings I tried to make my fear behave before I would admit to having it, as though God required a tidier version of me first. He does not. The casting comes before the composure, if the composure comes at all.
What would it look like to bring Him the version of this that isn't smoothed over yet?
A prayer
God, You already know what she is carrying before she finds words for it. Receive it as it is, unpolished and heavy, and keep her close through today's smaller hours. Amen.