Is Something about the New School Year Making You Anxious?

Schedule Pick-Up Day…Information Day…Orientation…Meet-the-Teacher… 

Whatever the name, if you have school-age kids you are probably experiencing some form of one of these events right about now, or just have.  

Maybe you’ve been there, done that, but you remember how the anticipation of all that comes with a new school year can bring on a lot of anxiety… if not for the kid, for moms!

• What if my teenager doesn’t have lunch with her friends?  What if she gets a bad math teacher?
• What if my middle schooler can’t get his locker open or find his classroom?
• What if my elementary student isn’t with any of his friends or doesn’t get the teacher he wanted?
• What if your child is in a new school and doesn’t know anyone (We’ve been there and it’s hard!)

Can you relate? 

This year in our house we have a child in three different schools. It’s a year I am anticipating to be one of the most challenging since my oldest still won’t be able to drive. How I am going to get everyone to and from where they need to be (typically all at the same times) is causing me anxiety!

In whatever the issues causing you or your child stress, God calls us to “cast ALL our anxieties on Him”.

Does that mean to “Let Go and Let God?” Does it mean telling yourself over and over that “God is in control?” More than likely even with positive or right thinking your mind still drifts to the worry.

So what does it look like to cast ALL our anxieties on Him?

In John 4, Jesus is at the well talking to the Samaritan woman, who does not know who He is. In response to her Jesus says,

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Here lies our problem.

We don’t turn to Him and cast all our anxieties on Him because we don’t really know Him!  We don’t know how to relate to him relationally. And we don’t think he identifies with us.

But this is what Christ incarnate is all about – He was one of us! He experienced everything we experienced. And because he did, he understands us. But too often this is lost on us; we don’t really believe that he gets what we are going through or that he will do anything to help. Instead we worry, perhaps keeping it locked up inside us. Or we may vent, talking to our spouse or to a friend – someone who will identify with us.

But it is God who wants your heart! And God who offers true help! He wants us to come to him the way we do to our spouse or friend. There is nothing too big or too small. There is no need to make ourselves sound more spiritual or to downplay our stress so we don’t look “bad”. God knows what is in your heart whether you bring it to him or not. But he tells us to cast it on him in dependence of him because we can’t bear the load apart from him.

And there is more… we are told in 1 Peter 5:7 to cast all our anxieties on Him because HE CARES FOR YOU. In caring for you, He and He alone offers to you the peace and rest we seek, that our worrying and trying to control will never give.

Imagine then if we lived daily as if God was with us everywhere we go (which He is) and we talked to him about all the events and emotions that happen in the course of a day. Now instead of our anxiety overtaking us, we are constantly casting all the details, conversations and worry on to the only One who can and does carry the load.

A practical idea in helping you relate more relationally to God, check out this post on reading the Psalms: Lord, Teach Us To Pray…The Psalms

Don’t want to miss a post? Enter your email on the upper right-hand column after “Follow blog via email”.