No Grace for My Imagination

From the girlTalk blog:

"After thirty-four years of mothering, I’ve discovered that most of the bad things I imagined never actually came true. But there have been other trials—ones I never anticipated. That’s why Elisabeth Elliot’s wise advice has been invaluable to me in fighting fear: 'There is no grace for your imagination.' God does not sprinkle grace over every path my fear takes. He does not rush in with support and encouragement for every doomsday scenario I can imagine. No, instead He warns me to stay off those paths: 'Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil' (Ps. 37:8). There is no grace for our imagination. That’s why our fearful imaginings produce bad fruit: anxiety, lack of joy, futile attempts to control. There is no grace for our imagination. But God does promise sufficient, abundant grace for every real moment of our lives. That’s why the Proverbs 31 woman can 'laugh at the future in contrast with being worried or fearful about it' (ESV Study Bible note on Pr. 31:25)."

I know this is about mothering, which I am not a participant of, but it speaks to me, my situation, and my personality so well. You give me a scenario and I can come up with a whole slew of "what if's." Sometimes this is helpful in that I am prepared for a lot of possibilities day in and day out. However, the fear it produces sometimes freezes me. I can become so overwhelmed and distraught over what might happen that I can't even function in the here and now. I think two people in the world know how terrible I can be about this: my mom and Nathan. Mostly Nathan though. I can't count the number of times we have had discussions about upcoming things and Nathan has to tell me over and over again to stop being so stuck in my fear. That is especially true of our upcoming move. Especially since I have to do a lot of it with Nathan being in Mississippi. Sometimes I feel very confident and capable of handling all that will literally be thrown at us in the coming months, but most of the time I am going through my head all the things I need to do to prepare for this possibility or that possibility. What if we mess up and can't get our car over there? What if I pack something we really need in the shipment that won't get to us until January? What if I don't clear the medical exams? And on and on and on. Except this time, Nathan is a little more with me on the "we might get ourselves in real trouble if we don't know what we are doing." So we are both trying to remind each other that people get through this and as long as we get over to Germany, we are fine. The rest isn't really all that important. And my goodness, we are getting to go to Germany! It's hard to think past December and look forward to all the great times we are about to have in Europe. I just need to stop letting my imagination run. That is not where God is. He is here in the present with me, and standing in my future. Not in Jennifer's Wonderland of Scary Things That Might Happen. So please pray that Nathan and I will both have peace about moving the military way and wisdom/discernment in the decisions we have to make regarding the move.