In a line at the airport yesterday, a mom shared with me how she worried about her sons, an adolescent and a teenager.  “I don’t think you ever stop worrying,” she said.  I knodded companionably, but it felt odd. 

I don’t actually worry about raising my daughter.  Perhaps I’m trusting, figuring that her peers and the adults in her school, our church, our neighborhood, and our family, are all going to be good influences.  Perhaps it’s a matter of timing, because my daughter is not yet exposed to whatever is leading this generation of adolescents and teenagers astray.   Perhaps it’s a matter of  luck, having a single homebody daughter rather than a pair of adventuresome sons.  

I know there is much in the world to worry about, and a lot of it could harm my daughter.  My great-grandmother, I’m told, worried about it all.  We used to not tell my great-grandmother things, because she would worry.  It’s an odd memory to me, because I remember having to keep the secrets, but I don’t remember ever hearing her say that she was worried about anything.

For me, dealing with the worry gene is not a choice between hiding from reality or worrying about it.    I have another way:  I pray, laying the burden down, as it were.   Now, if I’d only thought to offer that option to the lady in line at the airport. Doh!