The Day's Own Trouble

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

“Let the day’s own trouble be enough for the day.” I can’t say how many times I’ve heard, repeated, thought this phrase in my own life.  When I’m anxious about work, or returning to work after a glorious summer.  When I start to concern myself with how my kids are going to college, or if they will have friends. When I try to plan out every second of my life.  When I simply try to plan out my children…. Let the day’s own trouble be enough for the day. What does that even mean?

What if the day’s own trouble is more than enough for the day?

That rainy Wednesday is still crystal clear in my memory.  A worst day. It was the day we learned my baby boy’s heart stopped beating.  The day’s own trouble was more than enough.  I remember the quiet room of the ultrasound.  The cold eyes of the technician. The doctor’s blank stare as she gave news that I’m sure she has given before, but never seems to get easier. I wonder if they felt it.  I wonder if they gave my boy a second thought after I left that office that day.  I wonder if they simply wanted to get me out the door so they didn’t have to wade in my grief, my trouble.  So they could move on to happier women, with better “outcomes”. I’ve wondered this often.  It bugs me. It makes me angry.  It makes me jealous when I hear of women that had compassionate nurses and gentle doctors. And at the same time, I’m so glad that many other women did not meet those cold eyes, but gentleness and sorrow. But it wasn’t their business, It was my day’s own trouble.  And it was more than enough.  

More than enough to process in my mind and heart. More than enough to decide very quickly. More than enough to pay for on a credit card instead of saving for tires for the car. More than enough for my broken heart that day.

I still remember what I thought as I got into my car that afternoon.  Through shallow breaths, “what am I going to do?” I repeated this over and over and over. I’m not sure what I thought I was planning. What do I do next? Do I call my mom? What about my kids? Should I try again? Even in this moment, when the day’s own trouble was more than enough, I couldn’t help but consider the next day, the next step, the next moment.  How in the world was I going to sludge my way out of this darkness?  How was I even going to breathe in this pit, if I was so focused on the next moment?

Even when the day’s own trouble is more than enough for the day, let it be. It seems that we are wired to think of the next day. And I’m not sure how to slow down.  It seems a survival technique for many of us, and at the same time, it crushes us. I do not know when I stopped planning, but I do know of the moments after, when I took a quiet moment, when I listened to the sorrow and allowed my God to comfort, when I stayed in that moment, I was led into the quiet presence of my savior.  It was in that moment, that he held me.

Our lives are made of moments.  It only takes a moment for everything to change. Sometimes a day is made up of a series of terrible, difficult, heartbreaking moments, that seem more than enough. But it is also in those moments, if we live them, that he finds us and holds us, and makes HImself more visible than ever before. I have learned that I can live in a moment, or lose it completely.  And if I lose it completely because of my selfish planning of the next moment, I miss out. In the case of my grief, I would have missed the Savior.  I would have missed my son. I would have missed knowing them both.  These are the moments that I will cherish forever.  Moments where my own child, too small to have gone so soon, led me to Jesus. To a deeper relationship with Him. Because of this tiny life, I was given a song to sing. And while it had a sorrowful, broken, refrain, it is a precious and beautiful and cherished song of a moment of my life.  That is why I named him Jaron, “To sing”.

Now there are new moments. New songs. New opportunities. New troubles. But the day’s own trouble is enough for the day.  And there are still those precious moments, many times in the moment of trouble when I remember my son again. And I remember my Savior. And He is enough.