Tobit 10:6-7. Tobias' mother, Anna, is frantic with worry over him, but her husband Tobit says "Be still and stop worrying; he is well." She answers rather snippily and says "Be still and stop deceiving me; my child has perished." She goes out every day to the road from which Tobias left, watching for him and eating nothing all day; and she mourns all night. But, at the end of the same line, the story flips back to Tobias who has just been married and asks his new father-in-law for leave to go home because his parents must be sick with worry about him.

The Bible really does have an answer for everything! I worry like Anna so often (I was doing it prior to reading this passage at 8:30 this morning, and I continued doing it after reading it and writing this blog entry!). I convince myself that my children are in grave danger and will never survive in this sometimes awful (and getting worse) world. I make myself frantic and sick. I worry especially about their salvation and pray and fast for them to return to God and the Church. I feel so helpless. When people, like my husband, try to tell me not to worry so much, I get snippy with them just like Anna - "Stop telling me not to worry - you have no idea what it is like or what I am feeling!" This is wrong. I am clinging to my worry - and I have to let it go. My children are in God's hands and he loves them. He will take care of them and give them every opportunity to come home to him, and once they do, they will come home to me.

The Book of Tobit is so comforting to me as a worried mother because it lets us see Tobias' adventure after he leaves home against his mother's wishes. We see how he finds his purpose; his wife; his way - all the things he never would have found if he had stayed home as his mother wished. Initially, Tobias left home to get money to heal his father, but so much more happens to him while on his trip - this adventure is really the beginning of his life's story and purpose. But Anna does not know any of this - she just knows that Tobias went away, far from her protection and care and against her wishes, and he has taken far too long to come home. Because he has been gone so long, she convinces herself that he came to harm and does not have much hope of ever seeing him again.

Putting myself in Anna's shoes, I am right there with her! I would be the exact same way, I am the exact same way! But God has told me and shown me over and over that he cares for me and for all of the people that I love.

A troubled heart is a sign of a lack of trust in him - this message was given to me very clearly when I picked up In Sinu Jesu asking for an answer to something else that was troubling me. Anna and I both have to learn to trust. Our children's story is being told in their lives and God is watching over them. They do not belong to us, but to him, and he will lead them back to himself, and then bring them fully back to us when the time is right.