Overcoming Worry

My daughter has a job as a teaching assistant at a large University this fall semester.

Or, at least, she had been promised a job as a teaching assistant.

She completed the week long training session for TA’s.  During the orientation, she was given several choices.  Would she like a class that met three days a week or two days a week?  Would she like to teach TESL writing skills to undergrads or graduate students? While Christine didn’t care – she just wanted the job – she stated her preferences, was assigned a class, and settled in for the weekend.  Everything looked fine. She even got an email from a potential student calling her Dr. Christine.

In the middle of the weekend, she called us.  Registration was not going well. Somehow, two sections had been scheduled for the same hour and were not getting filled.  Would she take a Tuesday-Thursday class, her coordinator asked. She said yes.

Tuesday afternoon, she called again.  She had only one student attend her section.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.  “Will you have more students?  They won’t let you teach a class of just one student, will they?” I knew sections were often closed if there was not enough students enrolled, but the University was paying Christine’s way through school in exchange for her teaching. What would happen if they couldn’t provide her a class?

I’m ashamed to say my daughter had her head screwed on more straight than I did.  “Mom,” she said calmly if not a bit impatiently.  I felt like she was talking to one of her students. “The university has guaranteed me a teaching position. It is the coordinator’s responsibility to find me a job. I’m not going to worry about it.”

She was absolutely right, of course.  Her reaction – or shall I say, my reaction – made me think of how many times I have tried to worry about something when it was someone else’s responsibility, not mine.

God is the coordinator of my life.  He is in control of the world.  He knows the plans He has for me.  The earth belongs to Him.  He is over all, through all and in all. The Bible makes it very clear that when I worry, I am failing to trust Him, failing to trust that it’s His job to make sure I get what I need and that I get what He has promised to me.

If He is in control and He’s working on the problem, why should I worry?

What happened with Christine’s class?  Two days later, she called yet again.  Her coordinator had moved her from an undergraduate level class of one student to a graduate level class of eleven international students.  Her coordinator – and her Lord  – knew what they were doing.