Many people go through life plagued by worries. Worries can take a toll on your health, if you don’t know how to handle them. It is not God’s plan to burden you with worries. He wants you to be happy, in spite of worries. He wants you to experience His joy, which can overcome worries, especially when you let Him take care of them.

People deal with worry in different ways. The following story is about one man’s way of dealing with worry.

A woman hired a workman to help her restore an old house. The workman had just finished a difficult first day on the job: a flat tire had made him lose an hour of work, and his electric drill broke down. Then his old truck refused to start. While the kindly woman drove him home, he sat in the passenger seat in stony silence.

He had a bad day.

On arriving at his house, the man pleaded with the woman to come inside to meet his family. As they walked towards the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, fondling with his hands several branches.

Upon opening the door of his home, he underwent an immediate and amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles. He hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterwards he walked the woman to her car, like a true gentleman.

As they passed by the tree, the woman’s curiosity got the better of her. She asked him: “what did you do to the little tree or, better still, what did the little tree do to you?”

“Oh, that’s my trouble tree” he replied. “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, those troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and children. So I just ask God to take care of them, and to show my trust in Him, I perform this little gesture of hanging them up on the tree every night when I come home from work. Then in the morning I pick them up again. Funny thing is”, he smiled, “when I come out in the morning, they’re all gone. That is how I can face each new day with a clean slate.”

The kind woman was dumbfounded, and she drove away, worry free, because of what the man had just shared with her.

Jesus tells us not to worry because our heavenly Father is watching over us. There’s no point in worrying about the past because it cannot be undone, no more than you can unring a bell. The future eludes you also for it may never come. That leaves only the present. Why ruin the present with useless worries about things you have no control over! Embrace the grace of the present moment which God has given you. God already knows the outcome to your problems and, if you hope in Him, everything will work out for your good.

The Lord tells us that “each day has enough troubles of its own” ( Matthew 6 : 34 ). Why worry about the past or the future? We have no control over them. We only have the present.

So, let’s make the very best of every day of our lives.

—Fr. Hugh Duffy