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You are here: Home / Thirty Days of Light / 30 Day of Light 2, No Worries

March 8, 2011 By Janneke

30 Day of Light 2, No Worries

No Worries

I,  sadly am an expert worrier. SO I AM SENDING THIS RE-POST. Can’t get enough of trading worries for peace.

I have heard in recovery group meetings, “Worrying is like being on your front porch, furiously rocking in your rocking chair, but going nowhere.”

That’s me, some days. For instance lately I worry that my need to encourage those not interested in faith, those with universal faiths, as well as my fellow Christians, will be misunderstood.

However, there’s a reason I feel led to share with you in this way.

I had a life with…

first a child-like faith from my devout Beppe en Pake (grandparents) and mother, then no faith from age 6 to 15 – when I was already a young cynic, then a growing faith in a Higher Power, and finally a return to the faith of my childhood.

Back to worry. When Don and I were in Australia 4 years ago, I had

two LIGHT messages

  1. The trip, was a gift, unexpectedly earned through my husband’s work. Grace. It came in a manner that had nothing to do with intensely trying to reach a goal, although my husband had worked hard. It had nothing to do with worrying, just Grace.
  2. Everywhere I went, if I started to anxiously ask…I always heard, the same answer,  “No worries.” So if I said,

“How do I…?

“What if I….”

“I think I’m lost, could you…”

“I’m sorry I…”  the answer was

always the same, “NO WORRIES….”

Multiple time each day, I had opportunity to contemplate this common Australian phrase. I carried, “No worries,” back home  with me. I even had time to reflect that some of my expert-worrier-ways relate to my parents, especially Pappie (Dad) who could find the dark part of every fluffy cloud. I know where he got that habit, all those years of suffering and alertness in his younger World War II years, but he wanted freedom from worries, and so do I. So join in.

Perhaps you want to LIGHTly say today with me,

Please help me to drop worry today. Help me to gently catch my worries and give each one up in prayer or in a talk with a friend.

Help me instead

to remember the following

Yesterday is history,

tomorrow is a mystery.

Today is a gift,

that’s why we call it the present.

(sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, sometimes considered ‘anonymous’)

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Filed Under: Thirty Days of Light Tagged With: Holland, Licht, Light, Nederland, Pappie

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Comments

  1. Lynda Polk says

    March 8, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    I’ve been to Australia several times, and that is definitely the phrase that defines them. They say “No worries” like we say “No problem”. I wonder if they view our phrase as something that singles out Americans with the same curiosity that we view theirs as something that singles out those from down-under.

  2. Janneke says

    March 8, 2011 at 11:10 pm

    I wonder too if Australians have singled out our phrases. No worries – was definitely great for me, as well as the approachability of the average Australian. People there reminded me of Americans 20 years ago, before we all became a little paranoid? Where all in Australia did you go? We were in Sydney

  3. Lynda Polk says

    March 9, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    We went to the Gold Coast, halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. Unfortunately it was business – the IndyCar race – so didn’t get much touristing done. Where else can you get pickled beets on your hamburgers?

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Meet Janneke

Janneke Jobsis Brown
Following Shadows is inspired by my own story. As a survivor of an international childhood with parents who were World War II survivors, I know the generational after-effects of starvation and slave labor in Japanese concentration camps for my father, and the terror of Nazi occupation for my mother. I know the challenges of struggling to feel at home across three countries: The Netherlands, Iran and America.

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