"ARE WE THERE YET?"

As parents we cannot help but worry. We probably spend an awful lot of time in our lives worrying. At home, we worry about getting our children to the “right” schools then about if they can cope and their grades in school. We worry about bills to pay and rising costs of necessities and then about keeping our jobs to pay those bills and the list does not stop there. Over the span of our lifetime, we may find that worrying accounts for hours and hours of invaluable time that we’ll never get back.

When you think about it over the years, in spite of all the worrying, we seem to fair pretty well and all our bills eventually get paid. So, why do we worry so much? Should we not spend our time more wisely and more enjoyably with the family?

painting by Jan (age 9)

If you're not convinced yet to give up your worrying, perhaps one of the great biblical reasons to tell us not to worry could be found here in Matthew 6:25-26: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” What an awesome assurance from God!

I don't know about you, but I seem to get busier each year. So worrying is really a waste of very precious time, won’t you agree? Worrying won't help you solve a problem or bring about a solution, so why waste your time and energy on it?

Well, with so little time, I admit that I am not a big fan of going to the movies. It just feels like I am “trapped” in a seat, in front of a big screen, not able to do anything else for nearly 120 minutes of my life! I find it unproductive, but that’s just me. Occasionally though, I would make time to join the family in a movie, especially when it comes highly “recommended” by my young daughter. Understandably then, it usually would be a children’s cartoon or animated movie.

So here’s a scene from a movie I want to share, that was somewhat an awakening for me. In the movie, The Incredibles - a cartoon about a superhero dad going through mid-life crisis (I often wonder, why does it feel like children’s movies are created not for children, but for parents?). The superhuman family travels to the scene of the film's climax and one of the children asks, "Are we there yet?" repeatedly. To that, each time the father would reply, “No!” But after several times being asked, the irate father yelled out, “We’ll get there when we get there!” On that cue, the punch line received much laughter.

Amid the laughter, I took in a poignant moment, thinking that we should not be too bothered about “getting there” but instead be glad that the family is still on a journey. Whilst we stay on this journey, we should just be glad for the time we have together - to live, learn, renew and love but not to worry. Indeed, we should not be too eager to hear that we have “arrived”, because then we would have ran out of time!