I cast all my cares upon You
I lay all of my burdens down at Your feet
And any time I don’t know what to do
I will cast all my cares upon You.

Almost a month ago, while on our way to my parents’ place, I awoke in the middle of the night and began to worry about what lay ahead. Would I be able to cope? Could I provide the care that they needed? As anxiety threatened to consume me, this old Kelly Willard chorus, based on 1 Peter 5:7 “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (NKJV), began to run through my head.

What a life saver that little chorus became! I knew that in my own strength, I wouldn’t have the wisdom or the patience to do all that needed to be done so I determined right then and there to do exactly as the chorus suggested and lay it all at the feet of Jesus.

Were there times in the last month that I didn’t know what to do? You bet there were but whenever I began to feel overwhelmed, I returned to the little chorus and let it bathe my spirit and restore my peace of mind. It became my mantra. Don’t get me wrong; there wasn’t any magic in the words themselves or the ritual of repeating them but they were my prayer. They reminded me where my help was coming from and calmed my frazzled nerves.

Now we’re on our way home, tucked into the same hotel where anxiety threatened to overwhelm me. In addition to cooking meals, doing mountains of laundry, attending to Mom’s day to day needs, ferrying Dad to numerous appointments and hounding his urologist’s office for a surgery date (Dec. 7), we toured care facilities, arranged respite care for Mom for three weeks following Dad’s surgery and set up Meals on Wheels to begin immediately after we left. I also learned how to change and clean a catheter bag! There were moments of frustration and fortunately, moments of humour, but there were no moments of panic or despair. The cares chorus took care of that!