What's in Your Buggy?

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. Psalm 55:22

I set down my cup of coffee and smiled. Squeak . . . pause . . . squeak . . . pause . . . squeak . . . I heard my three-year-old come down the hall.

Each morning my oldest daughter rolls a plastic toy grocery cart from her bedroom, filled with all sorts of her things. Every night, she rolls the same cart back where it rests by her big-girl bed until morning. What’s in the cart? There’s an orange Little Tykes lantern, a pink baby doll, one of her younger sister’s yellow shoes, and three books: Curious George, Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life, and a book for writers full of inspiring pictures. Only one of those books is actually hers. Tonight as I adjusted her cart’s position by the bed, I smiled as I looked at its contents. Things so simple and random to me are so very precious to her.

It made me think of all I carry with me. The job applications (for which the phone isn’t ringing), my mother-in-law in the hospital, what to cook the children for dinner, and how to get laundry done by a reasonable bedtime hour. Some of these are so much bigger than the others, but still I carry them all.

Do my concerns look to God as my daughter’s cart looks to me? Many times we carry our worries and concerns around with us as we go throughout our day, seemingly so important that we do not realize how they slow us down or take our attention from the blessings around us.

God commands us to cast our cares on Him; to give our concerns to the Lord. If we do, He will take care of us. If we can let go, He will keep us steady and strong.

Cast what you carry on Him. He will see you through.

Julie P. Jones, PhD is an educator in Spartanburg, SC. She received her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction in 2009 from Clemson University, a Master of Education in Administration from the University of South Carolina, and a Bachelor of Arts in Deaf Education from Converse College. She maintains an active research agenda that includes both practitioner and family-oriented articles. Julie is married with two daughters.
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