Okay, I thought that title would be a good one for attracting people to my blog via Google searches. After all, many readers find me when they do a search for “something died in my wall” or “my child eats carpet fuzz,” so why not expand my search engine reach by blogging about two pervasive topics: worry and weight loss.

But honestly, this post is more about the fact that worry seems to be an eternal struggle with me.

Here are the facts:

1. I know that the Bible tells me not to worry, but rather to pray.
2. I know that God is in control and that He hears my prayers and I can trust Him.
3. I still find myself worrying. And though I’ve made progress in trust more, worry less (only by God’s grace), it still happens far more than I’d like.

Sigh…

The other night, Chad was on his way home from out of town, and it just so happened that we were getting more snow that night than we’ve had in forever. Or at least in several years.

And, in fact, when I looked at the handy radar maps on Weather.com, they showed a big solid block of BLUE that stood for TREMENDOUS AMOUNTS OF SNOW that covered pretty much the entire area where Chad would be driving. And though Chad is an excellent driver, I was a tad bit concerned about all the crazies who were out driving when they had no business doing so. And I was pretty sure that the roads between Here and There would be littered with said crazies.

So naturally, I prayed and asked God to please keep Chad safe. I tucked the boys in and assured C. that dad would be home soon. And then I tried to figure out how not to worry. Chad thought he’d be home in two hours. Surely I could pass two hours, right?

I don’t know what it is with me. I’ve read that when worry is plaguing you, it’s best to just keep praying and keep turning it over to God. But I wonder if God gets tired of my own little prayer tennis match that goes something like this:

I’ll turn this over to God. No, wait, I’ll take it back again and worry a bit more. No, I’m going to pray and be done with this. But wait, just a little more dwelling on potential disaster. Okay, for real, this is it. I’m turning it over. Oh, okay, just one more little minute of worry.

Because if He doesn’t get tired of it, I sure do.

Now, I’m not at all saying that it’s bad to keep praying about something that’s causing me worry. I’m just saying that it seems like real trust would, at some point, stop taking it back to worry about again, you know?

So anyway, that night, I decided that both pacing the floors and a marathon eating session were just out. As I stared out the window, watching the snow continue to fall, fall, fall, I decided to keep busy by shoveling snow. C. had already done a fantastic job shoveling our driveway after school, but we had another half-inch or so that had accumulated since then. And at the rate the snow was falling, it wouldn’t be long until yet another inch would accumulate.

So I bundled up. Boots. Coat. Gloves. Oh, and iPod. If I was going to shovel snow, I might as well listen to an audiobook at the same time.

Within half an hour or so, I had shoveled the entire driveway and cleared off our walkway, and shoveled out in front of the mailbox, and somewhat cleared a spot in the grass next to where Chad parks his car, so he wouldn’t have to step out into several inches of cold snow. And as an added bonus, my heart was pumping and I was pretty sure I’d just earned a piece of chocolate or two.

I filled the next 90 minutes with laundry-folding, floor-swiffering, and counter-cleaning. Okay. Chad was due home any minute.

I didn’t want to call him, just in case he was trying to negotiate the road with one of the aforementioned crazy drivers. So I returned to my post by the window. And noticed that it looked like I hadn’t even shoveled the driveway, due to the persistence of the snow. Hmph.

So I bundled up again. Turned on the iPod again. And shoveled the driveway. Again.

By now, it was 10:30 at night. And as I faithfully cleared snow from the driveway, our neighbor arrived home and gave me a friendly honk. At least, I think it was a friendly honk. In retrospect, it could have been more like a What are you doing, shoveling snow at this hour, you crazy woman? kind of honk. I guess we’ll never know.

Still, shoveling passed the time, kept me from worrying, and assuredly burned even more calories.

I shoveled once more that night — after the snow offended me by continuing to fall, destroying all evidence of my hard work. I just hope I didn’t keep my neighbors up with the sound of shovel scraping asphalt.

Chad pulled in mere moments after I’d unbundled from that final shoveling expedition. Safe and sound. The snow had turned a 6-hour trip into an 8.5-hour trip, but he made it. Whew.

So that whole long story is simply to say… That for me, perhaps part of trusting God and “turning it over” is deliberately not giving myself even the chance to dwell on something worrisome.  It’s like saying, “I’m choosing to trust God and to not worry, and in order to follow through on that, I’m not going to allow myself to consider, mull over, or obsess any longer. Time to find a project.”

Busyness, distraction, even driveway-shoveling — they can all be useful tools. Oh, it would be nice if I could pray once and then instantly be worry-free. But if my mind is prone to drift toward worry, it might be best to drag my mind elsewhere, forcefully.

And hey — it doesn’t hurt to burn a few calories in the process.