Girl's Got an Arm

Why is throwing stuff fun? I mean, random, but hang with me here. Launching a stone as far as you can into the pond. Corn hole at a BBQ. Expired eggs into the woods. (No? Just my family?) 

For the record I'm a terrible thrower. Very little force, short trajectory. My childhood neighbor Nathan once tried to teach me the art of throwing. Something about the position of the elbow and the timing of the object leaving your hand. He gave me this lesson as we were throwing gravel from my driveway into a nearby field. Oh, and we were in HIGH SCHOOL while doing this, if it makes this story any cooler. 

But no, I can't throw. No pebbles, no corn hole bags, no rotten eggs, no pieces of gravel. Definitely no three pointers. No no-hitters. No coach came begging me to join the softball team. No old men wearing trucker hats, chewing on pieces of straw in the bleachers watching me on the mound saying, "That girl's got an arm."

So you can see my dilemma when the Bible mandates that I should be throwing some things.  

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. I Peter 5:7

In real life, you-and-me terms this says to throw all your hard stuff to Jesus, so he can take care of it because he loves you. 

See, I've got some hard stuff in my life right now. Stuff I'm sad over, broken over, and straight up angry over. Things I've cried over, stressed over, tried to out-plan over. 

But it doesn't work. Sometimes there is so much wrong in life that we feel like we can't even make a dent into fixing it. 

And we are so right. There is nothing about the deep messes of life that we can fix. 

But there is Jesus, standing there, saying throw it to me. Let me give it a try. 

And so, this is my new practice. When the junk starts to creep up and I want to manage, worry, or cry, I whisper, Jesus fix it and literally imagine myself lugging a heavy bag of wrong and hard and yuck into his arms. I heave it at him with all the mental force I have and he catches it, gracefully.

We have been bought, beloved. Bought from being a slave to worry and sadness by Jesus' blood on the cross. He not only bore the cross but he wants to bear the weight of what holds us down. We are too weak to keep lugging it around.

So a career in pitching was never to be for me. But this junk that weighs me down? This stuff I can throw. And I will hurl it with such force and gusto that someone standing near could feel it whipping past their face. I will cast my cares into the arms of the Problem Solver, the Way Maker and all who witness this act of trust, this act of faith, this true act of worship will say, "Wow, that girl's got an arm."