Crayons & Worries

Learning to lay it all down

I feel the familiar “buzz” on my leg and my eyes drift downward toward my phone. An incoming text takes my attention away from her. When it returns, it finds her routine unchanged. There she is, still sitting in our dimly lit kitchen, relentless in her attempt to hold all her crayons at the same time.

Red, purple, orange––I can’t even keep track of all the colors. One after the other they uncurl from her short fingers, wiggling free and toppling onto the beige tiles. “Click, clack, clock,” the sound of crayons bouncing off the floor is met by her almost inaudible grunt. Again and again, she tries. Again and again, her empty hands shout back at her, “We aren’t big enough for this!”

I ask her if she needs help, but my voice isn’t compelling enough. It can’t compete against the repeated “click, clack, clock,” which only serves to further ignite her determination. I leave her to it as I sink back into the couch and worries flood in.

“Will my green card¹ ever get approved?” is my first thought––one that I’ve obsessed over for the past two years. Although I know the answer is “Yes, eventually,” the timing is all wrong. It’s taken a lot longer than I had initially assumed and hoped. Then my mind drifts to a similar, yet far more pressing, question, “Will I be able to submit this USCIS² medical form on time?” I can feel my breaths shorten and my pulse quicken. Thinking about my immigration process usually has this effect. “You’ve already gone to the appointment and gotten your labs done,” I remind myself, “you’ve already done all you can do for right now. Just wait.” Regardless, crippling anxiety barges in and clashes into preexisting worries.

I look over at my daughter again.

Hands. Crayons. Floor.

She still hasn’t figured it out, that she can’t hold them all. Her hands simply aren’t big enough.

I look down at my own and sigh. Neither are mine. They can handle her crayons, but they certainly aren’t big––or strong––enough for my truckload of worries and uncertainties.

“Why do I fight against what I already know to be true?” I ask, admonishing myself. “Why do I hurry to gather up what my grasp has proven unable to hold on its own? Why is it so hard to lay it all down?” Though I often resist it in pride, I know what I need to do.

Slowly and skeptically, I go to Him, dragging my anxieties behind me. When I reach Him, I hesitate. “Is He truly able?” Again, I know the answer. So, I let all of it––the worry, the doubt, the uncertainty––roll out of my hands and fall at His feet, like crayons on kitchen tiles.  

My eyes make their way over to my daughter once more, except this time I stand. I take a few steps toward her, bend down, and start picking up her crayons. One by one, I drop them into my big-enough hands. She looks up at me through her long eyelashes. “Mama’s going to help you,” this time I don’t ask. “Where do you want me to take them?” She answers in the only way she knows how; she points. We make the short trip over to the living room and I deposit them there.

I look down at my sweet baby girl and, for a second, I recognize the word written across her face. A word she does not yet know the meaning of. The same one that finds itself written across my heart––relief.

“Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

1. (in the US) a permit allowing a foreign national to live and work permanently in the US.

2. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security that administers the country's naturalization and immigration system.