My friend and I can laugh about it now, but it wasn’t very funny twenty five years ago when it all went down…

I was in my last year of college, tired from a busy day and getting ready for bed…when it hit me. I have rotations in the morning and I forgot to wash my lab coat!

Thankfully, my best friend (who was also my next door neighbor) was planning on doing her laundry that evening . She was more than happy to add my dirty coat to her load.

What a relief! Now I could rest….or not.

Unfortunately, the “I like to be in control” side of me got the best of me that evening. I couldn’t help but periodically check in with my friend. Was my lab coat in the washer? Dryer? Rinse cycle? Spin cycle?

Um…None of the above.

My lab coat hadn’t even made its way down to the basement laundry room.

“Don’t worry, Beans, I’ll get it done,” my friend reassured me. (Yes, that’s what she still calls me. Beans)

But with no immediate action behind her words of reassurance, I wasn’t feeling very reassured.

Needless to say, she was annoyed by my lack of trust and I was annoyed by her lack of urgency.

Before I knew it, I was back in her apartment and these words were coming out of my mouth, “Shyni, can I have my lab coat back? I think I’ll wash it myself.”

Talk about tension. It was no longer a lab coat issue, it was now a trust issue. After all, isn’t  that what most relationships are all about?

Trust.

Throughout the Bible, God asks His children  (in so many words), ‘Do you trust me?’

Do you trust me to only collect a days worth of manna?

Do you trust me, Achan, to not collect the spoils of the land of Jericho ?

Do you trust me, Gideon, to stop hiding in the wine press?

It’s easy to say we trust God as we lay our cares at the altar on Sunday only to begin pacing the floors on Monday and by Tuesday, we are asking for our “dirty lab coats” back…and the weight of those cares are once again on our shoulders.

1 Peter 5:7 tells us to “cast our cares on Him.” The word cast refers to the intentional relocation of an object.  God wants us to hand Him anything that weighs us down. But we must be willing to hand it over.

Friends , if anyone can handle our stuff…our cares, our fears, even our dirty laundry…it’s God, our Father.

Cast your cares on Him, and leave them with Him.

– Binu