but no jelly.

Rhett is the sweetest boy I've ever known.

He's rowdy and ornery and all things boy. And then he's sensitive and quiet - asking me if he can pray for me when I'm hurt, and comforts me when he can tell I'm sad about something.

And like all 3 1/2 year olds, he's quite adamant about getting his way 100% of the time.

Around here we have sandwiches a few times a week for lunch (sometimes dinner, too) and as soon as Rhett realizes that we're having sandwiches he says this exact sentence:

"Mommy, I want a peanut butter sandwich I just don't actually want jelly on it."

To which I respond -

"Ok! I'll make you a peanut butter sandwich."

Two minutes later:

"Mommy I just don't want jelly on it. Ok?"

When I'm making the actual peanut butter sandwich:

"Mommy, I just want peanut butter, not jelly on it pease."

This has happened every single time.

Sometimes even when we just talk about food, he reminds me that he doesn't want jelly!

The funny thing is, I've never forgotten his request. Never even gotten close to putting jelly on his sandwich. The first time he told me he didn't like jelly and didn't want it - it was like concrete in my brain.

Then the other day when this whole cycle was repeating itself once again - I was hit with a realization.

I do the same thing with worry and God.

"Dear God. I'm worried about (insert crazy imaginative thought that scares me half to death). Would you please help me rest in your love? I know I can trust you with my future. I'm going to lay down this fear and let you carry this burden. Amen."

5 minutes later the same worry returns. And I pick it back up fearing that maybe God didn't hear me. Or maybe he forgot.

And all of the sudden I realize that I've been praying about the same worry for a month. For three months. For half a year.

I'm just like my son, thinking that if I don't constantly remind the Lord of my worry, that he'll forget about it and then it might happen.

When I continue to pick up that same worry everyday, it's like me saying, "I don't know if you're going to remember this - to protect me from this - so I better carry it so you don't forget about it."

Remember, God? No jelly please.

And the best part of this realization is that even better than knowing God will never forget a single word that I mutter to him, is the fact that he actually knew and knows that I would have that worry long before I did.

So instead of picking that worry back up and letting it settle back into my heart and mind, thinking that I could maybe somehow take care of it and control it - I release it back to the foot of the cross and move on. Gods will and his plan trump anything I could ever even muster. Am I willing to let him surprise me?

He already knows about the jelly. And he's got this.