Do Not Worry

View of Sandia Mountains from Placitas, a community just north of Albuquerque - taken this past weekend

Long before our son, Matthew was born, I knew what his name would be. I used to walk home from school on a road named, 'Matthew' in Albuquerque's North Valley. The year Matthew was born was also the year I sustained the needle-stick from the patient with HIV.

I recall one morning being incredibly depressed. I couldn't get out of bed. I could not imagine what life would be like dying of such a terrible disease. I thought how, because of my life insurance, I was worth more dead than alive. I was thinking how I could die and have it appear like an accident. I was contemplating suicide. I felt like all hope was lost so I asked God to help me. I remember asking, 'If you really exist. I need help today because I am not going to make it.'

After I made that 'prayer,' I rolled out of bed - on the opposite side of where I usually get up. I don't know why but as I did, my foot came to rest on an old leather-bound Bible that my mother had given to me a week before I left for college. I reached down, picked it up and opened it. Quite randomly, I opened it to the Book of Matthew. It seemed like it could be a sign. I read the following quote from Jesus;

Do Not Worry

Therefore, I tell you, don't be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothing? See the birds of the sky, that they don't sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you of much more value than they?

"Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan? Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin, yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won't he much more clothe you, you of little faith?

"Therefore don't be anxious, saying, 'What will we eat?', 'What will we drink?' or, 'With what will we be clothed?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first God's Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore don't be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day's own evil is sufficient.

Matthew 6:25-34

The name Matthew is Hebrew and means, 'gift from God.'