"Daddy, what if this car had wings would you be able to fly it?"
But what if the car fell off the side of the mountain? We would need the wings!"
"Daddy! What if everything just out from underneath us fell right now!"
"Daddy what if the dog could dance!"
"Daddy, What if......
Daddy: "Katie, if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its hind end on the ground"
My childhood was a continuous string of "what if" statements, and my poor father had to hear every single one of them. Most of them had to do with some anxiety I had about school or a social setting that I had, or they had to do with some bizzare creative thing that I had come up with in that very moment. Every time I would get off on some "what if" tangent my dad would just sigh and say "Katie, if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its hind end on the ground."
At that moment I would get very confused and ask him what in the world that meant? He would just repeat the phrase over and over again.
I never knew the importance of the phrase in my personal life until I was grown and moved out of Tennessee where southernisms run rampant. When one day I found myself answering my own wild what if with my dad's southernism. That day a lightbulb went off in my head and I realized a few things.
1. What I had worried about was ridiculous, and didn't have a leg to stand on.
2. Everything has been designed intelligently so that it all falls together just as it is planned! (Frogs don't have wings for a reason)
3. No matter how many what if statements I run through my head or research I do I can't control a situation that I wasn't meant to have control of in the first place.
That realization hit me like a ton of bricks but it was also freeing. I realized that all along the what ifs were just anxieties that I was too busy gripping onto because I was worshiping them instead of turning them over to Jesus.
Now when I have what if anxiety I am able to scream to heaven:
"Daddy, what if..."
And I'll hear a heavenly whisper remind me:
"If a frog had wings..."
But what if the car fell off the side of the mountain? We would need the wings!"
"Daddy! What if everything just out from underneath us fell right now!"
"Daddy what if the dog could dance!"
"Daddy, What if......
Daddy: "Katie, if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its hind end on the ground"
My childhood was a continuous string of "what if" statements, and my poor father had to hear every single one of them. Most of them had to do with some anxiety I had about school or a social setting that I had, or they had to do with some bizzare creative thing that I had come up with in that very moment. Every time I would get off on some "what if" tangent my dad would just sigh and say "Katie, if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its hind end on the ground."
At that moment I would get very confused and ask him what in the world that meant? He would just repeat the phrase over and over again.
I never knew the importance of the phrase in my personal life until I was grown and moved out of Tennessee where southernisms run rampant. When one day I found myself answering my own wild what if with my dad's southernism. That day a lightbulb went off in my head and I realized a few things.
1. What I had worried about was ridiculous, and didn't have a leg to stand on.
2. Everything has been designed intelligently so that it all falls together just as it is planned! (Frogs don't have wings for a reason)
3. No matter how many what if statements I run through my head or research I do I can't control a situation that I wasn't meant to have control of in the first place.
That realization hit me like a ton of bricks but it was also freeing. I realized that all along the what ifs were just anxieties that I was too busy gripping onto because I was worshiping them instead of turning them over to Jesus.
Now when I have what if anxiety I am able to scream to heaven:
"Daddy, what if..."
And I'll hear a heavenly whisper remind me:
"If a frog had wings..."
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