Back From the Future

(First paragraph modified to first person from Suze's lovely words)

I'm up before dawn on a Saturday when the doorbell rings. I haven't brewed my coffee so I wonder if I imagined the sound. Plonking the half-filled carafe in the sink, I go to the front door and cautiously swing it open. No one there. As I cast my eyes to the ground, I see a parcel addressed to me ... from me. I scoop it up and haul it inside, sensing something legitimate despite the extreme oddness of the situation. Carefully, I pry it open. Inside is a shoebox -- sent from ten years in the future -- and it's filled with items I have sent myself.



Each item is contained in an envelope. Two envelopes are blank, but scrawled across one, in the eerily familiar penmanship that only I can accurately decipher, are the words: "The solution to the thing you're worrying about right now." I don't want to think about the thing I'm worrying about right now, so I put that one at the bottom of the stack and finish making the coffee.

After my first warm sip, I'm ready to tear open the first blank envelope. I find a package of dental flossers, along with a short note that reads: "Stop screwing around and listen to the dentist already. Every day. You'll thank yourself in ten years. Thank you. (see?)" I smile, happy to see I've retained my goofiness...and determined to maintain a diligent tooth-flossing regiment. 

I move on to the other blank envelope. Inside is a photograph of a handsome young man and a pretty young woman. My kids in ten years. On the back I've written: "This is going to happen; there's nothing you can do about it. Don't take all the time you have with them now for granted."

Once the tears are wiped away, I confront the final envelope, ripping into it because I'm now anxious to discover the solution to my worry du jour. Inside is a small bit of paper with the simple words: "Stop Worrying!" I flip it over, hoping for just a bit more guidance, and read: "Matthew 6:26-27." I already know what it says. I've read it a hundred times, but apparently future me thinks I need a refresher. She's right. So I  go to my Bible and read the verses yet again:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Thanks everyone for playing along with Suze, Mary & me!  Can't wait to hop around and see what y'all have packed. If you're not in the hop, pretty please tell me in the comments at least one item you'd pack.