A household that throws its worries

For many households this is the week the year restarts. New teachers, new routes, new lunchboxes, a child who is suddenly older than you had noticed. Along with the logistics comes a low hum of anxiety that spreads through a house without anyone naming it. Parents worry about the child. The child worries about the first day. Everyone worries alone.

1 Peter 5:7 is usually read as an individual comfort, and it is one. But it sits in a paragraph addressed to a church, a plural you, and the practices it describes work in a family. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Here are some ways to make that a household habit rather than a private thought.

First, name the worries out loud, together. Anxiety grows in silence. At a meal this week, or at bedtime, ask each person what they are carrying about the coming weeks. Parents go first, honestly and at a level the children can handle. A parent who says they are a little nervous about the new schedule gives a child permission to say they are nervous about the new class. This is not dumping adult fears on children. It is modelling that worries can be spoken.

Second, throw them. The verb in verse 7 is physical, and children understand physical things. Some families write worries on slips of paper and drop them in a jar or a basket during prayer. Others simply pray with open hands. The point is to make the casting visible. A young child who has seen a worry about the first day placed in a jar and prayed over has learned something that will still be useful at forty.

Third, connect it to verse 6. Casting anxiety is what humility does. Children who are told to stop worrying learn to hide worry. Children who are shown that worry is carried to someone stronger learn humility, which is a different thing. Parents can say plainly: we cannot fix this ourselves, and we are not supposed to, so we are giving it to God.

Fourth, do not skip verse 8. Be alert and of sober mind; your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion. Families sometimes leave this out because it sounds frightening. But children already know there is something to be afraid of. What they need is to hear that it can be resisted, and that they are not resisting it alone. Verse 9 says the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. A child who knows that Christians in other places are also nervous, also tempted, also holding on, has been given a larger family.

Fifth, end where Peter ends. Verse 10 promises that the God of all grace, after a little while of suffering, will himself restore, strengthen and establish us. Read it at the end of the prayer. The hard part is real and it is short. The restoration is coming and it is his.

A practical rhythm for the first weeks of school might look like this. Once a day, at whatever meal or bedtime is most reliable, one question: what is on you today. Each person answers. A short prayer that names each thing and throws it. Verse 7 said together, from memory by the second week. Then on.

This will not remove the anxiety from your house. Peter did not promise that. What it will do is teach every person in it, from the youngest up, that the weight is not theirs to carry, that the one who takes it cares about them, and that this is something the family does together, out loud, as a habit. That is a better start to the year than a perfectly packed lunch, though there is no reason not to have both.