Summary: <p>Will everything be OK? Will all the things that I am worrying about be OK? Will all the things you are worrying about be OK? Will all the things we are worrying about be OK?</p> <p>I would love to believe the premise of a children’s story by Anna Dewdney with an evocative title--<em>Everything Will be OK</em>. The plot is that a little bunny worries about little things, like getting the wrong kind of sandwich for lunch; medium things, like losing a kite; and big things, like missing family. In each case the bunny wonders will everything be OK, and in each case the answer is yes, everything will be OK.</p> <p>This book resonates for me because it gives voice to an inchoate anxiety that many of us feel, and to a question that many of us ask: Will everything be OK? What do we do with this question that never goes away? And what do we do when the real answer to the question, if we are being honest with ourselves, is no.</p> <p>That happens to all of us. Our health, or the health of somebody we love, is not OK.</p> <p>Somebody we love is struggling with mental illness, which can be a formidable, sometimes seemingly intractable foe. Not OK. A spouse loses their partner and now lives a much lonelier life. Not OK. Somebody we love dies young, and our world is shaken. Not OK.</p> <p>Somebody loses their job and has to deal with the uncertainty of now what do I do, and the resultant financial anxiety. Not OK. Relational stress and conflict. Not OK. It’s great when the problem gets solved, and everything is OK, but what happens when that does not happen?</p> <p>That is the situation for the Israelites in the middle of the Book of Exodus.</p>
