Artist Statement: Worry Dolls are tiny, hand-crafted dolls from Guatemala. The dolls are clothed in traditional colorful Mayan costumes and stand one to two inches tall. The indigenous people from the Highlands in Guatemala created Worry Dolls many generations ago as a remedy for worrying. According to Mayan legend, when worrying keeps a person awake, the worrier place the dolls under his or her pillow. The dolls take over the worrying for the person who then sleeps peacefully through the night. When morning breaks, the person awakens without the worries that the dolls took away during the night.
This Worry Doll Cross and altered Bible is inspired by several Scriptures on worry. In 1 Peter 5:7 we read, “Cast all your worries on Him, because He cares for you.” Here Peter writes to the early Christians encouraging them to take their fears, anxieties and worries and give them to the Lord and trust Him to handle them. Paul in Philippians 4:6 offers a similar encouragement when he writes, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Then in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus references worry in Matthew 6:25 where we read, “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying?”