For me, it feels like someone has reached in and grabbed my heart. I can’t breath very well, and panic fills my insides. From what I’ve heard, for others, their palms get sweaty, their mind races, they even start shaking. All their worries spill over from their emotions into their physical body. There’s little control and it takes a lot to calm down.
Anxiety
For many of us it is a constant hum in our day to day lives. It’s stress on caffeine. Though some of us have found a way to bring it down to a decaf level—it’s still there, just at a lower pitch than we’re always able to hear. However, all we need is to have a bad week or be hit with a hard life event, and our anxiety ramps up like its running on eight espressos a day.
All we need is to have a bad week or be hit with a hard life event, and our anxiety ramps up like its running on eight espressos a day.
Growing up, our culture didn’t talk about anxiety yet. I just figured I worried a lot. I thought it was normal. Something, I had to work through. So, as a Christian, it was something I prayed about often. From a young age, my mom taught me to pray every time life felt too much to handle. At some point in College, I found this verse in Philippians chapter four:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (v. 6-7).”
This promise, along with lot’s of prayer, got me through so many hard semesters and later hard life events. In fact, it still gets me through. And there have been some significant life situations where I felt nothing but peace in times where normally I would feel nothing but anxiety and fear. God is that powerful.
Only not all of us have chosen to have God in our life. Or, for those of us who have, does He always answer as quickly as we would like. There are times God takes us on a healing journey through the anxiety, instead of taking it away. As is the case for so many ailments, God’s healing doesn’t always look the way we want it to.
There are times God takes us on a healing journey through the anxiety, instead of taking it away.
We pray when the anxiety strikes and we are still paralyzed. No matter how long we’ve been presenting our requests to God, we feel ourselves spiraling in the most inopportune places—in social settings, in the car, at work, etc. In these circumstances, we have a choice. We can keep praying for our anxiety to go away, or we can both pray and get help.
Over the years, as a friend and youth pastor, many of the people I have cared about, have struggled with anxiety. I’ve seen firsthand, how it has held them back from doing the very things they’ve wanted to do. Anxiety is powerful, but there is a way for us to take away it’s power.
We can keep praying for our anxiety to go away, or we can both pray and get help.
There are times anxiety has to do with the chemical make up of our body. There are other times, it is caused by situations in our lives—past or present—that are affecting us more than we realize. Stress or trauma can present itself in many ways. For this reason, in these situations, it is not only beneficial, but also crucial we find help from a good counselor or psychologist.
By finding a trustworthy professional, we can learn tools to overcome anxiety. We can also name where it may be coming from in our lives, and find freedom. Though for some of us, even the word counseling makes us cringe, I can tell you from personal experience counseling can bring you relief.
Healing may not happen over night. Complete healing may not happen in this life time. But God never intended you to walk this journey alone. That is why I believe, He created counselors.
How in your life have you experienced anxiety?
Who or what in your life has helped you on this journey?
Are you in the midst of making a hard decision? Contemplating a big life change? If so, you may be interested in my FREE Making Changes Checklist that I give to all my email friends. Want your free copy? subscribe here.
