This was originally written in January 2024.
Have you ever felt consumed by anxiety, only to discover a path of strength and renewal?
Be anxious for nothing is what I know to be true but it wasn’t true for me this week.
Anxiety consumed me this past week, it was relentless and overshadowed every moments. I am not sure why I felt it so strongly. I woke up anxious, went to bed, anxious. I felt it while I ate, worked, read, prayed, and listened to praise and worship music. I felt it constantly. I was on a rollercoaster of emotions.
I took a deeper look at things going on in my life to examine what I had experienced lately. Initially, I turned up nothing but then, I remembered. We completed our 21-day fast at church and this was the first week off. I went back to the ‘normal’ things, eat meat, listen to my 80’s R&B playlist, and watch endless hours of television (ashamed about this bit). But I pondered, why I had such a strong response. I realized going back to ‘normal’ had put some space between me and God. The space was all mine, it wasn’t God’s.
Well, anxiety has me grappling with emotions. Those emotions are helping me to see perspectives of others and grow. I have cried, not openly, more than I have in a long time, and it feels great. I’ve learned that emotions are important. Not only do I need to embrace them, but I also need to ask why they’ve shown up. Why is anger here, who invited jealously, and where is joy? I’m getting curious about what is driving that ‘thing or feeling’ I cannot seem to shake.
Throughout the past six days, I’ve obsessed over a situation at my son’s job, frantically needed to hear my daughter’s voice, and felt like everyone saw me as vulnerable, which impacted my future. However, I sensed my vision was blurred. My perspective was off. When we started the fast, I was more concerned about not being able to eat meat. All of the other things that I would include in the fast, it was part of my daily routine. I believed doing what I normally do, getting up early for prayer, praying before going to bed, listening to praise and worship music were normal. You know, I was already set apart. But, I did feel different after the fast, except for the sense of heaviness. I prayed and prayed some more, no change in feeling.
I thought if I spoke to my children I would feel better. But, before I spoke to my son about his situation, I realized, I could not make his problems go away, nor the ability to make things better for him, that’s God’s responsibility. In that moment, a weight lifted. Next, I spoke with my daughter. After I heard her voice, I realized, everything is not as bad as it seems. My daughter was, is fine.
I tend to pray about something but churn in constant worry. I realized, I must leave things with God!
The more I thought on positive things and blessings the better I felt. When I addressed the third area (me and my future), another phase popped up, everything happening now is not an indication of my future. I thought about Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” The reference to the good plans in store for me, helped me recognize I have a positive future. I am hopeful.
My situation has not changed but I do feel lighter. Anxiety is still here with me; but I am focused on what is in my control versus what is in God’s control. Because of the fast, I am changed. I’ve experienced a transition! I’ll use Schlossberg’s (1981) transition definition to describe my experience, “transition is an event or non-event that resulted in a change in assumptions about oneself and the world and thus, requires a corresponding change in one’s behavior and relationships.” My assumption that I could, should, need to control an outcome has changed. My understanding that God is good, and He wants the best for me, means I cannot dictate the good things promised in Jeremiah 29:11. God is better at choosing the good things for my future. The corresponding change in my behavior is relinquishing control.
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 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?27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
Matthew 6:25-57 NIV
More importantly, I will expect to control less, what’s for dinner, what I’m wearing, which songs to put on my playlist. Or maybe I am going to watch less television than before, eat less meat (I felt better), and listen less to 80’s R&B (might be a stretch), I love R&B music! I am going to take less responsibility for things that are not mine (that’s my goal). So, how have you focused on overcoming anxiety?