anxiety

When “Do Not Be Anxious” Isn’t Enough

  After an intense October and November last year, I finally found a day to catch my breath. Or rather, to realize how hard it was to breathe at all. My chest was tight, my heart rate elevated. All the activity of those months left much undone, and the strain of getting my footing back was overwhelming. Most of my tension stemmed from feeling I had not planned well. I had failed to keep a restful pace. I felt pressure to live up to an image of the working mom who can have it all and set a good example doing it. And in the middle of all of it was a lack of trust that God would help me through it. But the Bible says we shouldn't be anxious, right? Anxiety means somewhere along the way, I must have lost faith or perspective or something. When it arises, my desire is to eradicate it as soon as possible. Leave those negative feelings behind. So I try to do what others tell me to do, and claim Philippians 4:6, "do not be anxious about anything." I wish "do not be anxious" was a magic wand that instantly wiped away all the feels every time worrisome thoughts pop up. It would dissolve the physical manifestation of anxiety as well as the emotional strain. Sometimes, when the worries are small, it does the trick. It brings my mind and heart back to the right place. But sometimes, "do not be anxious" just isn't enough. Because fueling those anxious thoughts are lies. Skewed perspectives. Ruts of wrong thinking. They do not easily leave. Behind my anxiety about my schedule is often the lie that my value comes from doing more, being successful. Worry grows when I slip into thinking I can control my world, keep all the bad from happening, make all the good come into being. The more I focus on my worries, the more my heart loses faith that He will care for me. Those lies do not simply vanish. Our hearts will not naturally drift back to the truth on their own. We have to address what got us off course in the first place. It's a little like the "Just Say No" campaign from the 80's, which failed miserably. Why? Because while we told people to say no to something, we did not tell them what to say yes to instead. Those underlying needs that drove people to drugs were still there. So while the admonition, "do not be anxious" is true, in order to live it well, we need to dig deeper. We can't just say no. We need to say yes to something else. When we say yes to truth, we can say no to anxiety. So I go back to the words that whisper my worth, not in what I do, but who He is. I feed on His faithfulness to remind me that whatever is coming, He's got it, just like before. When I feel…

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Looking Scary (When We’re Scared)

Do you know someone who is scary? You know, the kind of person who takes up a lot of space in the room. They're intimidating. Their voices are loud. Words are strong. Sometimes it's the person you would least expect. It seems out of character. They aren't like that in every day life, but something gets triggered and they suddenly look scary. What happened? I wonder if it's because they're scared. When we get scared, our behavior changes. Some of us hide, shrink back, disappear. But many of us get louder, stronger, and more controlling. We get big because we feel small. I know I do it. It's my way of covering what I fear. It's like the Wizard of Oz, crying, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" You know, the one furiously attempting to make himself look bigger than he is. The one projecting a scary image while in reality he is cowering where you can't see him. Maybe then no one will notice that he doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't have what it takes. He's scared out of his wits. Fear keeps him hidden, afraid to lose the relationship, his reputation, a sense of control. Scary might make us feel protected, but it actually isolates us. It keeps others from seeing what is going on inside, and blocks the doorway for them to help us address what we fear. Scary keeps us scared. What's our invitation instead? It helps me to remember anger is a secondary emotion. Like I said, we get big when we don't want to feel small. Anger makes us feel bigger than the fear. When we recognize a rage that's driving us to look scary, it's a good signal to stop and examine our hearts. What are we afraid of? What feels threatened? When we own what it is that makes us scared, we can confront it, instead of pretending than we are bigger or stronger than we are. Often we can't overcome that fear on our own. We need others to step in and walk with us. So we need to set down the scary mask and invite others in. Pull back the curtain and admit what is true. "I don't know what to do. This is overwhelming. I feel weak, exposed, needy. I'm afraid of what's happening here." The irony of the Wizard is that when he pulls back the curtain, he can offer so much more. Intimacy increases as he steps out from behind the scary image. Solutions are found. Relationships strengthen. Fear dissipates. We don't have to be scary. "For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline." <?div>

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What We Don’t Have to Carry

I woke up one morning recently, and in that space between sleeping and waking I had a clear picture in my head of a room. Scattered around the room were objects that represented aspects of my life that were causing me to worry. It was right in the middle of a crazy week. Our kids had started school and I was trying to get back into my role at work, bringing a thousand minute decisions and needful things screaming for my attention. The night before, as I reviewed my day, I had been aware of how those worries had occupied my thoughts and energy during the day. It occurred to me how much I had been holding onto them, rather than stopping to pray and release them to God. I determined that the next day would be one of peace. Surrender would be my course of action. But as I woke up that morning and pictured that room, my eyes found those worries lying around me. I immediately felt a heaviness in my soul as I saw myself reaching to pick them up again, throw them over my shoulders, and trudge on. But as I leaned to take hold of one of these burdens, I heard God say, "That is not yours to carry."  There was in that instant a momentary sense of relief, and a reminder of my determination to stay in a place of peace this day. But in the next second, another worry popped up, whispering over my shoulder that surely I needed to carry it. As I turned in my mind to pick it up, again I heard His voice, "That is not yours to carry." And then I breathed a sigh of surrender. Sitting down that morning to pray, I thought of all those worries I was tempted to bear. I thought about this invitation from God to release my grip on them. They are good and important things that do require attention and care, but they are beyond my control. It's best I admit that. That's a good place to start. So I wrote them all out one by one, writing a prayer of release for each detail. And then, I asked God to make me carefree. I like that word-"care free." To be free from care. Not that I stop caring what happens in our lives, but I stop being the carrier. I stop believing that without me at work, they will be forgotten and lost. I believe that the God who is stronger, wiser, bigger, and more powerful carries them for me. That morning, a friend of mine posted 1 Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you." I took a few minutes to read that verse in other translations, and I had to laugh when I opened The Message. It reads, "Live carefree before God; He is most careful with you."  Full of care for us. Fully able to carry all those burdens that threaten to weigh…

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The Power of Asking What If

I've always thought it was wrong to focus on the "what if's" in life. It seems like a recipe for anxiety to imagine all that could go wrong, all that could be hiding in the darkness of "what if." We could spend a lot of unnecessary energy trying to manage the "what if" scenarios. But I've found that if I just try to ignore the "what if's," they don't go away. They linger in my mind as nebulous possibilities with the power to hold back my hand from being brave. They hide in the darkness just out of sight, allowing the potential threat to grow. I've been discovering that there's a lot of power to demolish lies and face the fears that grip us when we let ourselves get curious about the "what if" questions. It started for me like this: One night this spring, as I was wrestling with my fear of failure (one of my go-to fears), I felt like God prompted me to ask, "What if you do fail?" Which, honestly, felt like kind of a mean question. God, you're supposed to tell me I won't fail. You're supposed to tell me everything will be fine. But the truth is, it might not be. I will acknowledge that failure is a possibility, as much as I would like it not to be. So I asked the question, "What if I fail? What's the worst that could happen?" If I fail, people might see. They might be disappointed. They might turn away. I might feel like an idiot (oh please, anything but that. Seriously). "OK, well, what if they do see? What if they are disappointed? Will they really think differently of you? Probably not. They'll probably be glad to see that you're human. Does that define your value? No, it does not. Are you still loved? Oh yes, so very, very much. And not just by God, but most likely by those same people who have seen you fail." Asking myself these worst case scenario questions was not an attempt to build up my defenses to protect from the pain of experiencing them. Instead, it helped me see where I am trying to rest in others for life and love. As I overlaid God's grace and truth on it, I realize I would survive a "what if." Would it be painful? Maybe. Probably. But would he walk with me through it? Yes. And I have hope that I would come out better on the other side. More human. Less self-protective. Braver. More restful. So much energy in life is expended in avoiding the "what ifs."We try to ward off the evil, the painful, the uncomfortable, instead of trusting that a) God will walk with us through it and b) however hard it is, God can redeem. Since then, I've been making a more regular practice of facing the "what ifs" head on. Confronting them is like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and finding he's not nearly as imposing as he's making himself…

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When Fear Is a Dictator

Confession: I have been afraid to write. This is problematic, as I am obviously a blogger. I also have a mostly written book I sincerely hope to finish and have published. This fear has been growing throughout the last year. It gnaws at me when I see my computer out of the corner of my eye. It pokes at me when I see other people tweeting links to wonderful posts others have written. It shuts down my thoughts. It keeps my fingers still. It’s a fear that it won’t be enough. People won’t like what I write. It won’t draw the audience I hope it will. It will sit out there in the open like a sad, unpicked girl at a dance, while the other posts are grabbed by the hand and thrown from partner to partner. Oh how I hate this fear. I hate the grip it has on my soul. I hate the way fear turns my eyes from God and onto me. I hate that it is a little dictator, barking at me to stay silent, to give up, to step out of the arena because if I can’t be as great as I hope I could be, then I should quit. It says it just isn’t worth it. I’ve had enough of my little dictator. I recently took a sabbatical from work, a time when I thought I would write more. Instead, I found God calling me first to wrestle this fear to the ground and give it a good dose of truth. It’s time to take these thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. The truth is that my fear means my eyes are far too much on me. Fear makes me focus on finding my own glory, not His. Fear tells me to hustle for my worth. It demands I build a kingdom for myself, and at the same time tells me I'll never be able to do it. Fear loves to dictate the what, the how, the when, the how much, of our lives. It tells us to shut up. It demands that we stop trying. It tells us to shrink back and hang in the shadows of the brave places God calls us to live. Fear whispers to us, as we stand on the edge of faith, of all that could go wrong. It takes our eyes off God and turns them to the what if’s, and maybe’s, and you’d better not’s, and what will people think’s. It silences our voices and eventually our hearts. So this morning I am turning my eyes back to Him. I read today in Minding Your Emotions, "We handle fear by going from self-made to God-made, from self-important to God-honoring, from self-satisfied to God-soaked, from self-preoccupied to God-dazzled." There it is - I go from me to Him. I tell fear the truth that this is God's kingdom, not mine. I tell it that I don't have to make a kingdom for myself because this is the place…

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