Anxiety and the call to rest

     I have been debating whether or not I was ready to write this blog post for a couple weeks now.  I mean I so do not have this anxiety thing figured out yet. I have moments that I feel as though my chest will explode and I will not be able to take another breath.  How could I possibly write about how I am "dealing" with anxiety?  But maybe right in the middle of it is where I need to be writing.  Maybe that's how God is working out this whole thing in my life for my best and for other's as well? So here we go...
     Anxiety is not a new thing in my life.  I grew up knowing that my family has a history of this monster we label "anxiety".  I have a wonderful family full of strong women.  We have lots of opinions.  We are loud.  We love fiercely.  We carry the load.  We bear all the burdens.  We see the problem and immediately feel as though it is our duty to find the solution.  Some of those qualities are amazing.  Some of them not so much.  You see, though the world views this kind of strength as a positive attribute, I am learning that often (at least in my own life) some of them are really just symptoms of an underlying issue.  What I am learning is that when I start to feel that it is my responsibility to carry the burdens of everyone around me, to refuse to ask for help when I desperately need it, to assume that I can be the solution to every problem I encounter... I am often dealing with my own anxiety just right under the surface.  My anxiety drives me to control EVERYTHING I possibly can.  To feel uncomfortable with any unsettled situations.  Therefore, I begin the crazy whirlwind of problem solving and micromanaging.  This process often leaves me feeling exhausted, overextended, more anxious and absolutely no good for anyone around me.
     There you have it.  My confession.  I turn into a micromanaging control freak with a short temper and a mean spirit whenever I am relying on myself to solve all the worlds problems.  Or at least my world.  But the past few weeks I have really been asking God to stop this cycle of crazy, to change my "nature" and create in me a new pattern.  I thought certainly this would be a long journey of a lot of work and discipline for myself. Instead, you know what I have found Him saying to me? Rest.  Stop.  Pause.  Deep breaths.  

"Casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7.  

     That simple.  Casting all you anxieties on Him... Notice that is in the present tense... a constant.  Continually casting anxieties.  God, in His beautiful infinite sovereignty and wisdom, knew that we were going to struggle with wanting to take control of our circumstances for ourselves and saw it fit to remind us to continually cast our worries and fears on HIM.  And let's not miss WHY... because He cares for you, for me.  He wants my burdens because He loves me, because He knows the only way to live a peace filled life is to rely on Him.  And how silly for me not to do this, as though I could change one single thing on my own? He so sweetly calls to me and says "My precious daughter, come to me, lay it all at my feet.  Trust me.  I am trustworthy.  Believe me when I say I will work ALL things out for your very best.  I love you." Doesn't that sound too good to be true?  The most beautiful gift of love.  But He is just that good, He is even more good than that...  His love is everlasting and unfailing.  There is not a single thing that we, as His redeemed children, could do to make Him love us one iota less.  And also not one single thing that we could do to make Him love us one iota more.  He just does.  His love is perfect like that.  So other than us.  You can't earn it, you can't lose it.  It just is for His children.  And He is the Master Problem Solver.  The All Knowing One who sees every single thing, past, present, and future.  And He is saying to us all, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29
      I am not naturally good at this, but I know that my sweet loving God is patient and will always be there while I am learning to practice this rest.  He is so beautifully gracious that He requires us not to work harder, do better, figure the problem out for ourselves... Instead He says 'come to me and I will give you rest.'  And I don't know about you, but those words are like the most refreshing water to my scorched and thirsty soul.

I will be still

     This summer has been quite a whirlwind!  I feel like I have run 100 miles and hour since the weather began to warm.  I really like it that way if I'm being honest, I like busy, I like scheduled events, I like to have something to do. (Maybe that's life with a 4 year old and 2 year old, busy is sometimes better...)  But over the course of the past week or so I could feel the busyness really beginning to bear down on me.  I wanted to check out, sleeping more often, feeling more anxious and irritable.  After a few days of this I could see that my body was responding to what my heart really needed.  To slow down.
     We are coming up on the one year anniversary of Levi's accident. If you don't know about that event check out last year's blog post.  But in short, my 18 month old baby was struck by a car, he is okay and fully recovered today.  Sorry to take the wind out of your sails so abruptly, I have yet to figure out a way to say that without it being super dramatic.  There are some events in life like that, dramatic.  This was one of them for our family.  God was so faithful to protect his little body and I am so thankful.  We saw Him in ways that we had never experienced His presence ever before.  We came home, life went on, more hard things happened... Then this month rolled around.  I knew it was coming.  July comes around every year.  So it shouldn't have surprised me when I rolled the calendar over and saw that the month was in fact July.  But I could feel my heart in my throat and my breathing shallow as I read the month, July.  It felt like a weight pressed down on my chest, I could feel it rising, panic, fear, anxiety.  Memories washing over me like a flood.  I pushed them down, cleared my throat, and began making lunch for my two hungry little blondes.  I slept more that day, napped when the kids napped, went to bed early.  The next day, more of the same.  Though I couldn't place my finger on it I felt more irritable, more on edge, I wanted to sleep.  When I woke I still felt exhausted.  I did this for three more days.  Constantly swallowing the lump in my throat, my stomach uneasy, restless sleep, unfocused.  Then yesterday as I'm standing in the choir loft of our church worshiping The Lord it started to become more clear.  I fought back memories that were flooding my mind, images, sounds, and emotions that I felt that horrible day in July.  And as they were coming on I felt defenseless, like waves rushing over me.  I went home immediately following the service and went to sleep.  When I woke I knew I needed to speak it out, to find help, to process the emotion I was unable to control or fully understand.
      ...Tell my husband, he needs to know what my heart is experiencing.  After doing that and seeing tears well up in his eyes I realize that he too may be experiencing these emotions and dealing with them in a different way.  We decide that talking to someone professionally will probably benefit me.
     ...Tell a close and trusted friend.  There is a lot of scripture that explains that we are to bear one another burdens.  To love one another the way Jesus loved.  This includes sharing in celebration and sorrow.  I have been so fortunate to have a group of Godly women in my life that are faithful to love me in every season.  I shared, asked for prayer, and knew that they would do just that.
     ...Seek out Godly counsel.  Someone qualified to deal with my emotional state that can help me wade through the experiences of the past year and the emotions that followed.
     And then make the next right choice, I knew I needed time with God, quiet, uninterrupted, alone.  So I asked God to wake me up this morning, no alarm was set, I asked Him to wake me in time to meet with Him before my family rose.  6:45 this morning my eyes opened and for the first time in days I felt energized enough to get out of bed without a fight.  I put on my pot of coffee.  Grabbed my Journal and Bible (and my favorite purple pen) and sat down on my couch, complete silence, sun rising over the trees, worship music in the background.  I was ready to do some work with God.  I just knew He was going to put me through the ringer, that He was going to remind me of my sinfulness and anxious heart.  And surely He was not pleased.  After all this time with Him you would think I would know that He is holy and just absolutely, but gentle, kind, loving, full of grace and mercy.  And as I began journaling, pouring my heart before Him, confessing my sinfulness, asking Him to meet me, a song began resounding in my heart.

Find rest my soul, in Christ alone

Know His power in quietness and trust 

When the oceans rise and thunders roar

I will soar with You above the storm

Father You are King over the flood

 I will be still and know You are God

     And as I was singing those lyrics in my mind I began to feel my heart beat begin to slow down.  I had been very aware of how it had been racing and pounding for a few days.  I began to journal my thoughts, images of times that I felt safe, calm, and peace filled.  One specific memory came to me, I was a child, probably 4 or so, laying with my Mom in her bedroom "napping".  (I was never a good napper, sorry Mom I now know how sacred that time is!)  She was laying in front of me with her back to me, I was nuzzled against her. (Again, sorry Mom I now know how it feels to have a child plastered to you every. single. moment. of. the. day.)  But I was lying there, watching her back expand when she would breathe. I could feel her heart beat.  And I was lying there I tried matching my breathing to hers, feeling my heart beat and wanting it to be the same as hers.  And as I remember that moment, I remember feeling completely content, safe, and at peace.  I was with my Mom, the person I loved more than anyone on this planet, I was in her presence and she was resting so I could too.  And then I knew, that was God's desire for me too.  Just to be in His presence, lean against His chest, match my breathing to His, and know that I am safe, I can stop fighting the emotions, stop being afraid.  And that is what I have spent my morning doing, just being with God.  No agenda, just a little worship music, eyes closed, and rest. 

     I am not sure why I felt God prompting me to share this experience on the blog today.  Maybe it was to be completely vulnerable, real, and honest.  Maybe there is someone else that needed to be reminded that God just wants you, not the shiny, put together Sunday morning version... But the real, messy, human version.  And He just wants us to meet Him in His presence.  To rest in Him.  To be still and know that He is God.  

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the Lord:

He inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, 

out of the miry bog,

 and He set my feet upon a rock,

making my step secure.

He put a new song in my mouth,

a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear

and put their trust in the Lord. 

When the dust settles

     After all of the excitement we had in the month of July, as far as I'm concerned, it can just take a hike and be wiped off our calender!   I'm ready for August, I need a fresh start.  But God has been so faithful to teach me so many wonderful things through the trials we experienced in July.  He never lets anything, any experience, go wasted when we surrender our hearts and our lives to His will.  I'm going to attempt to share, in a somewhat coherent manner, a few of the things I feel like He has been teaching me. Bear with me if I get a little hard to follow.
     First of all, I have learned a couple of things about myself.  I have learned I am great in crisis.  I mean really, in the moment of tragedy, you will want me at your side.  I get this strange calm that takes over.  Everything is super clear, I know that was God, I know He was upholding me.  He gives us strength in our weakest moments.  On the flip side of that coin, when the calm comes after the storm, when I get still and process, I struggle with tremendous amounts of anxiety after-the-fact.  So that's where I am today, the dust is settling, Levi is healing wonderfully, and life is returning to "normal".  So now is when I begin my struggle with anxiety, I am working really hard on surrendering this to God at this time, He says "cast all your cares upon Me, My yoke is easy and my burden is light".
     So that's what brings me to these past couple of days, a heart struggling with anxiousness, and a knowledge that I have a God who cares about that.  A sweet friend of mine, she was once my "watch care momma" (basically an adoptive mom through the church I attended while I was in college), she has been involved in my life for eight years now and I am so grateful for her wisdom and willingness to share her heart with me and my family... she brought me a book a couple of weeks ago called "Rules for the Red Sea".  It has been a tool that God has used over and over again to remind me of some truths that I have known but that are so easy to forget in the time of crisis.  If you are in a trial or know someone who is, this little book is worth the investment.  So I began reading about a week ago and the story of the Israelites had some great parallels in my life now.  I opened up my Bible and decided I wanted to see what God's Word had to say about these circumstances and a couple of things became very clear to me.
     First, that God is in control of ALL things.  It says in Exodus 13: 17-18 that God led the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness instead of going into the land of the Philistines (which would have been a more direct route).  His reason?  "Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt."  God took them on a more lengthy journey because He knew what their hearts could and could not handle. He was protecting them, even though they may never have known from what.  Sometimes I feel like I know a shorter way through the journey, a way that would get me there faster, but God doesn't allow me to travel that path, I may never know why or what He was protecting me from.  But I can be assured that this is what is best for me and my family.
    Second, that God will get His glory, because He alone is worthy.  And that is the whole point of us being on this earth, to bring Him glory, so the whole earth will know Him.  In Exodus 14: 1-20 the Bible tells us the story of how the Israelites arrived at the Red Sea.  It says God told Moses to lead the people of Israel into a "rock and a hard place" type scenario, "the wilderness has shut them in" and their backs were to the sea.  Then God said "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord."  So the scene is set, the Israelites in a hopeless scenario and for what? For God to get His glory in the land of the Egyptians.  When I read that statement it struck my heart and it was like there was a light that turned on in the darkness.  This is it, this is the whole reason that "bad things happen to good people".  God's glory and His worship is the end game.  It is the way that the world can see Him most clearly, when God is glorified and lifted up.
     The story continues... The Egyptians are pressing in and the Israelites are terrified (and rightfully so) and they cry out to the Lord. And what is God's response?  "Fear not, stand firm,and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.  The Lord will fight for you, and you have only need to be still." (vv. 13 &14)
     So that is what I am doing, I am actively being still and allowing God to fight for me.  When the walls are closing in and the enemy is drawing near.  When the sea is at our backs and there is no apparent escape.  God says, "watch and see".  It isn't a passive lack of care or laziness, it is an active choice to stand still.  Stand still and listen for God's next command, we never know when that sea will part and He will say "follow me into a miracle".