I woke up this morning and I was a nervous wreck. I wish I could tell you why.
Perhaps it is my giant to-do list for today and the next few days that’s making me a big ball of nerves. I can’t even remember all the things I’m supposed to do let alone how I’m going to get everything done. (I wish I could say it’s just Pandemic-brain. Unfortunately this is my everyday-brain.)
Half of the things on this list I don’t want to do and the other half I am afraid to do. I’m also afraid of what happens if I don’t do any of it. Perhaps I’m just afraid of everything.
I wake up this way a lot.
It is just my current state of being. I wake up some days with a knot tied in my stomach. My heart starts beating faster. Then my brain starts reeling. Racing. Fretting about all the things I need to do, should be doing, could be doing with my life instead of what I currently am.
This is called anxiety.
Maybe you know the feeling. Maybe you don’t know it, but you know someone who does. If you think you don’t know anyone in your life who is going through this, think again.
You know someone. Someone who keeps this little secret. Someone who wants everyone to believe they can handle everything. Someone who likes things to look pretty on the outside even when it gets ugly on the inside.
Someone who is used to smiling to hide the storm brewing within them. Someone like me.
Except I’m not hiding it anymore.
I used to hate that I struggled with anxiety and fear for so long. I HATED it. It was the one thing I never wanted anyone to know about me. The worst part of myself.
My darkness. My curse.
I buried it and I tried very hard to blend in so no one would notice I was coming apart. I masked my struggle with accomplishments and a never-ending checklist: Graduated college. Check. Got a good job. Check. Got married. Check.
Everything was supposed to be okay after that. Except it wasn’t. The fears kept creeping up. The voice in my head saying I was a fraud screamed louder. Why wasn’t my anxiety gone? I had managed to make something of myself, why couldn’t it just go away, find someone else to latch onto and leave me alone?
But that was never meant to happen. There is no magic button I can press to stop dealing with this. No car I can buy and no wonderful career to replace it. I am not even meant to pray it away.
I am convinced God chose me to deal with this. It is my cross to bear. And as Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 16:24, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”(NLT version)
That is exactly what I will do.
I know this is the way God needs me to serve Him. This is how I show the world who He is. He has not given me the spirit of fear but He has allowed me to experience it, so I can overcome it. It may look bad, but He is working it out for my good.
I will not run from it anymore. I am not hiding or burying anything. I will get through this but it will take time. God is helping me. Healing me. Through the truth of His word and by telling my truth, I slowly stop believing in the lies the devil has been feeding me for too long.
My curse is not a curse at all, but a blessing in disguise.
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
Matthew 16:24
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