Against all odds

Lately I have been seeing a lot of posts about anxiety...catchy memes that make light of anxiety or maybe posts that make poignant statements about the reality and existence of anxiety and panic disorders...even personal posts of friends asking for references for counselors in their areas…

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As many of you know, our family began our own journey along a dark, scary, and lonely, yet surprisingly healing and restorative road of panic and anxiety issues almost a year ago. If I'm truly honest, however, I began to sense rumblings of anxiety much earlier. But for whatever reason, maybe shame, maybe the feelings of inadequacy for not being "enough" to help my dearest ones handle life, and truth be told, probably a healthy dose of embarrassment that God might not be enough, I didn’t heed those early warnings. Because if God were enough, I and my family members wouldn't have these kinds of feelings, right? If God were truly enough, I and my family members would wake up full of peace and joy with birds and Snow White singing outside my window every morning...metaphorically speaking. All joking aside, though, an idea haunted me. The idea that if I or someone in my family were experiencing anxiety or panic on a regular basis, that could mean, would mean that God and the Bible weren't enough and that somehow I was a phony. A fake. A charlatan. I couldn't face it or reconcile it. Worse- I couldn't bear the possibility that it might be true.

I told my sweet, beautiful daughter to calm down. Be reasonable.

So I stuffed it. I ignored it. I told my sweet, beautiful daughter to calm down. Be reasonable. I told myself to look the other way. I chalked my own questions and suspicions about various life-situations up to paranoia, that I was overreacting. "Things will eventually work themselves out...," was the mantra I repeated over and over.

All the while, the heat turned up and we kept right on marching to the beat of our life's rhythm.

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As I mentioned before, our family hit our wall last January. Thankfully, we did. Thankfully, we hit our wall. We had a beautiful opportunity to face those demons that had tried and tried, and truth be told, succeeded to some degree, to haunt and harass us for so many years- stealing, killing, and destroying the life of my family, which is the only mission of the Master Liar. But then we also had the exquisite opportunity to see God's beautiful grace work and continue to work. But the questions remained. The lies continued to beg my energy and attention. Today, I continue to face these questions because I haven't arrived. I am on a journey of soul-saving, as James calls it in the Book of James.

a different truth?

How do I do it? How do I, as a radical, sold out, wrecked-forever believer in Jesus, walk in faith and simultaneously experience my own feelings of anxiety? Do my feelings tell a different truth than the one I've declared my whole life- that God is good and I can trust Him? Do they mean I'm not truly trusting in Him? Do my own feelings of anxiety betray me and mean that I don't really believe God will provide, protect, and make good on the promises He's given me? How can I declare that I trust God and love him wholly, and yet battle these seemingly uncontrollable feelings of fear and panic? These questions and many more are questions and thoughts that have plagued my mind, along with 40 million others, who have dealt with and are currently dealing with some form of anxiety and or panic disorder.

I don't have all the answers, that's for dang sure. But I do know that God is good and Jesus is the answer on my best day and on my worst day. Mountain-top days- He's good. Sucky, deep, dark, valley-days- He's good. He's my North Star. He's my lighthouse. He's my Abba Father. He has all the answers I never will. When I understand and when I don't understand, I'll hold to HIS faithfulness.

I know this- I know that my heavenly Father made me and knows how many hairs are on my head (gray or otherwise!) He knows that I love Him and desire to honor Him with every beat of my heart and firing of every neuron in my brain which He made. With every detail of my existence, I want to glorify Him....even in the midst of feelings of anxiety.

But how is this possible, Amy? How can I glorify God in the midst of feelings of being out of control?

speak my truth....

I believe that by speaking my own truth and sharing my walk, the good, the bad, and the ugly and in the next breath, declaring the goodness of God is how I glorify Him in the midst of swirling feelings of being out of control. My truth is that God is my God when things are going well and when things aren't going well. My truth is also that God deserves my worship and He can handle my honesty. Time and again I see different heroes of mine throughout the Bible worship and obey God from places of anxiety, fear, and other low, low, places. But it's the turning again that kept them and keeps me centered. The turning of my heart. The choice to turn again and face the One who holds me in His hands.

You see, in the last year, I've come to see that I am not in control and that if I ever had that notion, it was a smoke screen. All I can do is walk in the direction that I believe He is leading me and trust that His grace will catch me every time. Because that's the God I serve. He catches and saves and heals and restores. Against all odds.