A is for Anxiety

Last week I had the opportunity to visit my sister for a couple of days, which was nice because it gave me a chance to get away from the demands of college life for awhile. For the benefit of whoever is reading this and doesn't know, my sister has a 6 year old daughter who just started first grade. Gwen was/is, like most every child her age, excited to start school and be with her friends and eat school lunches and just generally be like the big kids she's seen for all of her life. Well, I think it's safe to say that Gwen had a rough start to her school career. On the second to last day of her very first week she ended up getting on the wrong bus to go home. I guess sometime during her ride she realized this and began to cry, which merited her the wrath of a group of little boys who made fun of her because she was "crying like a baby." It took about an hour to figure the whole thing out and get her to her bus stop, where my sister was waiting and anxious to meet her. As soon as the poor girl laid eyes on my sister she once again burst into tears which took a good two hours to get her to calm down from her experience (which, to be fair, would have shaken most anyone let alone a 6 year old in her first week of school), all the while lamenting that she had been terrified of not seeing my sister again and being lost forever. While my niece is OK now and the problem has been sorted out, I still find myself thinking about that event and anxiety in general.

Philippians 4:6 gives us specific instructions to " not be anxious about anything." Peter tells us to "Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." (I Peter 5:7) Now, please don't get me wrong. I am not saying that Gwen was wrong for being afraid. She is a small child in a new situation, she had every right to be fearful and anxious about the outcome of the situation. But I think about how often I am anxious about things that I should be totally trusting into God's care (my future, my relationships, my job, school, etc.) The kind of anxiety that I, and I would say we all, allow ourselves to entertain is not OK because it's basically us saying to God "I honestly don't think that you are capable of taking care of this. I don't even think that you truly care about me because if you did you'd fix it right now etc etc etc." I get so anxious and fearful about the most idiotic things to the point that I have made myself physically sick from it! But what I am doing when I allow myself to get to that point is refusing to believe that the God of the universe can care for me.

I wish that this was some sort of thing that I could give a wise answer that would inspire whoever is reading this to rethink how they react to events. But I fight with this sin constantly often. But what I know now in my story are three things:

1) Usually when I allow myself to be overcome with anxiety it's because I'm not spending enough time reading my Bible. There is a definite correlation between my time not spent reading my Bible and the countless times I worry myself sick (sometimes literally).
2) Anxiety is sin because it is both a distrust of God and a lack of accepting that God will take care of us. When I'm freaking out over something out of my control, it's just me pulling away from God because my small little mind just cannot accept that He is in control when I am not (which I am never in control but that's another topic for another day).
3) There are times when it's going to take our all to believe that God is still in control. Our problems look to us to overshadow God. It's during those times that we should be like the man with the demon-possessed boy, who says "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

There's a difference between just unbelief and the struggle to believe even when life is telling you otherwise. We should be looking to give God the glory even if we have the weakest faith of anyone out there at the moment. I'm still learning how to do that.

If you are curious to read more on anxiety, I advise:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2012/may/how-god-can-use-your-anxiety-for-good.html?paging=off

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/09/07/are-babies-born-anxious-or-is-anxiety-thrust-upon-them/