I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
- Mark Twain
As I sat in my son's nursery, rocking him while he fussed, emotional anguish engulfed me. A blubbering mess - anxiety filled my fragile soul. He was new to the world and I was new to motherhood. And neither of us were thriving in this newness. Deep affection poured out for the child in my arms and yet my soul was loud with pestering distress. The only natural thing I felt was the onslaught of unwelcome hormones rushing through my body. And anxiety. Lots of anxiety. So I rocked, and cried and sang.
Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side; bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide; in every change He faithful will remain. Oh be still my soul; thy best, thy heavenly Friend, through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
~ Be Still My Soul (hymn)
14 years later, similarly I sit with all the same conflict inside me. This time there is no rocking, no baby, no post-delivery hormones and no real excuses. Yet still, I'm anxious. And fearful. With a soul that still shouts all the ways I should be alarmed. My problems are different. My newborns have become teenagers and I'm not in the same home as I was when I rocked my baby. Nor am I in the same city or church. So much change and yet my soul battles the same emotional wars. The racket that fills my heart with dread and worry is the same as it was back then, in that rocking chair. Fears about myself, my kids, the future and confusion about these bewildering times press on my chest. So my heart still sings that same old hymn.
Now I remember that none of this is new to me. When I was 8 and 12 and 17 similar anxiety wars raged internally then too. I coped by closing my bedroom door, turning on music, lighting candles or incense and laying on my bed to regulate what I didn't understand was "wrong" with me at the time. As I've discovered, this unpleasant bedfellow has been with me a long time.
Erroneously, I assumed getting older and hopefully wiser would mean getting over some of this anxiety stuff - like Clarence, the angel, earning his wings in the movie It's a Wonderful Life. Hasn't age earned me a calmer soul? How is it possible that after all this time I still feel like a fabrege egg, on the brink of breaking? Isn't the deal supposed to be that the closer I get to meeting my Maker, the more I become like my Maker? I thought growing older would have some refining benefits that took care of my anxiety. Or at the very least, dulled it's severity.
Yet, as it seems, the only persistent lesson I learn as more grey hair peek under the dye, is just how much I need my Maker, every day. Every hour. Because, due to the fragility of living in this world, I don't have peace like a river. I have angst like a rollercoaster. Up, down, upside down. Never straight and narrow. Only winding, sometimes paralyzing.
To know anxiety is to hate anxiety. It is one of the least desired feelings one can experience. As the new movie Inside Out 2 so aptly shows, this frenzied companion is tireless and vigilant. There are no warnings of danger needed, because all possible (and sometimes impossible) dangers have been spotted and thoroughly thought through long before they ever arrive. But sometimes this companion holds us captive. Even worse is how often we can act like captors with stolkhome syndrome. Regularly returning to its grip because it's all we've ever known. For most of us, we don't even know we're back with our captor until we're wrapped up in it again.
Even Mark Twain gets it. Anxiety makes you struggle even when you are not struggling. Just because you are anticipating a hardship that never comes. Or hasn't come yet. Depending on how you look at it.
Perhaps one of the most insidious sides of anxiety that I've never heard talked about is how often this companion is right! Truth be told, I've been protected from harm due to opting out of situations because of anxiety. I've also been right in my predictions of failure due to anxieties ferocious ability to forecast impending disaster. Sometimes, just sometimes, I kinda like this companion.
But, most of the time, I don't. Unfortunately, unlike how some people describe it, anxiety isn't always a choice. I don't wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing and my mind in five different terrifying places, because I chose to or because I want to. It just happens. Sometimes, truly, out of nowhere. I've also never chosen to become paralyzed, body-shaking, and dread spreading through my whole body for no apparent reason. There can be something deeply involuntary about it.
"Once I was invited to talk about fear and anxiety on a radio program. After a few minutes, the host declared that after he recieved the Spirit he was never anxious again. I responded that after I recieved the Spirit, I never had a day without some kind of anxiety. For the remainder of the program, he insisted that I could not really be a Christian and he evangelized me." ~ Ed Welch (Faculty member and counselor at CCEF)
It's tricky being a Christian with an anxiety problem because it seems antithetical to living in Christ. And to some, the very struggle of it, should make one question their salvation. This is faulty-thinking, but more often than not I've been "encouraged" by well-intentioned Christians that this problem is solved purely by doing one thing - repenting. As though all anxiety is uniquivically, first and foremost, a "sin problem". This is where I believe some have been poorly taught. Much like we wouldn't view feeling an unexpected wave of sadness or anger or loneliness as sin, we mustn't view merely experiencing anxiety or fear as sin. In my opinion, teaching this would be lazy.
However this does not mean I don't think we can move towards sin when we feel anxious. We most certianly can. Just like anger can lead to violence, so can anxiety lead to distrusting God. And in those cases we must repent. How we respond to negative emotions is the real test. Not the feeling in and of itself. If we let it, our anxiety can breed in us a sinful desire for control or an unbelief in the Lord's ability to provide or a prideful heart of self-sufficiency.
And it's texts like Matthew 6:24 from the Sermon on the Mount that help us with this. When Jesus says, "Do not be anxious about your life," He doesn't just stop there. He continues by sharing why we shouldn't be anxious - the father provides for both plants and animals, and He promises to provide even more so for those created in His image. This is the encouragement of the text - don't let anxious thoughts convince you to believe something untrue about God.
Also at the end of Philippians, Paul encourages the church in Philippi by saying, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Phil 4:6). And similarly Peter finishes his letter to the churches in Asia Minor with a direct message to the Elders of the church by saying, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." (1 Pet 5:7)
Although these texts read as commands in the same way the Ten Commandments are commands, they are not the same. These are more like lower case "c" commands. For instance when the the multitude of angels appeared in front of the shepherds in Luke 2 and the angel of the Lord commanded "Do not be afraid", he was using a lower-case command. He didn't expect the shepherds to have all their fear evaporate by the mere command. But more for them to be comforted by what he was about to say next, which was, "I bring you good news of great joy". When a father comforts his child by saying "don't be afraid" while tucking him into bed, he does so not as a means of discipline or as a strong command that could incur punishment if not heeded. Instead he says it as a means of alleviation. His words and presense act as great relief to an anxious child because it comes from a place of love and care.
What Jesus and Paul and Peter are saying is that we must not be anxious. Why? Because, God is with us! They implore God's people not to fall into anxiety's trap of faithlessness. And they are comforting the suffering hearer of the Word and encouraging them to be strengthened by the Lord's provision and loving-kindness to His children. Have you ever had someone say to you "just don't worry about it" in the middle of deep feelings of anxiety? How helpful was that advice in the moment? Yeah, not helpful. In fact, "advice" like that can be infuriating. This is not how we should read Jesus's words about anxiety. He is not being flippant. He is not irritated with us. And He is defintely not mad and ready to send wrath upon us when fear takes us on a rollercoaster ride.
There is no shame in feeling anxious or fear. To be human is to feel the weight of being human. And we as Christian brothers and sisters should never heap unnecessary shame or guilt onto those we love because we assume their anxiety is sin. The idea that we may question salvation or treat someone as extra bad due to long-term anxiety is an unnecessary burden that need not be placed on suffering shoulders. It would serve us to know that even Jesus experienced rollercoaster-like distress due to the anticipation of hardship.
And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. ~ Luke 22:41-44
What Jesus was experiencing was emotional agony that manifested into physical distress. Some might say His distress about dying for our sins is nothing like our measely anxiety. And in terms of severity, they would be right. But I do believe this account of how Jesus handled what seemed to be a limited understanding of what He would face on the Cross, as an inspired example on how we should respond to our own limited understanding of the future. His anticipatory anguish was never sin.
Yet, He had a choice in how to respond to it. He could have walked away and taken matters into His own hands by disobeying His Father in Heaven. But He didn't. He was led away in chains in full compliance as the Father willed. He never sinned amidst His anguish. In the same way, we too have choices to make when anxiety and fear overcome us. We can respond in disobedience and self-will or we can submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
What does all this mean for how we live with anxiety? And how do we get the peace of Christ? I think it begins with our own acknowlegment of weakness. When we collapse into the arms of Christ and admit to Him all over again just how weak and needy we are, His compassion is kindled towards us
For he will save the needy when he cries for help, the afflicted also, and him who has no helper. He will have compassion on the poor and needy, and he will save the lives of
the needy. ~ Psalm 72:12-13
I believe under the surface of our anxiety and fear are motivations and desires that we long to hold onto. Sometimes those desires are sinful and need to be released. And sometimes they are everyday blessings that the Lord gives us and all we want is to hold onto to them. Things like our family and friends, our career or our home. As I sat in that rocking chair so many years ago, my heart ached with the responsiblity to protect the new baby I loved so much. This was a great blessing that I was holding onto for dear life. Great fear of failure was all around me. Motherhood is a task the Lord has entrusted into my hands and so I return to Him for help with this task regularly. It's a blessing. But doing it perfectly has never been His requirement of me. And the outcomes have never been in my hands.
Psalm 131 serves as a great teacher about peace when anxiety weighs heavy.
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
This kind of peace is not a prescription to keep the anxiety and fear away. But it helps us to not be robbed of our peace amidst the waves. This kind of peace hits different. It doesn't abide because we've set up the right kind of boundaries to keep everyone around us from rattling our comfort. It doesn't provide us with lowered expectations so we never feel disappointment. It doesn't advocate for us to control every relational interaction so that we enjoy every moment perfectly. We may still wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because we can't avoid hardship with this kind of peace.
Rather, what this Psalm shows us is a peace that is realistic. David isn't trying to ambitiously go after things too great and marvellous for him. He had to learn this the hard way. Part of long-lasting and affective peace is knowing our limits. It's humbly accepting our futility. It's living not in pursuit of impossibilities but instead, living out of an acknowledgement of our real limits and weaknesses. Like a helpless babe in his mothers arms, he knows that all he needs is what she can give him. Love, provision and comfort. With this kind of peace comes a quieted soul. A soul that can vibrate with anxiety and also ease into the goodness of God at the same time.
One that trusts our good Father when He tells us not to fear because He's with us in the struggle. Because He knows our struggle and faced it for us. And because He's our advocate now as we wrestle with the many challenges this world throws at us.
I believe burdens get heavier with age. The longer we live, the more pain we experience and see all around the world and in our own lives. And the more we see, the more we expect to experience. And it's in this expectation that anxiety lives. At least for me. It's no wonder to me anymore why age hasn't cured my fears. I've seen too much. Like Jesus in the garden I am constantly asking that the Lord take my (very small in comparison) affliction cup away from me. In fact, I plead with Him to take affliction cups away from me that He hasn't even given me yet. Because I'm all too aware of the many afflictions looming at any given moment. It's exhausting.
If there is anything getting older has taught me it's that two things can exist internally at the same time. Fear and comfort, Distress and trust, Anxiety and joy. In Christ we don't suffer with fear, distress and anxiety alone. We suffer with a greater hope.
Truth be told, I'm in the fight every day. Maybe you are too. But thanks be to God who does not reject us in our weakness. As Esther Liu says about the heart of God, "He is pleased to accept in Christ that which is sincere, even if it is very imperfect...he does not despise that which is offered in sincerity even if it bears the marks of weakness."The Lord does not strike us when we are down, but instead reaches His nail stricken hands low to pull us up and take us into His embrace. In our heart-pounding confusion there He sits like a good Father at our side and tells us not to be afraid.
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When I said, “My foot is slipping,”your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. ~ Psalm 94:18-19
A note from the writer: This is the first of a three part series I'm doing on a Christian response to the undesirable experiences and feelings that comes with being a human in a broken world. In this series I'll be discussing Anxiety, Grief and Trauma. In no way will these writing's be a scholarly comprehensive work but more of a christian response on some of the hot-button and buzzy topics that are very real to all of us. These writing's endeavour to be devotional and written about from my own experience and through the lense of Scripture. I plan to handle with care.
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