**I find writing about this struggle to be very cathartic, and I
hope what I share about my experiences will help others. To keep my
thoughts organized, I've divided my posts on anxiety into a couple of
categories. Otherwise, my posts would probably be rambling and go on
forever! If you are just now catching up, you should go back and read my first post about my anxiety story.**
***Also,
I'm not a healthcare professional and don't necessarily recommend or
endorse any particular method of dealing with anxiety. My coping
mechanisms and medications work for me, but everyone's experience with anxiety is
different. If you are struggling with anxiety, I recommend seeing a
licensed mental health professional who can help you find the strategies
that work best for you.***
I have only recently started to explore the spiritual reasons for and implications of my anxiety. I think this is because I spent the first 9 months of my anxiety struggles trying to figure out what was wrong with me physically. And then when the panic began, I was just trying to survive. Once I accepted my anxiety as a mental fact, I began to process the "Why's". Why am I afraid of having a serious illness? Why am I anxious about not being in control? Why am I afraid of the unknown? Why am I afraid of dying? And then one day, in the midst of being pseudo-convinced that I had ovarian cancer (I don't, by the way)...I thought, "If I am afraid of this disease, then I must be afraid of dying." This was a frightening revelation to me, because it let me know that my faith in God and His Promises must not be as strong as I had assumed.
Faith is something it seems I have always had...even before I knew Christ, I believed in God. There was never a question in my life about that; even as a child. So questioning my faith was likely one of the scariest things I have ever done. This first revelation that I might not be believing God's promises occurred a few days before I started taking long-term medication. Then, I had a few weeks of struggling with the physical aspects of anxiety. Getting out of bed in the morning felt scary. I began to pray more, and the phrase I repeated to myself over and over was "His mercies are new every morning". During that time, I desperately needed those new mercies. Then, one day while driving home on the interstate in a thunderstorm, I looked at the sky and thought, "What if God doesn't exist? What if the world is completely out of control, and things just...happen? What if when we die, we just die?". And, Whoa. It felt like my whole world just disintegrated. A belief I had held and never questioned in my whole life no longer felt rock solid.
I didn't lose my faith. But ever since then, my complete faith in God sometimes feels uncertain. But oh, how I have sought Him and spent time with Him since then! Sometimes I feel anxious when I seek Him, or spend time in the Word. All of the things people have said to me in the past to refute the existence of God have popped into my head. Scientific things, mental things...that we as humans have created a God that meets our needs so that we have something to hold onto. That when it seems prayers are answered, it is just a coincidence. That since there is no physical evidence or proof of a God, that He must not exist. In those thoughts, I am trying to understand the mysteries of God that can't be understood by humans. That is why He tells us to trust Him, not to lean on our own understanding, I guess!
This new development in my experience with anxiety has been the most difficult. Mainly because it is something I can never be truly certain about. At least in the physical sense. With anxiety about illness, I can go to a doctor and get checked out and cleared. With the panic and physical feelings of anxiety, I can calm myself down on my own or with medication. But the existence of God? How can I prove that to myself? The ultimate issue is that I can't prove it to myself...only He can.
And I trust that He will. When I question the existence of God...I know that I do not truly believe He doesn't exist. It is just a FEAR that He doesn't exist! If I don't believe He is there, why am I praying to Him, begging Him to speak to me? Why do I worship Him in song? Why do I present my requests for healing to Him? I have not been actively seeking Him regularly for awhile, and I know that is part of the reason my faith has been so easily shaken. And in being brought so low with the anxiety, the only place I can turn is to Jesus.
I am not a patient person. So when I have the fears and thoughts that God doesn't exist, I want Him to prove Himself to me immediately. But He doesn't work that way. The other day I kept thinking, "Why isn't there a magic medication I can take to make me believe in the existence of God?" But there isn't...and part of me is glad there isn't. God can only prove Himself to me by having me spend time with Him. It's a relationship. And when I pray, though sometimes I still wonder if I am just talking to myself, there have been enough of my prayers answered in the past few weeks that I feel my faith is being renewed and rebuilt brick by brick. It will take time for Him to heal and restore me, and I have to be ok with that. In the meantime, I will continue to seek Him...in prayer, and in His Word, and in His people.
I would appreciate your prayers...whether you are a friend, a stranger, or an acquaintance. Pray that the Lord would continue to reveal Himself and His heart to me...and that I would be receptive to Him. Pray that He would continue to heal my anxious heart. And pray that above all, He would use this whole situation to glorify Himself.
Hopefully, I'll be back soon with some of my practical coping skills for anxiety. But for now, thanks for reading these long posts!
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