Anxiety.

It’s a topic that strikes a chord in my heart. Especially this time of year.

Unable to describe it to my parents at a young age, I would simply refer to it as the “feeling.” As my vocabulary expanded, I learned that these feelings resembled the characteristics of fear, sadness and worry.

Piling on frustration to the suffocating weight of an anxious soul is the elusive nature of describing it. There is a sense of helplessness and desperation that snuffs the “you” right out of you. You become a shell of yourself as everyday occurrences transform into monsters. These disintegrating feelings invade your body, pummeling you to the ground. Every time you try and stand up, it’s as if you’re kicked right in the gut.

The randomness of the assault throws your mind into a constant spin. As if the shakes, sweats, nausea, and clenching fist of anxiety on your heart weren’t bad enough, the attack on your mind is arguably worse. Self-destructive thinking flows through your mind like poison. You start questioning reality. Rationality flees like a deserting soldier, leaving you to drift into absurdity.

As prayers are seemingly unanswered, this is where trust in God really begins.

As summer turned to fall and school began during my elementary school years, my emotional health routinely hit rock bottom. From preschool to third grade, I’d go through this battle every September. I was probably a teacher’s worst nightmare as I cried for hours and refused to join in activities. In first grade, the guidance counselor even took me aside one day and made me a photo journal titled “I can feel happy when I am sad” picturing me doing all the things I liked at school. I rarely “went to school with a big smile” as she wrote, though.

I seldom knew why I felt the way I felt. I still don’t. I didn’t want to feel it. Yet like clockwork, the new school year brought me to my worst.

Third grade was an especially tough year. I cried harder, felt worse and panicked more than ever. Lying in bed, my mind would race as the sheets dampened with my sweat. My heart pounded until I finally would go into my mom’s room and ask her to come in my room until I fell asleep. This problem would persist for a couple more years. As the tension escalated without release, my mom took me to my pediatrician who then diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

As I grew up and my battles with anxiety continued, I sensed that what had occurred while I was younger was only the beginning. Anxiety has a way of compounding. You experience it once and then never want to experience it again. So, when something results in normal anxiety, it escalates in your mind to something it is not. You begin to experience anxiety about having anxiety.

This took shape one summer after sixth grade when I left to attend a summer camp for a week. As I laid in bed that first night, I felt an uneasiness come over me. I started thinking about all the sleepless nights of my past. I could hear my heart beat as I thought about being away from home. Quickly, I fell into the anxious trance. I trembled, couldn’t sleep or eat and went home on the third day of camp.

Ashamed and fearing my friend’s rejection, I avoided situations where I perceived difficulty or anxiety in the years ahead. I resisted places where my control over things was reduced. I began to look for people, places or things to make me feel better. This destructive habit kept things smooth on a day to day basis but stole much joy from my young life. I quit playing football. I didn’t sleepover at friend’s houses. I never went to summer camp again. I turned down multiple chances to go to France on a mission’s trip.

I tried my best to avoid facing those feelings that haunted me from years ago. I didn’t want to fail again. Thankfully, and painfully, I couldn’t avoid them much longer.

The summer after I graduated high school, I was on cloud nine. Driving around my 97’ Chrysler Sebring convertible, I didn’t have a care in the world. Thoughts about leaving for college in the fall didn’t faze me. I enjoyed relationships and the sense of accomplishment that came with graduating high school.

As I packed Crystal (the car) for college, though, I was in a daze. Reality had begun to sink in. When I arrived and my parent’s left, the thoughts of my past tormented me. The facts of my new reality scared me because I knew I couldn’t hide from this beast anymore. I was afraid of anxiety. I didn’t have the things I looked to mitigate the feelings anymore. My parents, friends, and comfort of home were nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t last more than a week. I came home the next weekend drained of all energy yet ready to jump out of my skin. Tears flowed as I shook curled up in the fetal position. My appetite was replaced with the constant feeling that I was going to throw up. When I closed my eyes, my fears of rejection and failure played out vividly on my eyelids. This was the worst anxiety I have ever experienced. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to go back to a place where I would willingly surrender all I looked to for rest. Most of all, I realized I had no idea what trust in God meant or looked like.

I did end up going back, but only to pack up my things. I decided to stay home, work a couple of part-time jobs, and apply to a local school for the spring. I am so thankful that though I made this decision to come home, God did not allow me to continue in this pattern of avoidance anymore. Things got harder. The cold reality of the real world shook my vacuum worldview. Relationships I put my trust in ended or changed. The comfort of my adolescent life was nowhere to be seen. I was in a full-blown season of anxiety.

It was here where I realized that my issue with anxiety was much deeper than I had ever thought. It wasn’t merely the childish irrational fear of sudden disaster, nor was it just my biological make-up. I’d been living my life apart from trust in my Savior Jesus that I’d been claiming for many years. In my decision-making process, I looked to created things to find my rest rather than my creator. At the core, I was putting my trust in inherently unreliable things.

As I started to see this, I was pointed to David’s words in Psalm 62 by a mentor. Throughout my life, I poured over the Psalms finding comfort in the vulnerability and the similar emotional distress suffered by someone I held in high esteem. Yet here I realized David’s words were not just emotive and feeling based, they were a logical decision. A choice made amid intense loneliness, rejection, and uncertainty based off past revelations.

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken…Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”

Psalm 62: 1-2, 5-8

There was only one who had been with me from the start of my life. The same one who was with me throughout every painful and joyous experience. The same one who I’d received at a young age though I clung to worthless idols in immaturity. The one who’s words my mom consistently fed me as a youth looking for peace. The only one able to sustain me through this condition that affected me deeply from birth and would until death.

It was Jesus Christ.

The entrance of sin into the world brought with it all kinds of ailments. As man rejected the truth of God for Satan’s deceptive words, all types of evil penetrated creation. Including mental illness.

God still had his affection set on us despite our rejection. Our path to Him just became a lot more complicated. We now needed His son to take our place in death and suffer the righteous judgment of our sin.

By Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are promised salvation from this world and our own sin. We are promised rest in a restless place. Peace in a place where it has no business being there. Calm despite the chaos.

In Jesus, we also have hope of a world beyond this current one. A world where we can actually see God and be in His physical presence. There in His presence, none of the struggles of this life will occur any longer. My anxiety will not even be a thought. As John says in his revelation.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:4

I’d been ignoring the details of His word. His promises. They are cure for the soul affected by the lies of any anxious fit. They offer me the security that I’ve longed for my entire life.

That fall, my life changed dramatically. The training wheels were kicked off and God showed me the reality of His presence amidst painful and overwhelming emotions. My eyes shifted from the here and now to forever. I might experience some unpleasant anxiety issues in this life, but not only do I have access to the God who is greater than those feelings, I have the assurance of them being eliminated in the life to come.

It’s still a battle, but anxiety has shrunken from a debilitating mutant to a pesky insect. God’s words counter the lies. His presence gives me the freedom to go out of my comfort zone. His promises protect me from the uncertainty of life.

As another season changes, my feelings towards my anxiety issues have changed as well.

I’m thankful.