Feeling Afraid and Anxious
by Sarahpublished on
"Faith is not about God orchestrating things the way we would prefer or the way we find most comfortable."
I know that I am not the only one feeling anxious and afraid of all the uncertainty we are facing in the world today. The news headlines seem to escalate to more frightening levels with each passing hour. Hearing about the rapidly spreading virus, quarantines and violence is enough to send an anxious person like me into a downward mental spiral. There are two voices raging war inside my mind. Fear shouts, "Panic! Be afraid! The worst is yet to come." However, beneath the echos of anxiety, there is a calm and gentle whisper that seeks to lift my eyes and assure me that everything will be just fine. He says,
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Isaiah 43:1-3
Fear and I have been well acquainted for as long as I can remember. I vividly recall the feeling of terror that infiltrated my body when I was eight and my teacher received news of the twin towers collapsing in the middle of our school day. Our lessons halted as teachers cried and paced and delivered news back and forth to one another's classrooms. I felt so powerless and unsafe. Fast forward ten years to the summer after I had graduated high school. I sat at the local movie theater, my fingers deep in a tub of popcorn, completely enthralled in the ending of a dramatic movie. We were on the verge of finding out who kidnapped the children on the screen when I heard screams all around me. My legs ran, following the throngs of bodies fleeing the theater, but panic seized me from within. There had been an altercation between two men in the row behind me and one of them had stood up and pulled a gun on the other. My heart was pounding. I felt like I could not breathe.
I’ve experienced fear over legitimately alarming situations, but I’ve also allowed anxiety to enslave me and steal my joy over hypothetical what-if’s. While observing the events going on in the world, I’ve given a foothold to panic. But beneath the tension and angst, there is a voice that reminds me that this is not my forever home, I am just passing through on the way to eternal glory. A voice that invites me to walk with Him now, joyfully, in the midst of all that appears frightening.
As I look back now on the pieces of my story that were most laden with fear, I no longer see the impossible catastrophes I believed those moments to be. I see the building blocks of my faith and a track record of God’s faithfulness. I see evidence of His provision and goodness. I hear the voice that reminds me He was with me all along.
Before my first daughter was born, I was paralyzed by an intense fear that I had already ruined her life because I was a single mother. The experience of going through my pregnancy alone and knowing that I couldn’t give my daughter the stable family she deserved utterly broke me. It led me straight to Jesus Christ. He met me in the middle of my brokenness one Sunday afternoon in the church I had grown up in. I heard the invitation to salvation with open ears and a softened heart in a way that I never been able to hear it before.
Not long after that, I was petrified to go through childbirth. That experience did turn out to be every bit as painful as I had imagined—maybe even more so once the epidural wore off—but I did, in fact, survive it. When I held my precious daughter, all the fear I’d spent nine months clinging to melted away and I could see, just a little more clearly, the light of Jesus shining through the darkness of my life.
Still, I was afraid to raise that precious little human on my own. I prayed that God would somehow give her a normal life and a loving father, despite my many shortcomings. Fear reminded me that I would never find a good guy, while God worked behind the scenes to orchestrate His perfect plan. Far sooner than I expected, He took my meager prayers and answered them tenfold. He turned my world upside down with His goodness when He gave my daughter and I the stable, loving and kind man my heart longed for.
Once again, my mind was entangled by a web of fear and what-if’s when my husband headed out on a seven-month deployment to a country that I knew nothing good about while I stayed home with two littles under two years old. I was afraid that he wouldn't make it home safely, that I wouldn't be able to handle my children all alone everyday for seven months straight, and that I wouldn't be able to sleep for fear that someone might break in and harm us. In the end, the Lord brought my husband home safely, he provided grace to love and parent despite my lack of energy, and he provided sweet sleep to His beloved. He also provided people who poured into me and lent a hand. Most importantly, He gave me the gift of knowing His faithful character and sovereignty.
Last but not least, fear creeped back into my life during my third pregnancy when I was diagnosed with placenta previa. I was told that if I went into labor naturally, I could bleed to death and most likely, I would need a C-section several weeks before my baby was due. My anxiety spiked through the roof at those two prospects! I didn’t want to bleed out anymore than I wanted to undergo major surgery. Praise God for the body of Christ who covered me in prayer when I could barely groan inaudible pleas for help from on High. Surprise, surprise, God came through for me. My placenta moved just in time for me to have a safe, normal delivery and our daughter was born healthy—nine pounds nine ounces!
My trail of fears have led me to a living testimony that God works all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). Time and again, He has taken my circumstances and used them as a catalyst to show His reliability. So many times, I have felt as if I were wandering through the wilderness with no way out, up against a problem with no possible solution, and then I have been reminded of who is actually on the throne. God is in control and He is trustworthy.
This is not to say that things will or should always turn out as any of us want them to. I could have had an early C-section and had to suffer through the recovery while caring for three little ones. My husband could have not made it home safe from deployment. I could have remained a single mother after the birth of my first child. I could have been caught in the crossfire of the confrontation at the movie theater. Regardless, God would still be good and He would still be working out a good purpose within it all.
Faith is not about God orchestrating things the way we would prefer or the way we find most comfortable. In fact, I have grown far more in my faith during the times when I knew how much I needed the Lord than I have when things have gone smoothly and according to my own agenda. Sanctification happens amid those messy moments of humility when you know just how desperate you are for God's mercy and you find how glad He is to give it.
God’s word promises us that we will face trouble and tribulation in this world, but Jesus overcame the world. (John 16:33) We can trust the One who gave His own Son for us. Jesus is the light worthy of following through life’s winding and sometimes fog-laden paths. When we admit that we fall unbelievably short and simply believe that Jesus is enough for our sin, our struggles, our fears and our daily needs, His grace washes over us.
No matter how the headlines turn out, I am going to seek to remember that Jesus is on the throne and God has proven faithful for as long as I have known Him. He is working out His own plan and I want to be a part of it. What about you? When you are tempted to fear, take a look at your life in the rearview and remember God's faithful track record. If you have never accepted His free gift of grace, call out to Jesus today and walk in freedom.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Romans 10:9-10
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