Missing Church… not missing His Anxiety

… and boy, am I missing church… due to this nasty flu that seems to run its course and then come back for another round, we have not been to church in two weeks. In case anyone is counting, that’s two Sundays and one Wednesday evening. Can I just be real and admit that I am not the same without it? There have been seasons of my life when I went to church somewhat flippantly. You know, if I woke up, I woke up. If I didn’t, I didn’t. I suppose those were days when I felt much more self-sufficient than I now realize I am. I have come to really depend on those times of fellowship with other believers, taking in a solid meal of the Word, and worshipping corporately through song and through giving.

Did I mention I am missing church?

This morning I opened my email and facebook (yes, unbelievable, right?) and found lots of people want to know about my release from anxiety… and while I am thinking about how grateful I am for the body of believers God has grafted me into, I thought there was no better story to share with all of you this morning.

Now, no one has ever accused me of being relaxed. I am a first child and quite Type A in my most natural state. I like being busy.. the busier I am, often the more productive I am. Although I can’t say I remember it, I would stand to bet I dealt with some anxiety as a kiddo. My mom tells a story about the first time she took me to a water park. Apparently, I climbed all the way to the top of some giant tube slide and then decided I had no intention of going down it. Really that isn’t that big of a deal until you consider that even with a ton of other kids behind me, I stuck to my guns, making everyone else climb down too. Mom calls that ‘cautious’ but sometimes I wonder if an additional label might be ‘anxious’.

Still, I don’t really know if I was always anxious and just didn’t have a word for it or if I really began being anxious in college. You see, that was the first time I put that title on the racing emotion. As far back as I could remember, I have worked for deadlines. I was never the child who got the class syllabus and started working ahead. If you put me in the category of child who waited till the night before and stayed up well into the wee hours with my creative juices pumping, you guessed correctly. That was me. When I was in a freshmen in college, though, it all came to a head. Working for deadlines and lack of sleep had me waking in the morning unable to breathe with the feeling some big lug was standing on my chest. I remember waking one particular morning and falling on to the cold, tile floor, gasping for air. It was as if someone had accidently pressed the fast forward button on inside me and thrown the remote away. Instead of pushing myself to the limit, I felt like I was on an eternal treadmill, unable to slow things down, unable to get off, and most importantly, never able to get caught up.

It got to the point in college, where I considered medication. I didn’t end up choosing that route, but the thought was with me. My anxiety drove me to exercise profusely until my body was too exhausted to have the energy to worry. That of course, created its own issues.

Eventually, though, I got a handle on the feelings sans chemical supplements and my generalized anxiety died down, only to flare up once or twice a year.

Very manageable.

I haven’t made it a secret that the last season of my life has come with a fair amount of stress. Ironically, I had to teach a class in September on ‘Managing Stress’. Hypocrisy at its finest. While I hope that someone in the class learned some helpful techniques, all I learned was how incredibly stressed I have been. For instance, did you know that mixing up sentences is a sign of stress? So, for instance, if I said “park the garage in the car” instead of “park the car in the garage” that is actually a sign of distress? And here I thought I was just concerned about old age in my alzheimers!

(Go ahead- laugh. I know its Monday morning and this isn’t a funny topic, but go head… )

All kidding aside, this has been the most challenging season of my life to date. I have big decisions to make, lots to balance, and a little person who is depending on me to walk a Godly path he can someday follow.

I had been finding that the biggest obstacle in the way of everything I needed to do (think: pray, fast, worship, focus) was anxiety. I could hardly get my mind or body still enough to really listen for God’s voice; I could hardly pray without these worrisome thoughts making their way into my pleadings. I tried to listen at church, but struggled through every amazing sermon just to get my mind settled enough to take in the information. Everything felt like a fight. I was constantly facing down the worst case scenario, oscillating between really believing God and worrying that He had taken some vacation time and everything was on the verge of falling apart.

Sitting in church on a Sunday morning just a few weeks ago, Pastor finished up his sermon and gave a kind of an alter call (they are never the same from service to service). But this time he invited people to come to the alter. A group did. I clapped in unison with the believers around me, but a stirring feeling began to grasp my gut. It only took a minute to realize why. Pastor asked for anyone who wanted to receive special prayer to come forward. I had that feeling. You know the one I am talking about- when you know you need to step out of your seat, but your legs feel like jelly? I can remember a time in my life, when I was often the first person to move. If there was something at the alter from God, I wanted it. This time I was the last to leave my seat and I stood near the front of church, visibly shaking.

When Pastor got to me, he didn’t ask why I had come, although he did pray about the circumstances that had led me to there. Then he rounded a corner I hadn’t expected and began to pray against doubt and fear and fretting. Its not hard for me to believe that we generally don’t know the thoughts or intentions of our hearts, even when we think we do partly because I had no idea the real reason the Spirit had moved me to come to the alter. Tears flowed freely down my face as Pastor began to speak words of what will be over me.

I thought that was the end of it.

Then the following Wednesday night I attended Bible Study at the church. During a discussion on the Spirit and gifts and order, I raised my hand to ask a question of clarification. I can’t even recall what it was now, but Pastor asked me to elaborate and somewhere in the mix I mentioned in an example my struggle with anxiety. I am sure getting to that point was a round about thing, because just as no one has ever called me relaxed, no one has ever called me short winded either.

Pastor answered my questions and then immediately began to question me about the anxiety. It had really nothing to do with the subject matter of the evening, not that he seemed to care. He then announced to the whole church that he wanted to pray for me at the end of the class and he asked me if that would be okay.

Around 8:30, the evening was wrapping up and Pastor asked me to come forward. “Are you embarrassed?” he asked. I answered first and then realized I meant it. I wasn’t. Not a bit. If God cared enough to put my struggle on Pastor’s heart to the point of pray, then I wanted whatever He had for me.

Pastor invited anyone else fighting anxiety to come forward and it was quite a group, people grandparents age down to young children. Pastor prayed for us each and I had my eyes so tightly shut I only knew he had gotten to me because I could feel his hands on my shoulders. I wish I had a tape of all he prayed that evening because at the time I was feeling it as much as hearing it. There are a few things that stuck out in my memory… one was that he prayed two verses over me that my sister Beth had texted me that morning. The first comes from Psalms, where David prayed “Let God arise and His enemies be beaten” and the second is a Word have a heard also from three of the friends I specifically call to pray for me, “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper”.

Pastor emphasized that one, “Weapons have been formed and been flung your way, but not a one- not one!- of them will accomplish what it was sent out to do.” I opened my eyes as he broke from praying and said something directly to me, “God wants you to know He is a man of war.”

Now, how does that break a yoke of slavery to anxiousness?

Have you ever noticed that the the first of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians is peace? Now there is a lot of discussion about the gifts of the Spirit, but the fruit of the Spirit is a litmus test for all believers. If I am really God’s, then these are the attributes that should flow easily from my life. And on that list, the first one Paul thinks to mention is peace.

Peace is pretty much the opposite of anxiety right? So if I am a child of God’s, in communion with him, peace is the banner over my life. So, it stands to reason that the anxiety I have warred against, maybe not be my own. Following?

Pastor has shared with me multiple times that I don’t have to feel the Evil One’s feelings for him. We have even talked about this in regard to anxiety. As a believer, anxiety has no place in my life, but if the Enemy of my soul can get me to feel the dread he has about the future, he can easily render me useless… tired, irritable, worrisome, ringing my hands instead of praising God right into the center of my thoughts where He rightfully belongs.

We have had the conversation time and time again and I got it on an intellectual level and it made me sense to me… and yet… it hadn’t gotten down into my being. But as Pastor prayed Scriptures of security and freedom over me, it began to sink in.. and that picture of God the Warrior? It sealed the deal.

I didn’t feel any volt of electricity or fall shaking to the ground (we know the work of God just doesn’t take all of that), but some root of unbelief was dug out of me that Wednesday evening. The reality of God as my protector, my warrior, the lifter of my head, the one taking up my case came to full revelation in my heart.

There is something about believing God (and faith is a gift isn’t it? wouldn’t I love to muster it up on my own, but I just can’t) that makes setting aside all of those worst case scenarios as easy as breathing. I don’t wake up fretting over what may be or how I can set everything on the right path to the right end. I wake up knowing the Lord of Universe is also the Lord over me, His daughter and Cohen, His son.

Though I know I will be tempted to pick up and wear that dread again, I now have the faith to stare it in the face and refuse to put on what was once a familiar garment.

I lay my head down at night and sleep peacefully, assured that the same God who carved out the mountains and holds everything together for His own pleasure loves me and like any good Father, has gone ahead of me carving a path my feet can easily follow.