It's Saturday morning...Everyone in my house is still asleep but me. I got my breakfast smoothie and drank it and began to sift through the (mostly junk) email that arrived overnight. Then it hit me....a thought. A niggling worry and that little spurt from the dam in my mind that holds back an ocean full of trouble, leads to cracks and suddenly, the whole structure caves in and I am awash in fear. Of what am I afraid? The kinds of things that we all worry about: Home repairs, the state of the economic system in the USA and world, my daughter's life and issues and future happiness. The fears that come when you live paycheck to paycheck. I think to myself, "Why in the world am I eating a diet that will cause me to live longer? The longer I live, the more chances of disaster will I encounter. I don't want to live to see all these fears realized.
I chide myself. "Cynthia, you know God will help you through those future problems just like he's helped you through the past ones. He will provide for your needs. Why are you panicking?" I try on that thought gingerly, like shoes that may be too small. I consider taking an Ativan, which I know will help, but which to me seems like a blatant failure of faith. So I resist. I get in the shower. Once out, the fears return. I surf over to Twitter, and there is a verse,
I confess my struggle on Facebook, after an inner argument in which my pride demanded that my weakness remain hidden and private. But a minute after I laid it out there someone posted this in the comments to my post.
"In the multitude of my anxieties within me Your comforts delight my soul. Psalm 94:19 He is faithful! Praying...."
My soul starts to breathe again. I make a cup of chamomile tea to further relax myself. And while I wait for the tea to cool, I read over Julie Coleman's post here on my blog (You will find it to be the next post you will read down this page). Her words make a lot of sense. Is this fear truth? Or is it based on the devil's lies? While the things I'm worrying about are legitimate fears, they leave God's faithfulness, Love and provision, out of the equation. I am NOT in this fight alone. I do not struggle as one who has no hope.
And her second piece of advice: Keep an eternal mindset. These worries, theses fears are temporal. They are solidly rooted in the here and now. They have no place in my future in heaven. They are not things that can rock my future past the grave. Yes, this world will have hardships. But we have a strong God who does not leave us to struggle on alone. He will get us through....and he will bring us home. Where is the fear in that? It is dismantled, disarmed.
A dose of God's truth did what Ativan did and then some. Ativan does not give hope. God's words do.
No comments:
Post a Comment