Thanks for stopping by for this week’s Womanly Wednesday Guest Post! Today’s post is by my friend Jenny Hall. I met Jenny (a fellow California girl!) before we started our freshman year at Davidson College, and have learned so much from the brave ways she has reached out to other people and to God to wrestle with deep questions of who she is and what it looks like to live her faith and her life well. She is an incredibly passionate person who loves deeply, feels deeply, and runs after the things she loves with everything she has. I am so grateful to have her vulnerable, funny, and beautiful words on the blog today.
There was a time in my life when I thought a lot about my armpits. I planned my outfits carefully. Sleeveless tops were best, obviously, but if I had to wear sleeves then I most definitely needed a sweatshirt on hand – even in 100 degree Southern California summers. It takes a lot to sweat through a sweatshirt.
I’ve always been anxious. Profuse sweating was just one symptom – there was also hyperventilating, crying, and paralyzing fear. You know, the usual. My mom reminded me of a time as a little kid at Disneyland when I freaked out and was too afraid to walk 10 feet away from her to throw away the packaging from a new toy. Or the time that I panicked, froze, and couldn’t make myself turn off an overflowing sink (pretty sure I was seven, right mom? Oh wait, just kidding, mom says I was seventeen. SEVENTEEN.) Oh, or, the time last year when my then-boyfriend-now-fiancé’s mom tried to teach me to play pool. Total meltdown. So you get the point. I’m a really anxious person.
I grew up with deeply faithful parents and I’ve really never doubted that God exists, or even that he loves me. That has never been my struggle. But do I honestly trust that he has things under control? Well, maybe.
Philippians 4:6-7 has been my nemesis over the years. You know the one:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Ok, like that’s cool and all God, but you can’t just say, “Do not be anxious” and have it happen. It definitely doesn’t work like that. (Well, maybe it does, but that would be spoiling the plot of this story!) And I knew all about the birds in the air and the lilies in the field and how I was supposed to trust the Lord with my worry and blah blah blah.
Part of my skeptical reaction to verses about anxiety was because I never really felt like my worrying was sinful. I mean, my fear was often quite helpful. Afraid of not getting what you want in life? Solution: get good grades in school. Afraid of disappointing parents? Solution: follow their rules and be respectful. Afraid that fear itself is holding you back? Solution: make an effort to be brave, by, for example, moving across the country for college. So, how could my anxiety be sinful when it made me a better person? It was hard for me to see anxiety as sinful when it was the source of much of my success. And I felt good about that success!
There’s a pattern here. All of those solutions? Those were mine. Get good grades, follow the rules, be brave…I was doing exactly what Proverbs 3:5-6 explicitly tells you not to do. I was leaning completely on my own understanding and relying on my own sense of control.
That strategy did not work out very well, of course, but it really fell to pieces in college. Freshman year was very, very hard for me. I had a lot of trouble finding a place at Davidson. I didn’t quite fit in anywhere, and I sort of drifted at the edges of several friend groups, never feeling quite at home. I was emotionally unmoored and I felt completely and utterly alone. I wish I could say that was when I surrendered to God and found peace, but that would be a lie. But I did go see a school counselor about my depression, and was eventually prescribed Zoloft (sertraline) to treat both the depression and my anxiety. The medication was incredibly helpful. It didn’t take away my anxiety or my sadness, but it helped mellow my reaction to those feelings a little bit.
That was the first time I began to see my anxiety as something to be fixed, or even something sinful. Instead of being just a quirk of my nature – in which I even had pride – I began to see my anxiety for what it was: something that separated me from God. Every time I let fear consume me, and every time I let worry control my actions, I was turning my back on God. Instead of trusting that He would care for me I was saying, “I have to take care of this, because no one else will!” So even as I succeeded in the ways that matter to the world – as a student, daughter, upstanding citizen, etc. – I was failing to trust my God. I was failing to be faithful.
Whew. That was heavy stuff to admit. Unsurprisingly, I am very afraid of failure. But, luckily, there are literally instructions in the Bible to keep you from failing in this area. Guess where? That’s right. My old frenemy, Philippians 4:6-7.
So for those of you who also suffer from anxiety, here are the instructions: with prayer and petition, and with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And that’s it – all your anxiety will be gone.
HAHAHAHAHA JUST KIDDING, that’s not how it works. I am not sure anxiety ever goes away. And I’m not sure God wants it to. Maybe anxiety itself isn’t a sin, but turning away from God? That sure is. Instead, God wants us to turn to Him with our anxiety and fear; He doesn’t want us to try and handle it alone.
And even then, God doesn’t promise to take away our anxiety or our fears. He promises that we will receive the peace of God. That is a different thing altogether. God may not solve our problems, and things may even get worse – He certainly doesn’t say He will keep our fears from coming true. But He does promise to give us peace. Peace comes from trust. I have to trust God that the very things I fear could all come true (failure, sickness, death, hurt, loneliness…). I have to trust that even if those terrible things happen, He is with me. THAT is peace my friends.
So these days I’m praying that God will help me to trust Him. It’s working pretty well. I still review the emergency landing card on airplanes and keep up-to-date on the latest recommendations for fighting off a shark attack (kick its nose, then jab the gills and eyes). And sometimes I am still overwhelmed by anxiety and fear. But, I can wear long-sleeved shirts now – so that’s an improvement – and more importantly, my trust in the Lord has never been stronger.
Peace be with you (and also with me!),
Jenny
Jenny is currently in England working on her masters in education technology, but heads back to the US in 22 days! She likes fantasy novels, limited government, corgi puppies, Captain America, and her fiancé Stephen, who she gets to marry in February.
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