Reject panic with praise. Replace worry with worship. Relieve anxiety with adoration. ♥

Reject panic with praise. Replace worry with worship. Relieve anxiety with adoration. ♥

I came across this the other day and fell in love with it immediately.  I have always been a person filled with panic, worry, & anxiety.  And it seems God can sense what I need and put these words in front of me.  I thought about them all last night and today during church, the last few days have been rough for me.  My body just feels tired, my mind almost feels like it's racing and blank at the same time and although nothing is really "wrong" something just doesn't feel right.

Ever since some bad things have happened in my life I can panic pretty easily.  That something is going to go wrong, what will I do, how will I take care of it, etc.  I feel like I've always been a pretty self sufficient person and even after almost 8 years of marriage my natural instinct of, I don't need anybody I can take care of myself, will fight it's way out.  I have a hard time genuinely trusting people because of the panic of when they will leave me, use or hurt me.  So I tried to take that panic and reject it, to believe in God's goodness and knowing HE will never leave me nor forsake me.  So today, I praised him.  I played drums for worship at church & I even sang today.  Drums are my thing, putting myself in the front so people can focus on me, are not.  So I closed my eyes and imagined I was playing for him, and I was.  And I know in front of God I will never be lacking.  Or maybe the truth, I will always be lacking, but for him I will always be enough.

Worry. Worry. Worry.

Bad things will happen in our lives, that is the way of a sinful world.  But what good comes from constant worrying?  I'm like most mothers, I worry about something bad happening to my children.  I worry about them when I'm away from them and I worry about the things I do effecting them in ways I hope it won't. I worry about our finances, about paying bills, about our car passing safety check.  There's not much I don't worry about but the relief lately has been letting that worry go.  It's natural to worry, but what can that change?  And the things I have never worried about were the things that came true, so maybe that was my unfortunate lesson that regardless of all the worrying in the world it won't change what is happening. So I have slowly learned to give those worries to God, along with all that panic and anxiety.  And yes, I still do worry but to worship Him does far better to my soul than all the worrying in the world.

Anxiety, ahh my arch nemesis.  The bane of my existence.  My own personal demon.

More than panic & worry combined is my anxiety.  Anxiety that I just might never get it right, that anything good that might happen is just a pre-cursor to the bad about to fall down around me.

Anxiety that combined with low self-esteem made for a pretty self hating teenage girl. 

Sometimes I yearn to take it all back, to trust God then like I do now.  To have always been able to put my worth in him, but that's just not how things work. And I can only be very, very, very thankful that I trust him now.  My anxiety still comes, and with it the devil brings his lies.  But now I can fight him, and not let myself believe maybe hurting myself would make it all better.  Or maybe just take away that pain for a little bit.  I adore God.  He is my salvation.  My peace. And wouldn't it be sweet to never have to panic & worry but for now, when I do, I will try my hardest to praise and worship Him instead.