I’ve been struggling with anxiety lately. There’s no particular reason. No crisis. No big problems in my life. It’s just THERE. It’s something I’ve dealt with off and on for years. Could be physiological. Could be hereditary. Could be winter. Could be hormones. I don’t know. It doesn’t always makes sense.
As I get older, I am SLOWLY learning to embrace these times even though I don’t understand them. As much as I like peace and order, life is just plain messy. So many things are out of our control. In fact, pretty much all of them. And when that realization hits home in the form of anxiety, depression, worry, and all the other overwhelming feelings that make me a hot mess, my first response is usually to try and gain control of SOMETHING. That always ends badly because it usually comes out as me taking it out on an innocent bystander, like my husband or children or the checker at Walmart. OR I turn inside myself and try to hide everything…even from God and that’s really dumb because He already knows.
And so it’s okay if we’re a hot mess because our deliverance doesn’t hinge on our performance or our strength. It hinges on God’s promises. He said that I don’t have to be anxious for ANYTHING. (Philipians 4:6) And though my body is clearly sending me a different message, the only thing left is to believe God or NOT believe Him. But isn’t that what true faith is? “Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do NOT see”? (Hebrews 11:1) I get that sometimes our bodies are in need of something and it sometimes gets our attention through the form of anxiety, depression, etc. (I’ve been down this road countless times) But it seems like it would be wisest to go to HIM first (since He created us and knows everything) and ask for wisdom. And He tells us in James that if we ask for wisdom, He WILL give it to us. This is simply about being intentional. When I’m not intentional I become MORE anxious and confused.
I think the hardest part and the biggest step in the right direction is ADMITTING that I’m a hot mess. Instead of pretending everything’s okay (or really just lying to myself), there’s something SO freeing about waving the white flag and saying “I’m a mess”. And when we openly admit our weakness and our failures, our struggles and our inner battles, we free others up to do the same. This is when the dust settles and we realize that our enemy isn’t as big or as strong as we imagined. We see that GOD is SOOO much bigger and that He is willing and able to deliver us. Maybe not out of the circumstances, but deliver our hearts to a place of peace in the middle of the mess.
So maybe, as women, we could dare to be a little more real with each other. As believers, maybe we could be more real with God. When I need help knowing what that looks like, I turn to the Psalms because David was great at pouring his heart out to God and God called him a man after His own heart. God loves it when we unload on Him. In fact, He so wanted us to be able to do this that He sent Jesus so that we could have direct access to Him…no offerings to be made, no obstacles. Just a clear path to RUN into His arms and bring the hot mess that is us, to HIM.