Heart pounding. Hands shaking. Fast breathing. Head spinning. The unwelcomed thoughts dancing around my head as if they had control over my soul.
It was freshman year of college when the darkness of anxiety crept into my life. The tests, the workload, the parties, the friends, living on my own, it was all so overwhelming.
Breathe Hannah. Breathe.
My heart felt like it was overworking itself to the point where it was going to cease at any possible moment.
There was a point in my life where I was going to the emergency room at least once every 2 months. I had countless amounts of doctor’s appointments just to try and figure out what was wrong with my heart. And if it wasn’t my heart, it was my stomach, or my brain, or my blood pressure. The symptoms never end.
I couldn’t even go to my college classes because every time I stepped into a classroom at school I feared not being able to get out if any of these symptoms happened again. Panic after panic after panic. It dominated my life. Every time I did something that I was slightly uncomfortable with, there came the anxiety hand in hand. I tried going to counseling, but that same voice in my head played on repeat, “nothing can help you, your heart is still beating out of your chest, you can’t even sit in a classroom without being afraid, you can’t do anything anymore.”
The adventurous, spontaneous, motivated Hannah that I once was, was captured by the Hannah of my thoughts. I felt defeated. And defeat was never a part of my vocabulary. I thought this was it for me. I would be living with these anxious thoughts and symptoms my whole life and never be able to break free, but my God doesn’t work like that. My God is a God of breaking chains. My God is a God of REDEMPTION.
//so let me tell you I know there are days it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets while you break down like the doors of their looted buildings. You are not alone//
Andrea Gibson
You are not alone in this battle you face. You are not alone in these feelings you feel. You are not alone in this hurt you endure every single day. I have struggled with anxiety for 5 years and that does not make me less than, but it does allow me to look up to a savior who is greater than.
What a great father He is. He paid the price for my sin, my fear, and my anxiety when He died on the cross for me. That anxiety and that fear is HIS stuff. HE wants that. I pray for the day when each one of us can learn to stop touching His possessions and learn to reach for the joy, peace, and freedom He has so intentionally given to us.
On 8.9.18, I was worshipping at training camp for the world race when a woman touched my back and told me that she sees a blank page and a pen. I had no idea what this meant, and I had never had someone prophesy over me before. That next morning, I woke up to little raindrops on my cheek and decided to watch the sunrise and be with God. I flipped to the next page in my journal and wrote this,
“As the wind breathes life in my lungs, I know it’s you, my creator. Let today be the day I let go. Let today be my blank page. Every word so delicately written. Allow me to feel today. To be enthused. If this is what you created for me on earth, oh the things I haven’t seen. You inspire me.”
I closed my journal and was about to get up and head back to my campsite when God was telling me to open up my journal one more time. When I opened it up, there in between what I just wrote and my last journal entry was a blank page!! I had left a blank page without even realizing it. I looked up at the sky and God said,
“Hannah what do you have to fear? Come, my child. You have been set free. You are not going backwards anymore. For I have renewed your soul. Dance with me.”
As tears were streaming down my face I looked up at the road and envisioned Jesus calling me out into the road and telling me that I was not going backwards anymore. That He has this divine plan for me and that I must show the world what it’s like to be free. And I danced. Boy did I dance. And yes, I probably looked like an idiot.
So here I am. Telling you that 5 years ago, 4 years ago, even 1 year ago, if you asked me if I would be traveling the world for 11 months to seek Jesus and spread the gospel I would have looked at you like you were insane. I couldn’t even go to class let alone get on an airplane. I thought God saw me as broken and I thought he forgot about me, but He just used my anxiety to get me to where I am at this very moment. Every bit of anxiety every bit of fear has lead me here. If it wasn’t for me being so fed up with feeling anxious and wanting different for my life, I would have never considered the World Race. God’s timing, wow.
Now I sit here writing to you, loved, saved, and free.
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water // Hebrews 10:22
This is my redemption story.
