For the last six or seven years I have suffered from major anxiety/panic attacks. For years I masked it and put a big smile on my face while suffering in the inside. Very few people knew about my inner pain because I have always viewed it as a weakness, something I should be ashamed of. The way that I get anxiety/panic attacks is that I feel like I am physically going to have a heart attack, my left arm gets tingly, my chest hurts and gets tight, etc. For years I fear that I was going die.
When I was accepted to go on the race the one thing that kept me from saying yes was my anxiety. I didn’t want to have to deal with this during ministry, traveling, etc. Then I thought to myself “well when you worked for YouthWorks in Puerto Rico you didn’t suffer from any attacks because you were doing something you loved.” After some prayer I decided not to let my anxiety get in the way of fulfilling the calling that God had put on my life for this season. God has given me a passion for people, for helping them, for loving them, but most of all to share his love with them and I was not going to let anxiety get in the way of that.
I have to say that for the most part my anxiety was not a big factor on my journey these last couple of months. I had one or two little attacks here and there that only lasted a couple of hours but they weren’t bad and I could handle them. I thought that for the first time in six or seven years that my anxiety was gone. I thought that I had concord it.
I was WRONG!
These last couple of weeks I have been struggling with my anxiety. I couldn’t understand why this is the burden that’s been given to me. Thinking to myself that something must be wrong with me, am I not praying correctly. Does God hear me when I cry out to him asking him to remove this from me. On countless nights I have found myself crying out to the Lord yet the anxiety doesn’t cease. I have always viewed this as a weakness, I told myself that I would cripple me for the rest of my life. I believed the lies of the enemy when I was told that I can’t overcome this.
Yesterday, I was at the point where I actually believed I was defeated. I told myself “Becky, book a ticket home you can’t finish this feeling the way you are feeling now.” My team was doing a bible study on 1st John and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I couldn’t keep inside anymore and for the first time I spoke out to my team, asking them to pray for me. They spent the next 30-40 minutes praying for me, reading scripture over me, fighting with me. I had never experienced something so beautiful and powerful at the same time. My team has had its up and downs but in that moment it didn’t matter, in that moment they were my brothers and sisters crying out for me.
It was in that moment that I realized I was not defeated. That Christ reigns in me, that he is all powerful and with Christ I am more than a conqueror. I’ve come to understand that it is when I’m at my weakest God is most glorified. When I am weak he makes me strong, it causes me to cry out to him and cling to his word more than ever.
Philippians 4:6-7 “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Jude verses 24-25 “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be the glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever amen.”
Is the anxiety gone, no, not at this moment but I trust that God has me in his hands. He is sovereign over all and if this is where he wants me at this moment so be it. It has caused me to cling to him more than ever before. I know that God will use this for his glory. I know that he does not intend for bad things to happen but when they do to trust that he will take care of it. If I not lean on my own strength but on his then I know I will have victory over this.
