A Riptide of Anxiety
Three years ago, my journey with anxiety and depression began. Depression has been like crashing waves, loud and relentless. But anxiety is like the riptide, hiding underneath the surface, able to sweep my feet out from under me in a moment. It overwhelms and leaves me gasping for air.
For the most part, I’ve been able to avoid the riptide of anxiety. I stay at the shoreline and battle the waves of depression as they come in. But this last week has overwhelmed me. Every news article, warning, and cough has me flipped over in the current, tossed about at the mercy of the riptide. I thought I had these things under control, I thought my journey with anxiety was mostly gone, a mere abstract fear sitting at the back of my mind. This week showed me I was wrong.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog about living with fear, but in hours marked by social distance and marred by anxiety, it feels like a lifetime. It’s been a struggle to find the peace God promises, verses I quoted just 14 days ago. It’s easier for my mind to flit from news articles to social media to press conferences in an endless, anxious loop than it is for me to quiet my mind to hear God’s still small voice.
I’ve discovered that in this level of chaos, my usual go-to’s aren’t working. A house full of people and a mind full of fear require new techniques. I’ve found that my brain can’t entirely function to sit and read the Bible, a cup of coffee in hand, the way I prefer. Instead, I pick one verse and draw it. As my eyes and hands focus on the minute details of pen strokes and shading, my mind is able to calm and meditate on the verse. I’ve moved part of my prayer time to coincide with mundane tasks, like chopping vegetables or sorting laundry. With hands occupied, my mind can rest instead of participating in its frantic sprint to fear. And finally, because I couldn’t effectively pray for myself, I reached out to others to do it for me. I admitted my struggles to godly women who I knew would lift me up and point me to Jesus, and they did.
Today is the first day of my state’s stay at home order. I imagine this battle with anxiety will continue as we watch this virus progress. But I know that my struggle to hold onto God’s peace doesn’t negate his promises. And because of this internal fight, I’ll know that the times I experience the peace that surpasses all understanding, the days that my mind finds rest in the middle of this chaos, I’ve experienced a miracle.
