Isn't it amazing how trained we are? I'm not talking about trained in the sense of fitness....I'm talking about the way we convince ourselves that something we feel always has to mean one thing. This morning I woke up with a knot in my stomach. I of course translated it to mean I was anxious about something. So I drove myself crazy for a couple of hours trying to figure out what I had to be so anxious about...did I forget to do something? As my morning went on and I assured myself I had not, the knot felt a little different....and my stomach growled. Oh. I was hungry. I'm not usually hungry in the morning - and extremely rarely when I first get out of bed....so here, I added stress to my day convinced I knew exactly what was up by one fleeting thought. How often do we do that to ourselves every day? The fleeting thought of how good a hamburger tastes means "my body needs what's in that burger." Or...it could be that I just drove past a fast food restaurant and smelled burgers....
I've struggled with anxiety for years. It's something I find myself talking to God about quite a bit and then getting frustrated wondering why He hasn't taken it from me. This morning it hit me like a 2x4.
Because I won't let Him. I was looking for worry this morning - looking for something to be anxious about rather than looking to see what else I could be feeling that way for - wow. That was a hard realization. So I had to ask for forgiveness. And now I'm trying to remind myself that I should "Be anxious for nothing but in all things present my needs to God through prayer and supplication." and that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love, a spirit of power and a SOUND mind."
That means that it's not in God's plan for me to stress and fret and to make this stomach thing worse. It's in His plan that I turn to Him and tell him what I'm thinking and cast my worries and woes on Him and then - and here's the big thing - not get up and take them all back with me. So easy to type. So hard to do. But with God's grace, I can do it - I just have to keep remembering to let go.
2 comments:
Still a new day. ;) Letting go is a choice... One that has to be made over and over.... often multiple times a day. ;) Keep working on it, and you will find that with each area, it becomes easier... :) Not that you won't ever be anxious about something, but you will be trained to trust in "this" area... Then another area will pop up... Learn the lesson again. :) Keep pressing on towards the goal. You're doing fine.
Oh so true.
Post a Comment