Anxiety caught me totally off guard.
I had stepped out of traditional pharmacy altogether, with no clue what a profound impact that would have on my psyche. Transitioning from working in the busy retail setting I had known my whole life to working from home initiated a slow unraveling of my clearly misplaced identity, and it wasn’t pretty.
Certain this unpleasant and unfamiliar feeling was fixable, I decided to roll up my sleeves and rid myself of all anxiousness. I tightened my grip on anything I felt was within grasp of my control because that worked for all of zero people ever.
Every supplement recommended for anxiety, I took. Every food you should eliminate for anxiety, I eliminated. Praying and reading my Bible became hour long excursions every morning during which I would search for the answers I thought best, explaining to God the path I felt we should take that day. I wanted Him to fix everything, even though I didn’t exactly know what ‘everything’ consisted of.
That’s the tricky thing about anxiety. You know something is wrong, but any number of triggers could rob you of joy on any given day.
Then came a morning I will never forget. I read the Word and began talking to (at?) God yet again, but I felt confusion and overwhelm reaching a boiling point in my spirit. It was intense. I was exhausted, and something inside me cracked.
Wide open.
I broke down into a full on ugly cry in the middle of my living room floor - face down, hands up - and I handed all the control to the Lord. Every bit of it.
In that instant, I felt a physical burden LIFT. My yoke was wholly replaced by His. Anxiety began melting away as I breathed more deeply than I ever remember having breathed before, and I prayed for Him simply to make me whole.
This work will surely never be done, but He wasted no time in getting started. Just a few hours later, I heard the Lord’s voice for the first time in my life. It wasn’t exactly audible, but it may as well have been. That’s the only way I know how to describe it.
The Lord began ushering me into a new season that day, one in which He speaks and I listen.