Our dog Daisy hates rain and stormy weather. She responds by going under our bed or in the corner behind our end table. She barks in fear and shakes uncontrollably. I try to hold her and tell her it’s going to be okay but she continues to shake. Even hours after the rain has stopped she has serious fear and anxiety.
God reminded me that I have been much like Daisy in the past with my anxiety. Granted I didn’t respond exactly the same, but I’ve been inconsolable. God has tried to comfort me through His Word. Doctors have tried to diagnose my condition. Friends have said words of love and care. Though, when you are in the midst of anxiety and fear, you have no idea how to stop it and make yourself feel better again. It’s as if your fear and anxiety take over and rob you of truly living a joyful happy life.
For those who may have never experienced anxiety, these are some things that can happen to a person when they feel anxious over a period of time.
1.) They sometimes feel like they can’t get a full breath, which is scary. I went to the hospital quite a few times because I couldn’t breath well.
2.) They have racing thoughts that keep them from resting at night.
3.) They feel like their life is out of control. So they begin doing things to try and gain control.
The times in my life that I experienced the most anxiety were when we first moved to the Philippines. We were only there three weeks before my husband Wade began traveling for work in South East Asia. My children were 5 and 7 at the time. We were all trying to adjust to a new culture, language, a huge city, and extremely crazy drivers.
In the first year there, we experienced a bombing five minutes away from our home. This shook our home and terrified us all. Wade was traveling at the time, so it was even more scary.
We found out that the main road we lived off of was nicknamed, “The Highway of Death”. There were many car accidents and deaths that took place of this road. This made me feel afraid to get in our Toyota Revo and drive even close by.
I began to realize that we were really alone and stuck on an island half way across the world. No one really wanted to visit us because it took 24 hours or more to get to Manila. Wade’s sister Donna was the only visitor from the US we ever received in our 9 years of living overseas. I found out over time how much loneliness isolates you.
I care about how anxiety has effected your life. When have you felt the most anxious? How did you try to console yourself? How did others reach out to you at that time?
Let me leave you with this quote. “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” Paulo Coelho
Walking In The Light 