Can God heal my anxious mind?

moving from fear into peace.

A familiar ache starts to rise in my body. I try to ignore it. It grows louder and stronger. I try to breathe and calm my nervous system.

The ache picks up a beat and turns into a low frequency panic. The type is not a ‘loose-it-all panic’ but one you feel when you know you are slowing losing grip of your heart and mind.

I take deep breaths and try to remind myself that I am safe.

I can feel the rational part of my mind shutting down and the fight or flight reaction coming into gear.

I am just finishing my early morning time with the Lord.

‘This shouldn’t be happening.’

But it does.

I can’t hold it together. I throw aside my bible and journal. I rush upstairs and get into bed next to my husband. I reach for his hand and I breathe.

Tears are threatening to burst through the gates of my eyelids.

I breathe.

The warmth of his hand grounds me to my reality. The slow deep rises and falls of his chest as he breathes remind me that I am safe.

I breathe.

I lie there in stillness, letting my body catch up with my mind’s slowing pace.

‘I am safe, I am loved, I am okay.’ I whisper to myself.

My husband rolls over and murmurs sleepily, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeh, I think so… I just felt really insecure for a moment.’

‘Pray, ’ he says softly, half asleep before falling back into his deep state. He is known for being able to drop off to sleep very quickly.

I breathe.

My body and mind start to feel like they belong to me again.

I take intentional slow breaths as I feel my body calm and my nervous system steady itself.

In the past, this type of situation would have led to confrontations and early morning arguments as I tried to find reasons for the panic, shamefully, I would often blame my husband for something he was unaware of.

Thankfully, I have grown a little in maturity and understanding.

Praise God.

Now I recognise the other factors at play.

I used to think that my deepest desire was to be ‘good enough’. (No) Thanks to the enneagram, this was something I held tight to for a good few years. Defining myself by this core desire. However, since renouncing the enneagram¹, I realised that my core desire was never perfection or goodness. Nor my core fear ‘brokenness’.

My core desire is the same as all humanity: to be loved.

I can only speak from my own experience, but this ‘feeling loved’ business is way harder than it looks!

I feel like I have a void within me, a space that is always craving for that reassuring love that I have not yet found in a human.

I know that I am ‘loved by God’ and this filling should come from Him, but I feel like a broken jar that cannot ever seem to bottle and drink of that love fully.

I think that the enemy knows this. He is an ancient being, and he (and his minions) have seen my whole life as I have lived it. Though he is not all knowing, a simple watching of my life will show you where there are chinks in my armour, broken parts of my wall; and where with the right prods and points I can walk myself (and my family) down the road of self-destruction.

But the tide is turning.

The story is not yet finished.

I take a deep breath and let go of my husband’s hand. I pick myself up out of bed, walk steadily down the stairs and back to my corner on the sofa. I pick up my prayer journal, and I continue my conversation with the Lord.

Though many of my mornings with the Lord are accompanied by threatening feelings of insecurity and abandonment. I am determined to stay here. Because staying in His shadow is 100% the only way to fight.

Where fear and anxiety used to steal my time with the Lord, bit by bit and day by day, they are losing their power over me. Less and less I am running up the stairs for help with grounding.

Moment by still moment the Lord is healing my heart, my mind and my body.

‘Daughter, your faith has healed you,’ a scripture I have on repeat in my heart when accusation tempts me to despair over the state of my soul.

It is not my work, my introspection, my hours in counselling, or my right choices that heal me, but faith. My faith in Him.

The rest of that verse continues:

‘Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’ Mark 5:34

And courage rises in my soul.

Healing happens, and then there is an instruction to move from there. There is no need to stay in the brokenness, but instead an invitation to go forth in peace and freedom.

It is a daily choice to move from brokenness into peace and freedom, but it is one that I have found makes all the difference.

Though anxiety and insecurity try their ‘good’ work on me, I will not stop reaching for the hem of His garment. I will not stop choosing to believe His words of healing over me. I will not stop moving from brokenness into peace and freedom.

Day by day, moment by still moment.

‘For I am safe, I am loved, and by the power of the Holy One, I am more than okay.’

photo credit: JO

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Anxiety is an old foe, defeated and triumphed over by the cross of Jesus, but still one that like to rear it’s ugly head in my direction every now and then.

I don’t really know why I decided to share such an intimate insight into my mind, but I suspect God wants someone to feel a little less alone.

Healing, peace and freedom are His gifts to us and my prayer for you.

For now we keep moving from brokenness to freedom but there will be a day where all brokenness will be made gloriously new.

Until then …

Love, Anna x

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1. A great article that led me on the journey of letting go of the enneagram. Thanks

Christina Lynn Wallace

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