it’s amnesia, not anxiety
I have a cold. I’m not dying. But because I’m breathing through my mouth instead of my stopped-up nostrils, it feels like I’m dying. I picture my lungs, half-deflated. Surely I can’t be providing enough oxygen to my body through my dried-out mouth? My chest hurts; I’m sure that’s not anxiety, that must be me slowly suffocating to death.
I don’t have a fever. I don’t have a cough. I am sneezing and rubbing my nose raw, and that is about it. But it feels like death because I’m not actually feeling this virus, I’m feeling the one that I’ve envisioned: slowly sucking the air from my lungs, and then, when it’s too late, the life from my body.
If you were to meet me in person, I don’t think I would come across as a dramatic person. I generally feel fairly steady and stable. I don’t cry often, but I don’t laugh often, either. I’m not prone to bouts of raging and I’m not struck with overwhelming joy. But anxiety turns me into someone else entirely, the mom who sends her children to the basement to watch Octonauts while she showers for a long time in scalding water to try to open her dangerously congested sinuses.
It’s easy for me to think that my main problem is that I’m anxious. If only my brain weren’t so quick to panic. If only I could remain calm in what is not actually a stressful situation (it’s only that because I’ve made it so). I’m not the only one who suffers the consequences of anxiety: my family bears the weight. My children are the ones babysat by the screen while I sniff eucalyptus oil. My husband is the one who has to listen and comfort without reciprocation.
And it’s easy to justify being anxious. I’m not only sniffling, I’ve had a bevy of new rashes erupt, right before my first-ever body scrub at the local spa tomorrow (if I even go, which, judging by the state of my nose, is unlikely). And I’m afraid this illness will ruin our weekend plans: a staycation, just the two of us, to make up for the anniversary staycation that was canceled when my husband had to leave the country for work. I’ve put a lot of hope into tomorrow. Hope that I’d have clear skin that could be scrubbed, a nose that could easily smell the wine when we go on a vineyard tour, time that could be spent with my husband instead of my tissue box. This weekend was going to save me. It was going to be fun, romantic, and lifegiving.
I’m anxious because my hopes are set on plans that may change and expectations that might go unmet. I’m anxious because I’ve completely forgotten.
I’ve not simply forgotten one thing. I seem to have forgotten it all. I’ve forgotten who God is—sovereign, good, and loving—and that he has already planned my days. He prepared good works for me to walk in,[1] and maybe that good work is joyfully canceling my body scrub and lounging on the sofa with my husband. Maybe that good work is repenting of my misplaced fear and praising God that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, even with rashes. Maybe that good work is asking my children who we could pray for who currently needs healing, as we thank God that the illness we’re battling is merely a minor inconvenience.
I’ve forgotten what God has done. I’ve been redeemed, and I’m being changed. I’ve forgotten the cross. How else to explain my panic over rashes and runny noses? I’ve forgotten that the biggest problem I’ll ever have has already been solved.
Anxiety keeps me from looking backward to remember the Lord’s work in my life, and it keeps me from looking ahead with hope in his promises. But, mainly, it keeps me from looking up. That’s why anxiety is terrible. Because it twists my gaze inward, and it blurs my memories, and it focuses my attention on all the wrong things.
There are many ways to battle anxiety, but the one I’m using now is memory.
“Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
his miracles and the judgments he uttered,
O offspring of Israel his servant,
children of Jacob, his chosen ones!”[3]
[1] Eph 2:10
[2] Psalm 139:14
[3] 1 Chron 16:12-13
