DAY 5

“Lord, help my anxious heart”

This was the cry of my heart for a few months last year.  As many of you know, Greg and I walked through a season of loss that felt like we were never going to see the other side.  For two years we prayed for healthy pregnancies, for faith to see life when everything was showing death, for our eyes not to waiver and to put our trust anchor down so that waves of doubt won’t overtake us.  For two years it felt like our prayer was not going to be answered but we kept on.

I remember when I looked at that pregnancy test at the end of July and felt dread and panic over the possibility of another miscarriage and what it was doing to my body and my mind.  Where my eyes were seeing a positive line of life, my heart and my emotions were focused on the death that it has seen after multiple times.  I remember Greg looking at me and saying “this one is it babe, I have a feeling” (which by the way, it was the same faith-filled words he shared with me in every pregnancy) but all my heart felt was an all-too-familiar feeling of “this is fleeting and probably will not last.” If you speak with counselors or therapists, they would agree that all the emotions that I felt were normal.  It was the trauma of the season we were walking in, but I've learned that it should not be the place to lay my tent down and wait in.  

Sometimes fear and anxiety made me feel like I was holding my breath and bracing for something that was going to take my breath away and cause deep pain. In those moments were when I began to seek the Lord and ask Him to help my anxious heart.  I wanted to grab a hold of my heart, to encourage it and remind it that “by day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me” (Psalms 40:8), that His Word invites us to “release all our cares on Him because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:6-7) and to grab on to the Peace he left with us so that our hearts would not be troubled or afraid (John 14:27). 

I wish I could say that every single time I quoted the Word of God my heart settled and grounded itself, I wish I could say that once I declared each verse with authority and conviction my heart never found itself feeling anxious and fearful, I wish I could say that the fear of something not working out has never kept me up at night.  I wish I could say so many things, but I can testify that the Lord met us in each cry.  He held my heart and gave me Peace after I poured out my thoughts and fears.  I believe the Lord has the ability to make all those things go away in second, but I also believe the Lord invites us to work out our salvation daily, to renew our minds daily and seek Him while He is still found which means that we get to walk these moments together with Him and we get to tell our heart and soul to “Hope in God; for we shall again praise him, our salvation and our God.” - Psalms 40:11