Anxiety

Anxiety. The bane of my life. I wake up every single morning with it. It hangs around my neck like a very unwanted wool scarf on a hot, hot, day. It weighs my heart down, makes me a little sick to my stomach, and makes my head swim. I'm usually overwhelmed with it before my eyes open in the morning. It has been this way as long as I can remember. 

I believe I had anxiety in the womb. It never occurred to me that babies could have emotion in the womb, until I read Michelle Pillar's book Untangled, which detailed the things she felt in her unborn state. Depression being one of those things. After I read the book, I realized that of course unborn babies could feel emotion in the womb, just as surely as they feel it on the outside. They are no different than babies that have been delivered. But I digress. I say all that only to say that if preborn children can feel depression and anxiety, I surely felt it. 

I wasn't aware of my anxious state as a child. It was just the way I was. I had never felt anything different. I just knew it as a muddled confusion I felt in my belly. A tenseness that never went away. I was a high strung child, born into a dysfunctional family where violence, drugs and abuse were daily occurrences. I was easily upset, easily frustrated, and easily hurt. By the time I was ten years old I was a walking wounded little girl, with a boatload of baggage. 

And then something happened. 

My Auntie got saved. It was the late seventies, and the Jesus movement was just about to start wrapping up. I don't know exactly how it happened for her, whether it was a friend leading her to Christ, or she had an encounter with Jesus on her own. I just know that suddenly things were different with her, and that her house was the place to be. My sisters and I began to spend a lot of time with her. I just welcomed the chance to get away from the oppression in my own house. 

One day she began to talk to me about asking Jesus into my heart. I didn't really know what it meant, but I was open to praying with her. So we knelt down on the orange shag carpet, in front of the bright yellow shiny, vinyl couch, and she led me in a very simple sinner's prayer. I don't really remember what was said, I just followed her words. 

I would like to say that I jumped up a new and happy ten year old, but that just wasn't the case. The anxiety still followed me around like a monkey on my back. Things were still bad at home, and though I didn't know it then that would never change. In fact things would get much, much worse. However, a year or so later, I began to think about that prayer. I had heard a preacher (Brother T.C. Carroll, from the Dewey Ave. Baptist Church) talk about Heaven. I had been angry with his sermon. From all accounts, it seemed like I would not be a candidate for Heaven. I had become a hell raiser in the past year. Misbehaving in school, failing classes, mean to my sisters, fighting in the school yard. My parents didn't know what to do with me. So, listening to the preacher, I knew I was ineligible. He called it sin. He said unless I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life, I wouldn't go to Heaven. I didn't like that. 

So, laying on my floor bed at yet another night at my Auntie's house, I stared into the darkness and thought about all that. And fumed at Brother T.C. 

And then I remembered that prayer she and I had prayed. And I felt hope. Could it be...My heart beat a little faster. I called her name. Auntie? "Yes" she replied. Am I saved? Thinking of that night we had prayed. Do you believe you are? She replied again. I thought for a second. And then a firm YES! 

And I did believe it. I believed Jesus was real. I believed I was saved. I believed he had died to save me. ME! And with that, for the very first time in my entire life, I felt a rush of peace, and all the anxiety fled away. I fell asleep. It amazes me that until that very instant, I had no idea I had been ill with anxiety my whole life. It took that absence of anxiety to make me realize that there was something different to be found, something better. 

When I grew up, I departed from my childhood faith for a time. Sadly, it wasn't long before I was a mess. My life was a dump. I got fired from my job. I was behaving like I had no morals. There was lots of drama. So. Much. Drama. I became a lowlife. I was miserable and ashamed. I had known something better. I knew what I was missing, which made it worse. After a couple of years, I had a literal "Come to Jesus" talk with myself. I sat on the floor of my bedroom, and cried until I was sick. I hated myself. I hated what I stood for. I wanted change. And I knew where to find it. I called out to Jesus, and like a snap of the fingers, He was there. Everything changed. Not that I didn't make mistakes. I made lots of those. It's not like the anxiety got any easier, once I was married, with bills, responsibilities, and children. It became more like a vice around my neck than an uncomfortable wool scarf.  It became absolutely necessary to find the Lord as soon as my eyes were open in the morning. Without that my day was lost. I couldn't function. The anxiety actually became the driving point that ran me into the arms of Jesus. 

And again and again, the ongoing story of my life, really, He brings the peace. The anxiety abates. He answers my prayers. In these last couple of years we have had some catastrophes. We almost lost the house when the Mr. got sick. I sat in the back yard and thought about all that the Lord had brought us through in the last ten years. Multiple unemployment episodes. We had been on the verge of losing the house several times before. Time and again He had saved us. So why was I worrying now? Why the anxiety? I was suddenly overwhelmed with the belief that He would bring us through again. I even told my best friend You are about to see a bona fide miracle. Either God will move us to another home or He will miraculously pay the past due mortgage, which was almost four thousand dollars at that time. 

Fast forward about three months. We had been able to make the monthly payments since my backyard epiphany, (a miracle in itself, considering the Mr. hadn't worked since May) but had been able to do nothing about the 3 months past due amount.

At this time we were in Houston. The Mr. had become much sicker. He was in the hospital. They were doing all kinds of tests to see if he was able to withstand a liver transplant. 

I was despondent. He was in ICU. I was in the hotel, laying in bed, watching My 600 Pound Life on a Sunday morning. I had been there, feeling sorry for myself, for three days. He called me from his hospital bed. Look in our account he said. WHY. said I. Just do it. He replied. 

I opened up the webpage. My eyes popped out of my head. I think I gasped. There was a TWELVE. THOUSAND. DOLLAR. deposit in our account. HOW? WHY? WHA? I was babbling. He said The VA paid us backpay since last May (This was the end of November). They gave me a 100 percent disability rating. I'm pretty sure, on the other side of the phone, he must have been smiling. I know I was! 

So I called the mortgage people the next day. I would like to make a payment, catch up, as a matter of fact, pay the whole overdue amount, and also I would like to know, when was foreclosure going to start on my house? 

She pauses. 

Tomorrow. 

Another gasp. 

As if that wasn't enough. A few weeks later the docs decide that the Mr. is able to have the surgery. The only problem is, it could take five hours, or five years to get a liver. You just never know. Or he could get offered a liver and be too sick by then to receive it 

And then...a true miracle. 

He got on the list on a Wednesday. The day before Thanksgiving. They told us not to go far, just in case the call came. We went to Dallas, and then hightailed it right back the morning after Thanksgiving. We were lounging in the hotel, again a Sunday. 

The phone rang. He answered. He sat up in bed. It was the nurse and a liver had become available. Could we come to the hospital right away? 

You could have heard a pin drop. 

And then flurrying and hurrying. 

They gave him the official transplant paperwork, welcoming him to the transplant list in the ICU. 

After the transplant. 

THAT is the God we serve. 

I think about all this when the anxiety overwhelms. And I can't tell you how much I am comforted. He really does love us. And by "us" I don't mean Me and the Mr. I mean US. You included.