Anxiety Repellent
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.” -1 Peter 5:5-7
Hi friends and welcome back to the blog! Today I want to talk about a verse that is very personal and close to my heart. So, settle in and let’s get into it.
The world is a very dark place. Everywhere you turn there is lust, greed, guilt, pain, loss, gossip, anxiety, depression. Evil covers humanity. We are distracted from the gravity of how jaded and misled we are because the world gives us endless short-term pleasures. The promises of being rich, famous, popular, or loved sounds so great until it doesn’t fill you up. The world always leaves us with a longing feeling that something is missing. But of course, we suppress that feeling with alcohol, ambition, and Tik Tok.
Heavy on using Tik Tok as a distraction from my problems for me. I’m working on that.
It is very hard to separate yourself from the darkness and follow the light. In college I became very aware of how everyone around me was struggling. No one was truly happy. I always found it interesting how differently we all dealt with our problems. Some would go out, some would go on drives, most of us would keep it bottled inside until it came pouring out.
Personally, I have always struggled with being a perfectionist. While it has helped me achieve many of my goals, which I am thankful for, it comes at a cost. The overwhelming need to please everyone, follow my own dreams, get A’s in all my classes, get a starting spot on the team. Every day, like clockwork around 6 pm, I would feel my chest start to tighten so my breathing would quicken, then I would feel my cheeks flush a deep red, then my heart would start to race. Anxiety inflicted by wanting to control everything around me but not being able to be perfect.
This was debilitating my sophomore year of college. I knew I needed to make a change because this was not going to work. I had gotten baptized that summer, so my solution was to start leaning on God to help. I looked up on Google “Verses that talk about anxiety” and 1 Peter 5:7 was the first one that popped up. Every time I felt these feelings start to come on, I took a deep breath and held it there, and then let it out. Closing my eyes I repeated the verse over and over and expressed my gratitude to God for that day and for that moment. I can’t even express how many hard moments that verse got me through.
I found out recently that the brain cannot experience feelings of anxiety and gratitude at the same time. This is such a gift from God that when we are humbling ourselves before Him in prayer and giving thanks we physically can’t be anxious. That is how gracious and merciful our God is. He truly understands our pain.
I hope you can take away from my experiences the power of memorizing Scripture. It is a tool to get you through whatever you’re going through. Even if you aren’t a Christian and your battling depression, loneliness, grief, body dysmorphia, whatever this world has thrown your way, look up a verse and repeat that when you are feeling hopeless.
1 Peter 5:7 is so special and powerful to me, I recommend putting it in your arsenal to combat the darkness that this world has to offer too.
I love you guys and I hope you enjoyed today’s blog! I’ll be back next Thursday with another entry. Until next time…
XOXO,
Aves
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