Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

My nails are bitten to the quick, my heart is racing , the air is getting thick, the foggy edges of my vision are creeping in. As the breathing gets worse and the vision gets narrower, I can feel the tingling starting. The feel of it starting in my fingertips and toes. PANIC
I come from a long line of anxious people. My Grandfather was agoraphobic, my Dad has worked himself into three attacks that mirrored heart attacks. The worry of the uncontrollable is in my blood. I have been having fainting spells brought on by panic since beginning of high school. Once out of high school for a few years I thought I had beaten it. Yes, I thought it was something if ignored will be miraculously healed. Not by the power of prayer but by my own stubborn will.
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34
I should now mention I have failed miserably.
I crave the stress of a busy schedule, no I crave the need for me when I take on so much. I like being in the thick of things, people depending on me. I crave the attention and appreciation of things I have done well.
My body does not handle stress well. I have seen over the last month or so that the coping skills I tricked myself in to believing I had were mere illusions. Smoke screens covering the fact that my foundation (support) was cracked. Like a fault line the earthquake shakes the core of my life. I am now realizing that I have not left that panic behind as I thought instead I dealing with the aftershocks in full tremors.
In Mark chapter four, Jesus said that, "the worries of this life....come in and choke the word (of God), making it unfruitful."
In the last three years, I have come to see full manifestations of my in ability to cope with stress. I have moved beyond the black out spells of my youth to much more. I have been hospitalized for exhaustion (yes, it's a real term. I thought it was a code word for drug rehab with celebrities but I guess it's real). I have been to a pain clinic for about a year to treat severe TMJ. And have spent the last two and half years working with a dermatologist on Alopecia. I would blame the stress on my job, activities, school. Never did I look to my marriage for cause or support. (telling isn't it, that we are here in this smoldering aftermath)
But it has brought me here. To write about trying to learn to cope, grow, love. Here were so many have gone before us. Pouring out their brokenness for the world to hear and learn. That is where I found Alecia. Actually she found me. God sent! At first I looked at her blog as information on marriage building. But then I read this: Alecia at Marriage Life Ministries wrote this on her blog: "Ian Maclaren exclaims “What does your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it does empty today of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes. God gives us the power to bear all the sorrow of His making, but He does not guarantee to give us strength to bear the burdens of our own making such as worry induces.”
WOW! Powerful isn't it. Sock to the gut. Left me whirling for quiet a while.So I will leave this for you to also ponder through out the day.


~Cassi