You’re Not the Boss of Me: 7 Keys to Managing AnxietySample

Find Beauty in the Brokenness 

My anxiety hit an all-time high about four-and-a-half years ago during a panic attack when I was away from home and really at a loss of how to make it through the darkness of night. I laid in bed and recognized how broken I was. We often use the phrase “I have no words,” but I will say I had one word that night as I lay alone in that hotel. I cried “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” over and over. 

I have pleaded with God to take my suffering and anxiety away from me. I begged Him to heal my broken heart and restore my marriage. But over and over God kept reminding me His grace was sufficient for me. He might not take my suffering away, but His strength would rest on me.

I can relate to Paul when he says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10, NIV). 

As much as I don’t want to revisit those difficult seasons of my life, I also acknowledge the closeness I felt to God during the suffering. I was in such a hopeless situation that I leaned on Him as I never had before, and that closeness was beautiful. 

There are some things about God that can only be learned through suffering. Sometimes I wonder if this is why God refused to take away Paul’s thorn in the flesh. A broken, dependent Paul was a man through whom God could change the world. He was the kind of man who could write and mean words like those he wrote in 2 Corinthians.

If you are walking through the valley of anxiety right now, there is a way out, and I pray you find it. But in the meantime, don’t miss what God may have for you right where you are.

One of the beautiful parts about suffering is that He allows us to take our suffering and use it as a survival guide for others. Our anxieties are never wasted. Our sufferings can be seen as beautiful. His strength is sufficient in our weaknesses.