Dear Anxious Heart

Dear Anxious Heart,

This isn't your fault.

Hold up, don't stop listening to me.

I know you. I know what you're thinking because I've been hearing all the things you've said to yourself for the past ten years. It's that verse in the Bible, isn't it? The one where you're supposed to hold every thought captive? You're beating yourself over the head because killing those pesky little thoughts is what you're supposed to be doing. You're not supposed to have a million worries tearing you to pieces day in and day out.

Oh, you know really well what you're supposed to be doing. You've rehearsed it: Don't worry. Have you looked at the birds lately? Do they worry? Does worrying change anything? What about the verse where perfect love casts out fear? Yeah, I'm guessing you must not have much love inside, right? Then there's the practical side: Anxiety kills sleep, kills joy, physically kills (you know anxiety can help cause severe medical problems? Mom wonders some days if anxiety was part of the cause of her heart attack, but let's not think about that. It makes us anxious). It kills hope. And friendship. And let's not start talking about your future.

I've heard your 'mature' side going to war against those anxious thoughts. Mature side? No, it isn't your mature side. I've heard its cutthroat threats. Its screams: You should know better than this. If you loved God, you'd just do what you need to do, what you're called to do. Get over yourself. You're so selfish and self-conscious. You're a people-pleaser. You are not capable of doing anything. You can't even go into Walmart without putting on army as if you're going to war. Good grief, it's just a store! You hide behind some sacrificial garb to avoid facing your life. Oh, and you don't have any self-confidence (is that really surprising?). You love yourself more than Jesus. You'd rather be safe and warm in your little ball of a comfort zone than follow Him. You're a coward.

Oh, Anxious Heart! You're not a coward. You are courageous, and you are a warrior. Even when alarms are screaming, and they all scream the same, you still get up in the morning, and you try. You give life a go. You're bloody and bruised, but you haven't succumbed to hopelessness. You haven't given up. You think anxiousness is a part of your heart, a flaw in your character, but it isn't! It isn't you, even as it tries to swallow you up and forces you to believe all these lies. You're just a child hidden away in a closet of a house with bolted doors and windows. There's a knock at the door, but in your dark closet you cannot see if it's an enemy who will trespass or a friend. All those resounding knocks carry through the house the same - as alarms. That is anxiety.

But Jesus doesn't despise you, heart that's a little anxious. He knows you, and He knows the battles you fight every day. He doesn't ever, ever, ever despise you.

And sometimes it's not even your fault - these anxious thoughts. These moments of rapid heartbeat where you can't hardly breath, and everything is too much, and something has to change. Sometimes the seeds of anxiety were planted long before you had the Holy Spirit inside to help you ward them off.

Oh, heart that's anxious, what an unfair world we live in where small, hardly memorable, 'let's just brush them off' moments have scarred. Moments when bigger hands and bigger arms were supposed to protect you because you didn't know how to protect yourself. Moments when 'you just have to grow a thicker skin' created a current of consequential actions you didn't even know were anything but an aspect of your personality.

Dear (for the moment) Anxious Heart, remember these things: You are not anxiety. Don't rip yourself apart because you know this is not the way God wants you to live and you think it's all your fault. Don't hold a pity party. These plants might have grown up when you were young, but you fight against them, and you must continue to fight. Your weaknesses don't have to separate you from God. Surrender to His mercy. He waits just beyond the wall of your own strength to reach out and grasp you. He will be your safety, the house where your closet is hidden (and He'll know just who's at the door).

Dear heart, if you see yourself as broken, it's just because we all are. Only our cracks are in different places.