What an interesting morning for me! I woke up, hardly believing that it was already morning, and began my normal morning routine. While in the shower, for no apparent reason, my heart started raising, pounding in my throat and beating so fast I couldn’t count the heartbeats. It was extremely frightening but it was all too familiar as I had experienced this many times before–an anxiety attack! “Oh no, not now,” I said as I was rapidly rinsing out my hair so I could leave the shower.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with anxiety, so let me explain a couple of things: During an anxiety attack your first thoughts are that you are surely going to drop over dead. Your heart pounds, you feel lightheaded and you’re unsure if it’s anxiety or a heart attack. It’s painful and frightening. Anxiety attacks occur after the body has released adrenaline to handle a stressful situation. That’s the odd occurrence–the attack happens anywhere from a couple of hours to many hours after the stress, not during– so you’re not expecting it.
I stepped out of the shower and started quoting Scripture to calm myself, knowing that’s what needed to be done. “Be anxious for nothing.” (Philippians 4:6) I closed my eyes and concentrating on the Lord I kept repeating it, be anxious for nothing, be anxious for nothing…. Shortly thereafter my heart stopped pounding, I could breathe normally and my whole system calmed down. I could then hear the Lord saying to me, “Be anxious for nothing,” and that brought gentle peace to my heart.
In times of trial when you are stressed out about life situations, keep the words of the Lord in your mind and trust Him to be in those situations. All through the Bible we read how God is in every situation and He truly cares about the outcome…more importantly, He truly cares about us.
Close your eyes, concentrate on the Lord, take a cleansing breath, and be anxious for nothing…for God is in control.
