Adding pic cause people like pics. This is me and my brother. |
Now for about my anxiety:
It always seems crazy to me that when people speak on worry they always talk about financial worry or food worry or clothes… but seriously I’m just going to be blunt – yes I like clothes and I like to look nice and I like to be able to pay my bills and I like to eat good food but I’m a middle class American (and I’m content to be a middle class American - I do realize a lot of people aren’t and want to get a higher and higher status – but I am.) So I do have nice enough clothes that can make cute enough outfits, I have food, I live within my means and so I can pay my bills… but I still am anxious! BUT ABOUT WHAT? It’s not what the speakers seem to focus on. And then it hits me I am anxious about me. I’m anxious that my best isn’t good enough. That I am going to always let others down not “get it right” the FIRST time. I don’t like learning (because it is often slow and difficult). I like to know things but I don’t like the process of learning – making mistakes having to make corrections, the time it takes. I just want the instant gratification of complete and this anxiety comes out a lot at work.
Here is a pic of an ad I did for work |
Now for a soap box: Brace yourself.
So here is my other thing about talks on worry and anxiety. Everyone seems to quote Matthew 6.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"
They talk about when Jesus talks about feeding the birds and they quote passages that talk about all our needs being taken care of… okay I’m going to take this slow… so let’s process this a little bit.
Jesus constantly talks being thirsty –
but he says to drink from the well of life.
but he says to drink from the well of life.
Jesus tells us to store our treasure in heaven –
because everything here rots away.
Jesus feeds the crowd fish and bread –
not because they are hungry but because he wants them to
listen and not worry about their earthly hunger.
Jesus says – “Is not life more than food,
and the body more than clothes?”
and the body more than clothes?”
… so follow me here…
He then goes on to talk about the basic necessities of life… for birds. okay… BUT he doesn’t EVER EVER EVER talk about the souls of birds. So he then says, “are you not much more valuable than they?” YES we are eternally more important than birds. And Jesus was provided to us with the eternal salvation and redemption that indeed gives us life….so here I go… I am open for being wrong… but I can’t get this out of my head so I am hoping that by attempting to put it on paper I can at least have it said.
This is a well in honor of my friend's baby. They started the ministry Holden Uganda to build clean water wells in Uganda. |
I say you don’t have in this life because
you don’t need it for eternal life.
you don’t need it for eternal life.
Woe to us rich we are so wrong we don’t even know we are wrong! “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:14
End of soap box.
My anxiety is me… and it is selfish. My pressure is manmade and it is sin. My “rights” are not rights promised to me they are sin.
So where does that really leave me in my anxiety? Well I find the majority of my anxiety is at work. I stress about getting projects out on time with limited time to work on them. I stress about my projects being done right the first time (because I really don’t have time to do them twice or three times.) But what matters? I would say that what matters is that I do my best. Do my work unto the Lord and if I do my best and it doesn’t please someone they way they think it should or the way I think it should, I know I have done my best. Now I don’t think this means I ought to work extra hours to accomplish ever task given to me in a day. I think it means 40 hours of work a week are the parameters I am expected and required to fulfill for my job (“So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Matthew 22:21) and in that time I will do my best. I should not put up walls and barriers between me and my co-workers, I should receive them as they are and love them as Christ calls us to love.
Not so easy. Bleh. That will probably be a-whole-nother post.
I like your post. Good thinking going on in your brain/heart... Very encouraging actually, not that I think that it's rare for you :)
ReplyDeleteGot a question for you. If it's too prying, please forgive me for asking...
How do you perceive others when they fail you?
I have a theory that people who truly wrestle with anxiety either fall on 2 extremes with the answer to that question.
They are either 1) VERY critical of others mistakes and shortcomings (this doesn't have to manifest outwardly, it can even never be said out loud)
or
2) WAY too easy on others mistakes, even to the point of reasoning that it's really your (Connie's) fault and not the person who actually made the mistake.
That's a really good question Jono. I truly fall into #1. I am very critical of others mistakes when it relates to me (not so much when it doesn't affect me directly though). This is one reason why I married Phil. He is so compassionate he challenges me to step outside of my selfish judgement and to consider that "everyone is just doing the best they can". I struggle so much with the statement and argue endlessly that they aren't doing the best they can especially when they fail me. I almost always find myself casting un-forgiveness and bitterness toward what I see as people's selfishness when they hurt me. I guess it is one of those things about seeing the log in my own eye first. Selfishness and trying to be perfect is probably my biggest struggle and I can easily see it in others and I take it personally.
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