Okay, ladies. How’s everybody doing? Good. So glad to see you all back.
Some of you all haven’t seen it in a little bit, so I’m glad you all are back. Today, we are going to talk about
anxiety. Here we go. Got to turn that on. Anxiety. Anxiety Anxiety is a word that may be activating you
already. Today, in our current Western culture, the word anxiety comes up a lot when we’re talking about
children and the environment that they’re growing up in. With the proliferation of technology through
handheld media, children are exposed to more and more messages around the globe 24/7. So are we.
I’m not sure when I was born in 1975, if people were talking about anxiety like they are today. But I can
tell you that anxiety has always existed. It isn’t a new problem. And not that it’s a problem, but it has
always existed. And today, we talk about it pretty casually and commonly. So as we unpack how to deal
with it in our home, I wanted to start by just sharing with you that for me, this is a personal thing that I’ve
personally struggled with. I realize as I have explored my childhood that I had a lot of separation anxiety
as a child.
I was constantly fearful of abandonment. I had a fear of death. I had stomach issues constantly. And as I
gained independence, when I got my driver’s license and I could get a job, I traded that separation anxiety
for the anxiety of approval of others. So through my performance, through just always trying to measure
up. And ultimately, I had an underlying fear that was behind all that saying, You’re not as good as you
think you are. You’re going to be exposed. People are going to find out you’re a fraud. You’re just really
not as capable and as smart as they think you are. So that anxiety was beneath my surface. Then I
became a mom, and then my whole world blew up because at some point, what we try to push down and
manage just becomes unmanageable. And I remember it was about a year after Sam, who was my
youngest son, was born, I was reaching into the cupboard. I don’t know why I said cupboard, but the
cabinets to grab a plate. The Lord, just in that moment, revealed to me, Annie, do you see what’s
happening in your life? Every day you’re waking up, anticipating going back to sleep.That’s not healthy. I
think you should talk to somebody about this.
In that moment, the Lord revealed to me a need that I didn’t even know I had. Thank God he did.
Probably it was because of the prayers of others around me, the prayers that I was just petitioning the
Lord, because at that point, I did have faith in God and in Jesus Christ as my savior. I knew that he was
there to help me, to carry me, but I was to a place, medically, in a sense, where I was depressed. My
anxiety had turned to depression. And so today, I We’ll take on this topic from personal experience. The
reality is I’m not a licensed professional counselor. I’m just an investigator. I’m a researcher. I’m a lifelong
learner, seeking to find out what the Bible says and apply it to transforming my life along with medical
science. How does that play in as well? So, I just wanted to make sure we have that disclaimer as I get
started.
So let’s start by looking at the question, what is anxiety? We hear the word a lot. Let’s define it. Anxiety,
interestingly, is a normal…Anxiety is a normal response to stress. It’s an emotion. It’s a thing that happens
in the amygdala of our brain that sends a message that then needs to be decoded and processed.
Anxiety is an emotion, not an illness. We hear about anxiety, and we automatically think of illness,
disorder, et cetera. Anxiety is not an illness. It’s an emotion. And emotions are not good or bad. We can’t
put values on emotions. It’s our response and our reaction through those emotions that we need to look
at. Anxiety, interestingly, also is a secondary emotion. So secondary means there’s a primary, and the
primary emotion that activates, that turns on anxiety is fear. Fear is a response to an immediate threat.
Fear is an emotional response to immediate present danger. It’s usually pretty short and happens in that
moment. Anxiety is birthed from that fear, and it becomes a long term ongoing forecasting of the future.
It’s expectations of what’s to come. So there is a difference. We often, I’m going to interchange the two
words together, but I wanted to point out that there is a difference. Now, fear and anxiety can become a
disorder, and I’m not minimizing that all.
Clearly, from my own story, I’ve struggled with generalized anxiety disorder my whole life. As a child, I had
separation anxiety. Everyone in my circle one and two, if you heard that talk, they have anxiety. It’s
popped up in my home often. And so we have learned how to observe it and respond to and even seek
medical help in it. So I’m not minimizing that. But for today, because not everybody has an anxiety
disorder, but everyone does struggle with anxiety. Today, I want to focus on the normal levels of anxiety
that we face regardless of our neurochemistry.
So what does anxiety do? It activates our fight, flight, or freeze response. It could be good. It informs our
brains of a danger or a perceived threat and prepares us to respond. So think about a toddler, your
toddler, who doesn’t know how to swim, is walking next to the pool, and they’re close to the edge and
they’re about to fall in. Well, mommies, immediately fear activates our body. The blood rushes in, our
heart races, and we run to get them. And that’s good. That’s not bad. That’s a God-given response. Think
about this. Your kid is hanging out over here not paying attention. Another kid’s over here with a big bat,
swinging it. And you’re thinking, Oh, no, he doesn’t see. That bat is coming for his head. You jump in to
intervene. Or your kid is on the driveway learning to ride their bike, headed down the driveway. And you
see because you learn to look, there’s a car coming quickly. You’re going to jump and respond. That
anxiety is good. That fear is good. It helps protect. All of these situations merit the anxiety you’re feeling.
So here’s some other triggers that may not have an immediate threat, but that alarm the anxiety in us. A
deadline at work. If you have a project you got to get done, you might get a little anxious. Every time I
need to teach, I start getting a little anxious. I start thinking, Okay, I got to prepare. My senses get a little
heightened, especially the day before. I’m like, Okay, what do I do? It keeps me going. It’s how I get
things done. It motivates me. That is a good anxiety. Or a trip coming up. I’m actually traveling next week.
So in the back of my head, I’ve been thinking, Okay, what is the weather going to be? What do I need to
pack? Anticipating the future, and it’s causing a little heightened awareness.
But then there are situations like your child’s report card or maybe an email from a teacher about missing
work. If you have any child in middle school or high school, I’m sure that you’ve experienced this. It
completely paralyzes us at the moment. It can activate anxiety in us because, well, well, there’s a lot of
messages we start receiving. Also, the loss of a job or financial insecurity, a stock market crash. Those
could trigger some anxiety. And the last one that we’ll talk about is discovering something like a text
message on your kid’s phone or maybe your husband’s phone. And even now, as I say these things,
some of you are experiencing anxiety because you’ve experienced these things. But let’s look at each
situation and what’s going on here. Remember, anxiety is an emotion, not an illness. Emotions give us
information that we have to sort through and make decisions about. Those grades, that report card, what
happens? Well, we can get the message that there’s no immediate danger. Everyone’s breathing.
Everyone’s okay. But all of a sudden, we might start thinking ahead. Oh, no, they’re not doing well.
They’re going to not do well. They’re not going to succeed. They’re not going to get to the next grade.
They’re not going to graduate. They’re not going to go to college. They’re not going to Get a job. They’re
going to live with me forever. Wow. Where did I go? Right? That’s when anxiety starts to spiral.
Or maybe for your child, honestly, they start to see their grades and they start to feel like, I’m stupid. I’m
not as good as everybody. I’m worthless. Why am I even doing this? I’m a disappointment to my parents.
Well, that kid gets rewarded for their A’s, and I made a B, so I must be a failure. Something as subtle as
that can start to create messages and anxiety in us and in our children. The text messages. Well, that’s a
really hard one. The evidence is in black and white. It’s truth. There is in black and white, something on a
message. Again, you’re safe. Everyone’s breathing. But all of a sudden, the flood of emotion takes over.
Anyone in this situation starts to feel catastrophic, feeling a sense of hopelessness. So I’ve been or
witnessed one of all of these situations. They all warrant fear and anxiety that comes in the moment.
So if anxiety is natural and a normal response, what’s the problem?
So the anxiety we’re going to talk about today, though, is this. The anxiety we’re talking about anticipates
the future and tries to control it. It’s the response of control that we’re talking about today. So let’s dive in.
What’s the problem with anxiety? What does the Bible say? Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs it down.
Weighs it down. What does that mean to weigh down your heart? Well, this is what it means. It says it
bow down. It causes the spirit of your heart to bow low. I thought about the ice storm we had and that ice
that came on the trees, and then the tree branches just bow down. That’s what anxiety is doing. It’s
pushing you down. First of all, anxiety weighs down the heart by pulling it to pits of hopelessness and
fear. Anxiety is a state of hopelessness. Again, anxiety is a state of hopelessness. It leads us into
catastrophic thinking and malays, paralysis, the what ifs. What if, what if, what if. And I could never make
a decision because I’m trying to weigh all the what ifs.
Anxiety distracts and disorders our minds, leaving us unsure of what to hope in. If we’re hopeless, it
means we’re no longer hoping in anything because the object of our hope has just dropped. If that text
messages reveals something in your child or in your marriage, automatically that is a threat and that has
dropped, and now your hope is gone because that was what you were hoping in. You were hoping in your
child to never struggle. You were hoping in your marriage to always have faithfulness and whatnot. That’s
gone. Hopelessness. Anxiety ultimately leads to depression.
Second, anxiety weighs in the heart so our emotions become dysregulated. This is my clinical term for
today, dysregulated. So what does it mean to be dysregulated? Well, let’s look at regulation. Regulation
refers to the ability to manage your emotions. In our church language, we would say your ability to have
self control. Emotional dysregulation is a term that describes an emotional response that is poorly
regulated and does not fall within the traditionally accepted range of emotions. Certain situations, when
your toddler is falling in the pool, you get excited. When you find out someone has betrayed you, you get
excited.
Those things are emotionally good. But when your child gets a “B” on a test and the world crumbles,
that’s a problem. You shouldn’t crumble over a “B”. By the way, bees are really good. And C’s, you know
what? Passing is a victory for some people. So anxiety weighs us down so their emotions become
dysregulated. As moms, we need to teach our children how to regulate their emotions by keeping the big
things. We just need to stay big. And what are those big things? The big things are God and his kingdom,
period. God and his Kingdom are the big things, and we need to keep the little things little. Grades,
performance, achievement, those things are little. We don’t earn favor with God. He descended, he
condescended to this Earth. He humbled himself on a cross. He came to get us. We didn’t earn that. And
we don’t want our children thinking they can earn approval or earn love, earn worth and value. Those
things, as we make God big and keep the little things little, then we learn to help our children and
ourselves regulate our responses to the things that feel big. We have to remember, what we know to be
big and what we feel to be big can often conflict.
And that’s what fear and anxiety do. They send a message to our amygdala that says this feels really big,
which then needs to go to our frontal cortex, our logic center, to say, Sort it out. To pull from the file
cabinet, what do I know to be true? Is this big or is this not big? And this happens very quickly and way
more medically technical. Again, I’m not a licensed professional, but you get what I’m saying. Keep the
big things big and the small things small. And then next. Sorry. There we must learn to teach our children
to respond, not react. Respond, not react. We can’t ignore anxiety. It’s going to worsen over time. It’s
going to worsen over time. Sometimes, honestly, anxiety can misread a situation. Our anxiousness can
miss. Our current reality is informed by our recent past. So if you’ve recently been in a car accident and
you’re in a car taking a left and your accident happened when you were taking a left and you were hit, the
next time you take a left turn, you’re informed by that accident that you just had. And so you might have a
dysregulated response to the left turn.That might feel big, and you might misread the situation. You’re
really safe and everything’s okay, but we need to watch that anxiety.
Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. He says, Don’t worry, don’t fear, don’t be anxious. Cast your cares
on him. Who can add a single hour to his life by worrying? On and on and on. It says, Take your thoughts
captive. Renew your thinking. Your heart is deceitful above all things and beyond here. The Bible is clear,
we will have anxious thoughts, and it will come, and it will try to hijack our peace. Anxiety weighs down
the heart and steals the root of peace, which can lead to instability in the home. And I would say in our
hearts as well. Anxiety will rob us of the peace God intended for us. Now, there are two kinds of peace.
There’s objective and subjective peace. Objective peace is where we have peace in the Middle East,
right? Warring countries come to an agreement to not fight against each other. That’s objective from the
outside. The piece we’re talking about is an internal because what did Christ do for us when he died on
the cross? He tore down the dividing wall, the barriers that separate us from God.
While we were enemies of God, Jesus came and he rescued us and made us we could have friendship
with God, relationship Intimacy, face to face. Our objective hostility with God has now been restored
through Christ. If we have accepted him as our savior, we now have peace in the relationship. But do we
have peace internally? Well, all of us in here recognize that at times we don’t have peace. And does that
mean I don’t have Jesus? Does that mean I don’t have salvation? No. What that means is that I’m in a
battle of the flesh and the spirit. When we become believers in Christ, it says no one can snatch us out of
his hand. We are safe in our salvation. But we will battle the flesh constantly. The spirit versus the flesh.
Anything that is not the object of our affection, that is God in his kingdom, we’ll hijack it. And so the spirit
comes, and like we talked about a couple of weeks ago, we dip into that well from the spirit to fill
ourselves up to pour out. And what comes with the fruit of the spirit? Peace. And by the way, the fruit of
the spirit, fruit is a singular word. There’s one fruit. It has several parts: love, joy, peace, and so on. So if
you have peace, you get it all. And if you don’t have peace, you’re losing it all.
It’s really important to remember that the peace of God comes through spirit who was given to us at the
point of salvation. So what we meditate on and what we’re anxious about becomes the one thing our
hearts turn to, revealing what we’re trusting in or hoping for. So I love this. When the things that we are
focused on is anything but God, the foundation we stand on is sinking sand. Do you all remember the
hymn that says, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the
sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is
sinking sand. I need to go a little or all other ground is sinking sand. Ladies, we’re either standing on the
rock or we’re standing on sand. The problem with anxiety, it is sinking sand. Anxiety is sinking sand.
Because anxiety is hopelessness, and the rock is hope. That’s where we find our hope.
So let’s see if I got through all these slides here. Yeah. Okay. So we’re not talking about avoiding anxiety.
We can’t. We’re talking about learning to deal and respond to it. The Christian life guarantees,
guarantees, ladies, guarantees trouble. So how do we respond? We’re going to look at Philippians 4:4-8
and find the response that God actually commands. This isn’t really an option. He doesn’t say, If you
would like to. He says, Do this. And this is what he says. He says, Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it
again, Rejoice. Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. So what is this? To
rejoice. Joy is the opposite of that hopelessness. Joy is the opposite of hopelessness. Joy is hope in God,
in his promises that he’s going to fulfill what he promised us. Joy is hoping that it’s true. See, at the end, it
says, The Lord is near. What does that mean? We know that he’s near us, but it really means he’s coming
back. Get ready. This was the early church. The first believers knew they were anticipating Christ’s return.
He’s just gone and they’re thinking, Oh, he’s coming back next week. I mean, that’s really where they
were at.
That’s where we need to be back. Now, it was over 2,000 years ago, so we were like, maybe there’ll be
another 2,000. We have no idea. But I can tell you what, in my deep dark places that I’ve gone, the one
thing that has drawn me out, the only thing that has drawn me out is the hope that someday he’s coming
back, that I’m not going to be stuck in this pit forever, that he is coming. The Lord is near. So that’s why
we can rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord. I say it again, rejoice.
Now, that little part about graciousness to everyone. Right before this, he’s talking about two women who
are in an argument. He’s like, Ladies, you all need to get along. Because my church is about joy, and it’s
about hope, and your disagreement is not working. So that graciousness means this. It means gentleness
and a spirit of… I’m going to find it. The spirit of… Let’s see. It’s okay. Anyhow, it’s basically a spirit of
understanding. So he’s saying, Have joy, be understanding with each other because everyone’s watching,
and I’m coming back, so get ready. Have hope. So our point from that is, what’s the right response to
anxiety? And I would say, not necessarily the right, but I would say the biblical response, which I would
also say is the right response, is to rejoice in the hope of Christ in his return. Rejoice in the hope in his
return.
The next part of this verse. So he’s telling us, Rejoice always. That’s how he starts. Get some joy, get
some hope. And then he says, Do not worry or be anxious. He starts with joy, now he works in anxious.
He says, But… He says, Don’t do this, but… He’s implying, Do this. And by the way, this is to a corporate
audience. This letter is to the church. This is to everybody. This isn’t just a one person, just one person in
the room, Rejoice. It’s all of us. And now it’s not just one person in the room, don’t worry, but it’s all of us.
It says, y’all don’t worry. But in everything through prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your
request to God. So take that anything. Don’t be anxious about anything. Julie reminded us about this last
week, not about one single thing.
Don’t be anxious about one single thing. But in every single thing, do what? Pray. Present it to God with
Thanksgiving. Then what’s going to happen? And then when you do that, when you take that anxious
thought, you pour it into prayer, the result is peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. You’re not
going to understand it. You’re like, How did that happen? I don’t understand. Well, good, because that’s
what God promises. It will surpass all understanding, and it will guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus. I love this part about guarding your heart. I was thinking about this. Peace is like the amygdala of
our brain. It receives our anxious thoughts in prayer. It takes it. It becomes the processing center. If we’re
processing with God’s peace, then it goes to our thinking brain, and then through Christ, it gives us the
message. Peace is the amygdala of our brain. We get that peace through prayer, and we go to prayer
through that anxiety. So anxious thoughts should trigger prayer conversations. Turn our anxious thoughts
into prayer conversations that should lead to peace. They should lead to peace. Peace is single-minded.
It is to the glory of God alone.
Now, the interesting thing is in this prayer, again, it’s with thanksgiving. What does that mean? It means
you start with gratitude. We start with, God, I’m anxious. I’m coming to you, and I’m really grateful, God,
that you love me so much that you’re going to answer this according to your good will for me. I’m not
coming to you expecting a specific result in a plan. I’m just trusting you. Thank you that I can trust you. I
am anxious, Lord, and this is what I’m anxious about. I’m giving it to you. If we come to God with an
approach with pride, demanding a specific outcome, let me just tell you from experience, God will just wait
on that. He’ll be like, You can hold on, Annie. You need to just get your heart back. Philippians 2, Have the
same attitude as Christ who did what? Laid down his life, did not consider equality with God something to
be grasped, but humbled himself. He’s like, You need to go back to Philippians 2, and then you can come
back to Philippians 4. Get your attitude. It says, The attitude we’re to have cannot be protest, then
demand our agenda to be accepted. We don’t go to God in protest.
Now, we can go to God upset and activated, and we can be emotional with God. He loves that. He’s like,
Bring it, because that means we’re coming to him face to face in intimacy. But we go with thanksgiving.
God, thank you that I can come to you and meet you. Thank you that you’re going to help me regulate
these emotions through the amygdala of peace in my brain. Thank you, Lord. We’re going to go in prayer
with thanksgiving.
Next. This is the last part. Philippians is the letter he wrote to the church, and this is towards the end. He
says, Finally. Okay, it’s like when you leave home, maybe you’re going on a trip, it’s the last thing you’re
telling your husband. Like, Okay, finally, just remember this. Remember this. Maybe you forgot everything
else. He says, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, any moral
excellence, anything praiseworthy, dwell on those things.” He gave a big list. I’m glad that at the end, he
just said, If there’s anything praiseworthy, because that’s the only part of that verse I can remember.
Maybe I should challenge my brain that, If anything is praiseworthy, dwell on those things.
Dwell. Let’s see. Dwell on whatever is true and praiseworthy. That’s my summary of that verse. True and
praiseworthy. True and praiseworthy. What does it mean to dwell? It means to think about. To think and
think and think and think and keep thinking and keep thinking and keep talking about it. It means to
calculate, to consider. This word in the Greek deals with reality. This word was used like in a bank
account. You look at the balance, it says you got $25. Well, how much money do you have? $25. If you go
to the store and try to spend $50, well, that’s just not reality. Though you want it to be, it’s not. This word
deals with reality, facts. It’s not suppositions. Again, there is no room for the what ifs. There is only room
for the I am, who even if the worst thing happens, he is still I am. “What if” needs to turn upside down to
the “even if”. And there’s a story in the Bible with Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. They won’t bow to
Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. He says, Well, into the fire with you. And they said, Okay, we’re going. And
they’re like, And even if God doesn’t save us, he’s still God.
Even if I don’t get the results, he’s still going to be God. Talk about anxiety, getting thrown in a fire. That
would require a lot of faith and praying. Sand activates anxiety. Sand is the temporary things of this world.
Eternal perspective, kingdom perspective, produces eternal joy, peace, calm. We know that anxiety, it
really is physical at times. There’s just this murmur in our hearts, in our bodies, the claminess, just the
excitement we feel, the tension, the quick-temperedness we get because we’re short-tempered. Peace is
truly a calming physical thing that can occur when we focus on the blessed controller of all things. The big
idea is at the top of your page. Strong families dwell on the God of peace. We don’t just dwell on the
peace of God, we dwell on the God of peace. He is God. There’s only one God, the true God. And he’s a
God of peace, he’s a God of love. He’s a God of joy. He’s a God of faithfulness, righteousness. He is the
God of self control. He’s the God of our amygdala. He’s the God of our minds. And here’s my warning.
The warning is that anxious homes are trusting in sandy soil.
I think it’s a good check. When you feel anxious, just go do a soil check. What am I thinking about? Is this
eternal? Is this temporary? Is this sandy or is this firm rock? Let the peace transform. And when that
happens, and let me just say, I’ve joked with our teaching team about this, about teaching anxiety. I’m like,
I’m never doing this again. Talk about an anxious week. I didn’t realize how anxious I was until I started
meditating on it. But even the smallest thing, I had a conversation on the phone yesterday, and it went
wrong, and I started getting anxious. I start thinking about it. I was like, I’m anxious, Lord. I’m just giving it
to you. Even the smallest things, I’ve discovered something with one of my kids. Anxious fear,
catastrophize. No, it’s yours, God. I’m not in control. I’m not in control. I’m responsible for me, to him. It’s
all good, right? Just capture those sandy thoughts. Turn them into rock solid thoughts. So the
encouragement is that anxious homes can find peace by turning to the rock. Ladies, you’re going to be
anxious. Sand is going to come in, right? If you’ve ever been to the beach, it is very invasive, especially
when you have little ones.
They’re just a mess. I mean, you just want to hose them down and just throw away everything. So sand is
invasive. We gotta get it out. We got to put them on the rock. And that’s It’s been interesting because
when you want to wash sand off, you want to get on the concrete. You want to get on a space where you
can push it away. We got to get on that rock. So what can you do? So what’s practical? Well, the word of
God is super practical, by the way. It is practical, but how do we apply this? So there’s a couple of things.
What we need to do in our homes is that we need to recognize anxiety in the home. We need to
recognize it. We need to name what it is. We can’t ignore it. We need to… And one way to notice it, just a
couple of practical things, and I’m not going to get deep into this, but ways to notice anxiety in your kids,
you look for changes in behavior, decrease motivation, maybe physical complaints constantly, stomach
aches, headaches, academic struggles, social isolation, things they used to enjoy, they stop enjoying.
Changes in eating habits. It’s a big issue with girls with eating disorders now. Body image, body
dysmorphia… I can’t remember the word. Anyhow, eating disorders. We need to recognize. We need to
pay attention. Be alert. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be catastrophic.
But even the smallest changes are real. And we want to attend to those in our children quickly so that we
can help them learn to regulate their emotions and be healthy, wise, balanced adults someday. It’s very
important that you don’t mirror your child’s anxiety back to them. If your kid comes to you all crazy and
upset, don’t get all crazy and upset back. I was so reactionary as a mom, I’m confessing now. My kids all
of a sudden would just snap. I mean, it was the worst thing I could have done. Where was my smart brain
back then? I don’t know. I would just react back to them. That’s so childish. We are adult women. We are
mature, and we can be the adult in the room. Stay the adult. Don’t mirror it. Maintain your boundaries as
well. It’s so hard. We’ve talked about that codependency a little bit, just feeding off of other people’s
issues.
We’re on to set the boundary. Here’s me. There’s you. I’m okay. You’re not okay. Would you like some
help? Oh, okay, that’s fine. Say the boundary. But recognize anxiety. Model to your children, even share
with them. Mommy’s anxious right now. I’m recognizing, I’m thinking about this, but you know what God
says is true? And talk about that, because that will really bring freedom. It’ll bring a conversation 15 years
down the road that you never anticipated because you laid that foundation, that rock. Now, I’ve not only
navigated this personally, but each of my children has as well. And their stories are their stories to tell, so
I’m not going to broadcast it to the world. But I did ask them, I said, Guess what I’m talking about? Anxiety
in the home. And they all laughed. And I said, I guess I’ve got some practice at this as I looked at the
calendar and we’ve got some counseling appointments, psychiatrist appointments, all on the calendar. I
was like, I guess, Lord, you’ve been equipping me to talk about this. The reality is, at first, when it
appeared in each of my kids, it felt so big. I was like, get out of my way.
You need to help my kid. Why isn’t… I got big because my emotions were big. But what I needed to do
was really turn to the big God and say, God, you’ve got this This is not a surprise to you. He is surprised
by nothing. He’s not even surprised by the way I reacted. But when it comes, it does feel big. But just
know they are trusted…Make sure you have support around you. Trusted people, your mentors, friends,
trusted people that you can turn to to help you navigate those struggles. Our verse at the beginning. Oh,
and then this, Model with prayer. This is my big one for you all. I have this on your sheet, Model with
Prayer. That verse in Philippians tells us to pray to the God of peace. We pray to the God of peace. It’s on
the far back. Present your problems to him. Present your request. Place down your anxious thoughts. Put
them down, ladies. Everybody, put your hands out. You take it, you present it, and what do you do? Come
on, put it down. Everybody, put your hands out. Put it down. Put it at the cross, place it down, and then
pick up the peace.
Again, pour in. Let the spirit come in and the peace come in. As we lay down anxiety, we leave room for
peace. When we’re filled with peace, there’s no room for anxiety. It’s not both at the same time. And they
can’t coexist. You know what can coexist, though, is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness
and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self control. So that’s why I want to leave you with this
last verse. Though anxiety in a person’s heart weighs him down, an encouraging word brings him joy.
I hope this word today has encouraged you and brings you joy. Prayer beats anxiety.
Let’s pray. God, we’re just so thankful that you are not surprised by one single thing that happens. Though
we are excited about things that happen, they feel big and they feel overwhelming, we thank you that your
peace passes our understanding. God, remind us of Philippians 4:6-7. Help us to meditate on those
verses day and night. Help us to remember that. Help us to take our problems, put them at your cross, lay
them down, and pick up your peace. God, help these moms whatever is ahead for them.
God, we know you’re always preparing us for the trials ahead. God, help them to remember, your word is
true. May your peace be the amygdala of their brain. Guard their minds, guard their hearts. God, help
them to pass this on to their children so that your kingdom can.