When I Am Afraid
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. -Psalm 56:3
Fear—it’s a crippling thing. Actually, if I’m being honest, it’s all-consuming if you pair it with living with an anxiety disorder. I’ve lived with anxiety since I was a child, and there have been seasons where it has been worse and times when it’s not as bad.
And then I became a mother.
If you thought I was anxious before, well, you better believe my anxiety has been worse since I first saw that positive pregnancy test. Anxiety as a mom is debilitating, and fear is right there to feed my anxiety even further.
Anxiety likes to play out all of the worst-case scenarios in my mind and overthink it all. Fear then takes those thoughts and feeds them. Fear is the whispers from Satan telling me God is not faithful and that those scenarios will happen.
Anxiety heightens the senses and turns that “fight-or-flight” feeling up. Fear feeds it and tells my brain that there is in fact a threat and I need to fight to save myself or my family.
Anxiety makes me want to control everything because if I have control, then maybe, just maybe, my anxiety won’t be so bad. Fear tells me that chaos will ensue if I don’t have control.
Anxiety feeds fear, and fear goes right back and feeds anxiety. Hand-in-hand they are. But do you know who has a lot to say about fear?
God.
Hundreds of times in the Bible, God tells us, “Do not fear,” “Fear not,” and “Do not be afraid”. Over and over, He repeats Himself because He knows this world is broken and scary (you don’t have to struggle with anxiety to know that!). Fear first makes its appearance in the third chapter of the Bible, right there after God created everything and named it all good. In Genesis 3, we see Adam and Eve hide from God because (you guessed it) they were afraid. They were afraid because they were naked; they were made aware of their nakedness because they sinned. And ever since their first sin, there’s been more fear added to this fallen world.
Yes, there is a lot to be afraid of in this world. Especially as a mother, there’s no denying that. Between school shootings, kidnappers, bullies, and not being able to control how this culture will influence my kids—yes, there’s plenty to fear as a mom. And yes, my brain sends signals telling me there is something to be afraid of, that’s the reality of living with an anxiety disorder.
However, when fear appears, I remember what God says in Psalm 56:3, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (NIV). Doesn’t mean fear won’t show up because it will. Whether or not you live with an anxiety disorder, fear is a part of this broken world. But what we can take from this verse is that when we are afraid, we can put our trust in Him. Why? Because He is with us wherever we go (Joshua 1:9); His ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9); He will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6); He will comfort us when anxiety shows up (Psalm 94:19); and He wants us to cast our anxiety on Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We can trust Him because He is faithful in all He does (Psalm 33:4).
I’m a mother parenting with an anxiety disorder, but while anxiety may be persistent in my life, fear does not get to have the final say. God does. When fear shows its face, I’ll put my trust in Him.
