When Anxiety and Fear Press In
June 20th, 2022 • by Hope Blanton and Chris Gordon
The call came on a Thursday morning. It was after the third juice cup for the three-year-old but before the 6-month-old woke up from her morning nap. “We need to redo your pap smear. We saw some anomalies. Could you come in next week?” A tightness immediately rose in Hannah’s chest. “Sure,” she answered.
They told her it was routine, that anomalies were usually nothing to worry about. She had even had friends who had gotten this very call. But for the rest of the morning the chatter of her toddler was drowned out by the buzz of anxiety in her head. She imagined chemo treatments, a hysterectomy instead of the one or two more babies she’d hoped for, radiation, time away from her children. As she prepared lunch for her daughter new fears hit her.
Isn’t chemo poisonous?
Will I lose my hair?
Will I be able to hold my child as I’m going through it?
When she finally got both kids down for their afternoon nap, she sunk into the couch, hot tears falling onto her cheeks
Jesus Knows What We Need
Hannah did what many of us do in response to a present stressful situation; she imagined the worst-case scenario. She took what was true in the present and multiplied, assumed, and envisioned the future.
Jesus knows our hearts and our tendency to do this, so he gave us some practical words about anxiety in Matthew 6:34: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
What words came before this? Jesus had just spent nine verses talking about how God knows exactly what we need and provides those very things. Our anxieties—including the way our brain processes them and how our body reacts—are not mysteries to him. God has intimate knowledge of our impulse to play out every bad possibility. And so he gives us these golden words about keeping ourselves from worrying about tomorrow.
But how do we do that? How do we slow down something that for most of us happens automatically?
“Every geographical space, every hour, every year, every situation, God will be with you. God has promised his presence. ”
Check the Date
First, we must recognize when we’ve moved out of the present. Often the first clue is some sort of bodily sensation—a heaviness or tightness in the chest, or nausea.
Stop and ask yourself:
“Am I thinking about the facts as I have them today, or am I projecting and imagining what the facts of today will mean for tomorrow?
Am I thinking about something that is true right now? (I had an abnormal pap smear.)
Or am I anticipating all of the bad things that this might mean in the future? (I have uterine cancer and may lose my life.)
Am I having a hard time concentrating on the person or work that is right in front of me because I have mentally moved beyond today and into next month or next year?”
Jesus tells us not to let our minds wander into tomorrow. Future thoughts of hardship only bring anxiety. Of course we make plans and responsibly prepare for imminent needs, but the first step in obeying Jesus’s command to “not be anxious about tomorrow” is to recognize when we’re already there.
Stay in Today
The second thing we must learn to do is stay in the present and deal with reality. As Jesus says, this day has enough trouble of its own. Imagining all the worst-case scenarios is like entering a fear amusement park. One fact or event offers us entry into this terrible park in our minds and suddenly we find ourselves getting onto multiple rides, playing out terrible stories, using our imaginations to create terrifying futures for ourselves that have nothing to do with reality.
I caught my 12-year old smoking a cigarette. Will he be doing drugs by age 18? Will he even graduate from high school? I had such high hopes for him. Will he get arrested? He’ll probably start selling marijuana in high school.
My boss gave me a strange look when I made that comment in the staff meeting yesterday. Is she frustrated with my work? Maybe I’m already on her short list to fire. Will I have to go back to looking for a job again and not be able to pay rent?
See if you can separate the facts in the two scenarios above from the negative forecasting connected to them. In Matthew 6:34 Jesus essentially says, “Don’t forecast; don’t get on that fear ride. Your body and mind are designed to live in a 24-hour period. There will be anxieties tomorrow, yes. But you do not know what they will be. You’ve only imagined the worst possibilities and made guesses about a future that you cannot see.”
Stay in reality. Stay in today.
“What if we used our imagination to visualize what God has said is true in his Word? ”
Expect Jesus to be in Your Future
God has promised to be with us every moment. When Joshua was positioned to enter the promised land—a place that was surely filled with anxiety and lent itself to all kinds of negative forecasting, (“There are giants in the land, the cities are all fortified!”)—the Lord himself said to him, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
Every geographical space, every hour, every year, every situation, God will be with you. God has promised his presence. What he has not promised is to comfort you in scenarios you’ve created in your head. Jesus is a present help in reality. If that is true today, we can bank on the fact that it will be true 12 minutes, 12 hours, 12 days, 12 months, and 12 years from now.
Practice Redemptive Imagination
What if, instead of torturing ourselves by getting on every fear ride and daydreaming about all the bad things that might result from our current reality, we used our imagination to visualize what God has said is true in his Word? Jesus is present with us, and he loves us. What if we imagined him lovingly sitting with us in our kitchen as we struggle to manage three active children, holding us on the couch as we walk through the disappointment of another argument with our husband, comforting us with his kindness when we get the scary phone call? Jesus’ love for us is what is real, not the stories we spin in our fear. What if we daydreamed about that?
As we struggle against our anxieties, we can look to the One who made our neurons and every inch of us. He knows how to lead us to flourishing. And in the midst of our struggle, we can follow his words to freedom.
Hope A. Blanton, LCSW, is wife to Ray and mother of three. She earned her master’s in clinical social work at Temple University. Currently she works as a counselor in San Antonio. She loves good food, making people laugh, and being outside.
Christine B. Gordon, MATS, is wife to Michael and mother of three. She is the co-founder of At His Feet Studies and a visiting instructor at Covenant Theological Seminary. She loves to walk, make music with other people, and share bad puns with her family.
You can find Hope and Christine at their website and follow them on Instagram.
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