Guest Blogger: Jessica Pieretti
Anxiety. It seems like such a dirty word these days. Then again, maybe that’s just my interpretation since I know the bottomless black pit where anxiety can take me.
There seems to be such a stigma about anxiety in the church, even though in recent years it has lessened in mainstream society. How could anyone be anxious when there is the comfort of Jesus? The Bible even tells us not to be anxious about anything (see Philippians 4:6). As a pastor’s wife I even get anxiety about telling people I have anxiety. People must think, “Where is her faith?” It has taken me a long time to learn to answer that.
As I studied the resurrection recently, I was comforted. All of the people who first heard about the resurrection didn’t believe what had happened. Jesus had told them it would take place, and they were some of His most faithful followers. Yet during the time of turmoil surrounding His death, they not only forgot what He said but also met the reminder with disbelief.
They were merely humans subjected to overwhelming emotion that blinded them to the reality that Jesus had already told them what would happen. Realistically, shouldn’t they have enjoyed that Sabbath? Why did they prepare the spices and oils when they had already been told that He would be resurrected on the third day?
The story of Jesus’ resurrection is a reminder that there are seasons of life in which we can become overwhelmed by the circumstances that surround us. We lose sight of God’s promises in the midst of the waves crashing into us. We get lost trying to carry on with life as did the women who prepared spices and oils for a body they had already been told would not be there. Where was their faith? Of course they had faith in the Lord, but the emotions of a devastating situation overcame them and they carried on inside their grief.
My faith is in the Lord. My faith is in the fact that “all things work together for good to those who love God,” Romans 8:28, NKJV. I have faith that the Lord Himself understands my anxiety and my pain and knows when I have been overwhelmed by the circumstances around me. I have faith in His placement of a wonderful, God-fearing licensed therapist in my life who understands my faith as well as my anxiety, who recommends daily devotional content that reveals comforting scriptures, and who has taught me coping skills to work through suffocating anxiety attacks. My faith rests in the Lord who sees our struggles — regardless of what they are because we all suffer from our humanity in different ways — and loves us faithfully and consistently no matter what.