Finding Peace in the Midst of an Anxious World

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Betsy Childs Howard: Welcome, we’re so glad you’re here. This is steadfast hope in an anxious world. And we are grateful that this breakout session is sponsored by covenant college. their generous support makes this session possible. And you can learn more about covenant college by visiting them [email protected] And I am very happy to be here with these wonderful ladies. And we’re going to each introduce ourselves before we start talking about fear and anxiety. So we will each tell you a little bit about ourselves very brief, and also what our history with this subject has been like. So I’ll start my name is Betsy childs, Howard. I am I live in New York City, my husband is a church planter there and I have one baby son. And I’ve dealt with normal types of anxiety my whole life, I grew up in a Christian home, you know, there have been plenty of times that I’ve been anxious and had to rely on the promises of God. There have also been a few times in my life where I’ve had what I would call clinical anxiety, where my body was really affected, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. And medication has been really helpful to me in that struggle. So I’ve dealt with both sides of it. And we’ll talk more about that. But that’s a little bit about me and my history. So Suzanne, tell us about you.

Suzanne Bates
Yeah, hello, everybody. I’m Suzanne. And I would have to say that for me, anxiety in my life has been something that I haven’t dealt with as directly on a regular day to day. But I have dealt with when I’ve traveled in terms of having a panic attack on a flight. Before I get to that, though, I’ll tell you who I am with. Where do I work, covenant Theological Seminary, I am the Assistant Professor of counseling there, now you’re going to wonder about me. And that’s okay. And you know, I, I’ve been there now for probably about 10 years doing adjunct teaching associate dean and now full time professor. I’m also on staff at my church as the staff counselor, and take great delight in being able to meet with men and women and families around issues. So I’ve had a lot of clients over my years that have struggled with anxiety, and have come in for various reasons to want to learn how to manage that in their lives, whether they been clinically diagnosed and on medication. And or not, I did have an experience on a plane and I will tell you quickly, about when I was traveling to Kenya one year for a missionary trip and the plane was delayed in terms of letting passengers off after an eight hour flight, and then we had to catch another eight hour flight playing. And when we did that, there was no layover time to like breathe and get air in the airport. And so I got on the second flight, and I was great for about six hours and into that last two hours, I had what I would classify as my very first extreme panic attack. And maybe I’ll share a little bit more about that with you later and, and how I knew that that was happening, and then how I responded to it.

Courtney Reissig
I’m Courtney rasik. And I am married to Daniel, I live in the Rock, Arkansas and the mom of four boys. And I have dealt with anxiety, kind of like like Betsy was talking about I’ve dealt with it and just like generalized anxiety over life, but particularly our family and then myself have dealt with a number of health issues that has contributed to a lot of anxiety and fear. And so and also dealt with postpartum depression and anxiety. And so I was on medication after one of my sons was born. And so I’ve dealt with it in a variety of circumstances. But yeah,

Kristin Wetherell
My name is Kristin, I’m married to Brad who is a pastor and I have three and a half year old girl and a one year old baby boy. I’m a writer and my experience with anxiety has might say what I would say primarily come in the form of personality based anxiety, I’m very type A tend to really struggle with perfectionism and wanting things to be just so wanting to be in control. So my whole life, I have grown anxious about circumstances and had to learn to trust God in them. But more recently, it’s caught me off guard because we my family just had a season of many changes change upon change from a new baby to a new pastoral position, a new church campus and a new house. And it was a lot and before I knew it, the room would start spinning and my heart was palpitating, and I couldn’t breathe, and I was like What is going on? So I think I was experiencing a different kind I ended up anxiety where, you know, the source wasn’t so clear, it was just coming on and hitting me like a brick wall. And so in the last year, that’s been a great challenge for me, as well as navigating some of the anxiety that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Betsy Childs Howard
So before we start our discussion, just to kind of help people see how many different types of fear and anxiety There are even in this room. And with those of you watching online, we want to do something and you don’t have to do this if you’re not comfortable with it. So don’t feel guilty if you don’t want to raise your hand, but I’m just going to call out some different categories of anxiety. And if you’ve dealt with this, and are comfortable, raise your hand if it fits you. And there may be more than one category. And even if you’re home, watching online, please do this with us just to help yourself. Think through your history and what ways these apply to you. So I’ll just call out some different things and raise your hand if you’ve ever had a panic attack. If you have fear of public speaking, if you’ve had postpartum anxiety or depression, if you’ve had free floating anxiety, fear of being alone. obsessive thoughts? Fear of what people think. Probably everybody’s anxiety following a trauma. So those are certainly not the only types. But those are some different types that can be really distressing. And we, they’re also not all the we don’t deal with them all in the same way in terms of how to cope with those. So before we talk about how to cope, Suzanne said she is our professional on the panel is going to give us some definitions for what is fear? What is anxiety? What is clinical anxiety?

Suzanne Bates
Okay, good. Well, it is really helpful to see the different types of anxiety with which many of you have suffered and struggled. And what I want to say to you first about that is this is not something to feel shame about. You can see how many women around you raised your hands and those of you at home, we know too, that you’re struggling with some women’s anxiety, and actually with COVID, and all of the events and the circumstances of our nation. Honestly, most people are dealing with that if it’s not anxiety, it could be depression, extreme sadness, extreme grief. So really, you’re not alone in what you’re having as an experience, emotionally around events and circumstances of today. So I really want to normalize that for you, and have you not leave feeling as if this is something that is wrong with you. And not to think of it that way. It’s something that is happening to you or within you. But it’s not wrong with you. I also want to say that anxiety does not define you. In other words, you know, we use terms like my anxiety or my cancer or my this or that, I try not to say them my part just because it’s that sense of owning it as part of my being. Even though anxiety may be something that you deal with on a regular basis in your life. It does not define you it is not the only thing about your existence, even when it may feel all consuming. And there are times that you may have that experience in anxiety. So when you’re looking at anxiety, if you were to say, How do I know that I wrestle with anxiety? How do I know that I wrestle with it on a clinical level? How do I know that it’s not just drinkable, if you’ve ever taken a test, you’ve had anxiety about that, I can say to you, I haven’t dealt with anxiety on the regular day to day but I every single semester when I was working on my master’s, every single semester, after the first class when I would get all the information of everything that I needed to learn and to do all the papers I had to write, I would get anxious, I would have anxious thoughts and think there is no way that I can do this. And I would start thinking about how I couldn’t think enough to even be able to do the work. That’s a general kind of anxiety that can happen when you have circumstances that come in. There’s anxiety about a sitting up here on a panel with you. I mean, it’s you may think it’s maybe it’s pretty simple to do, but there’s a lot of anxiety that comes with it. And what we’re going to say there’s an anxiety if you’re going to go on an interview for a new job and you’re thinking oh, I want it to go well. These are things that are typical and natural experiences and they can be good. They can be good because what it does is it prepares your heart to get ready to do the best that you can do. So you’re going to be thinking about beings, you may be going to go over your notes a little more, you’re going to talk to other people. That can give you information. So that is a form of anxiety that can be very healthy. Because it can produce a new a fruit that helps you accomplish the task that perhaps you might have set out to accomplish. You may also have anxiety if you’re afraid of a dog or some animal or something like that. And you think, oh, there’s a dog here, I’m afraid of dogs, and I’m just going to stay away the fear is there. It’s a basic fear dogs are something that triggers something for you. And so you say, I’m going to stay away from the dog, when you move into a more anxious present. With that dog, it’s going to be when you’re saying no, the dog is going to bite me so much that I have to, I feel dysregulated, I have to pull away from the situation, I can’t be in the same space of the house, even if the dog is restrained. And you may have other thoughts that may be a higher level of anxiety around that animal. So it’s important to know what’s general What are things that happened to most people in situations and that help that are healthy. When you move beyond that you want to look at how is your day dysregulated How is your life circumstance changed, you’re not able to get out of bed, you’re not able to go to work, you have a fear of what can come to happen in a situation you have dread come over you, you have thoughts that are racing and you cannot slow them down. They may or may not be attached to certain things, they may be just very random. And you’re thinking wow, I wasn’t even thinking about that. And all of a sudden, I had all these thoughts were racing through my head. And I was trying to figure out how to figure out where they came from. And the anxiety of having the racing thoughts made you even more anxious, and you’re going to have that more prone long, you’re going to have a period of about six months where you really been struggling with this anxiety. It may be many events, it may be one event, like I said it may be a lot of racing thoughts, it may be things that happen within your body, perhaps your blood pressure rises, you start panicking a little bit. And I’ll talk a little bit about what distinguishes a panic attack, because you can have anxiety, and not ever really suffer a panic attack, you can have a panic attack, and you may not have anxiety on the regular, which is what I experienced. And that’s why I wanted to point that out to you. So when you’re having this anxiety, though, you’re going to have things that may also be happening within your body, you know, you may feel like you’re trembling inside your heart is palpitating, it’s racing, you may get sweaty palms, you may stutter on your speech, because you feel like you can’t get your thoughts under control. You may feel extreme fatigue, you may have other things like that come over you as well that are going to be indicators that there’s something going on that’s more than the average anxiety for just related to some event that typically and we can talk about how to even work through those kinds of situations.

Betsy Childs Howard
Thank you if that’s really helpful. So as Christians, we approach this with some different questions sometimes then people that are not followers of Christ. And one of those questions is, is anxiety, always sin? Courtney, what are your thoughts on anxiety and sin and the relationship?

Courtney Reissig
Yeah, I would say no. So I guess the easy quick answer is no. But then obviously, we need to explain that a little further. And the reality is with anxiety, so much of the struggles that we have is we live in a broken world. So we not only are we living in a broken world, but we’re living in broken bodies. So are we are experiencing circumstances our bodies are broken. We have like physical trauma that leads to anxiety or we have brains that have imbalances and that leads to anxiety. And so we’re living in a broken world. And so I think oftentimes we feel like anxiety could be a sin because it feels like something is out of our control. And we don’t feel like we can’t control something that must be sinful. But at the end of the day anxiety, the fruit of the result of anxiety is like our response to our anxiety could be sinful. But anxiety in and of itself is not and one of the most helpful things to me was is reading the Psalms is because in the Psalms, sometimes you get spirals of thoughts. You get a whole host of like Psalm 88. I always go back to Psalm 88. Because I feel like it’s such a comforting song for the person who is in a spiral of thoughts. And it’s it ends in darkness, it ends with no resolution that ends with God has forsaken Me and so has everyone else. And anxiety can make you feel like no one understands no one cares for me. And I’m never going to get out of this and God is so kind and gracious to his people to give us his word to comfort us not just in the good times but in our anxious times as well. And so all thing all of our all of the things that we experienced in this broken world can lead to sinful responses but in and of itself is anxiety is not sinful.

Betsy Childs Howard
Kristen, tell us why Your thoughts are

Kristin Wetherell
no, I’m really encouraged in Scripture, I actually just did a word search on anxiety which can sometimes be helpful and sometimes not. But in this case, it was really helpful to me because Paul says in Second Corinthians 1128 says, an apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. That’s Paul. Hannah, in First Samuel 116 says, do not regard Your servant as a worthless woman. For all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation, she has been praying for a child and pouring out her heart before the Lord. And so as Suzanne was saying, anxiety in itself isn’t necessarily a bad or sinful thing. In fact, the around these two passages were not given an indication that these two are sinning. In fact, they’re pressing on toward the Lord in the midst of their anxiety. So I was very encouraged by that.

Suzanne Bates
And if I can add the mind, I mean, this is really huge, because if you read the scriptures, you read anxiety all through pages, and look at how many times the Lord encourages our heart around fear and anxiety. You know, do not be anxious, do not be discouraged and not be fearful. And it’s because he knows our frame, and he knows that we’re going to struggle with this area of life, at some point, things will come up that will be challenging for us that that will cause a sense of anxiety and or fear or dread.

Betsy Childs Howard
So what might be an example of a sinful response to anxiety? That’s

Suzanne Bates
a great question.

Courtney Reissig
Mine is always anger. Anger, yeah, I just get mad at the world. So I’m like, I’m mad at you. And I’m mad at you. And I’m mad at you. I just like have these outbursts. And I’ve learned it’s a spiral for me where I just get incredibly, like, I’m so anxious, I’m so stressed. And so as a result, I just take it out on everyone else might explode. And my husband often he’s learned now and happy, like, Is there something else going on? And for me, it’s always an outburst of anger. Because anger for me feels like a sense of control I I’m in control of how hateful I’m being right now. And anxiety makes me feel like I’m not in control.

Betsy Childs Howard
Any other examples?

Kristin Wetherell
I was thinking worry to the point that it removes me from being present in my current situation, because I’m so my thoughts are so fixated on what I’m anxious about. Worry to the point that it’s kind of sucking the joy out of living in the light of God’s presence.

Suzanne Bates
Yeah, well, then I would say anger is the number one for clients that I see in my office. The other one is going to be manipulation when you’re manipulating people in circumstances in order to try to avoid the anxiety because that actually, that is where many hearts go until you learn how to work through the anxiety. So you want to avoid it at all costs, you want to reduce it at all cost. And sometimes we do that at the cost in the expense of others.

Betsy Childs Howard
That’s really helpful. I may have waited the scale a bit on this by saying that I have taken medication for anxiety. But what do you think? Is it wrong to treat anxiety with medication?

Suzanne Bates
I would say absolutely not. If you need to take medication that Courtney indicated earlier, there’s sometimes physiological, biological components, things that are going on within your body where you may actually need and medication to help you. And it is not a sign of weakness, it is not a sign of you being extremely broken, and something’s wrong with you. When I have clients come into my office that are dealing with anxiety, and they want to know, should I take medication, one of the things that I do like to do with them, is I like to get a really good assessment of what their anxiety actually looks like. I actually do ask them, if we can have some time to meet, when we can maybe talk through some of the issues. I can work with them on some techniques. And then as we’re doing that, we’re also assessing whether or not they need medication. So you may be thinking, I’ve been wondering about if I should get on something I’m not really sure. You know, if you’re working with a therapist, please talk to your therapist about it. Some people will just go see their primary care doctor, you can do that and say I’m feeling anxious. If you get on medication, and you’re working with a therapist, please tell your therapist about it. Because it’s very important that I’m able to track my clients while they’re on medication so I can see what kinds of things are going on. But it has been tremendously helpful, especially when you can get your thoughts focused, you can get regulated enough sometimes the anxiety is so high, that we may even have trouble working in the session together until I regulate them which there are certain techniques that I do to do that, just so we can get through the session. So it’s really important to know that if you need medication, it is not Something to feel badly about or shameful about. And, and yes, it can be very beneficial. But also stay in care, make sure you’d get medication and see a therapist, not just get the medication.

Courtney Reissig
Yeah, like one thing that was helpful to me is one of my friends, who’s a psychologist explained to I had had PTSD after my last son was born, I had a really traumatic experience. And he explained to me that medication, he, he saw PTSD clients who came home from war, but he’s explained that medication allows you the space to process what you’ve been through. So you’re not able, like it’s it’s you’re living in such a heightened state that you’re unable to process and work through the anxiety. And so what medication can do is kind of lower some of that for you so that you can do the work of processing it. And that was a helpful explanation for me is that I was living in such a heightened state, like I couldn’t, I couldn’t think through I couldn’t process without reliving. And so I needed some something to help me to process it.

Betsy Childs Howard
That that was my experience. And one sign to me that I needed something was when my anxiety was affecting me really physically, in ways that were totally disconnected from my thinking, like waking up, and you know, or not being able to keep down food, then I needed to fight physically, so that I could get back to a place where I could fight mentally. And I had some thoughts of like, Is that too self focus that I’m just like worrying all about myself. But I finally realized, I can’t help other people, I couldn’t walk into a room and ask somebody, how are you doing, because I felt so inside myself with how I was feeling. And it helped me to realize that medication could get me to a point where I could get my anxiety under control, to then be able to minister and love other people better.

Courtney Reissig
And I think one of the things with with medication is that when or any type of medication, so not just anxiety medication, I think we have a lot of shame associated with anxiety, but any type of medication that you use, potentially the crutch and not the opportunity to do the hard work of fixing something is not ever a good time. So using it as a tool that God has given us to then do the hard work. We can, one of my friends was like he’s a physician. And he said, I mean, if you had diabetes, you would take insulin, and so but you would still do the hard work of not eating, not eating too much sugar. So it’s just like that.

Betsy Childs Howard
That’s a great analogy. So this talk is about fear and anxiety. They’re very closely related. You can’t draw a sharp line between them. But there’s also sinful fear. And there’s a fear of the Lord, which is the opposite of sin. Kristin, what would you say is the relationship between those two? sinful fear? Fear of the Lord?

Kristin Wetherell
Yeah. Well, to comfort us a great verse in the Psalms is Psalm 56, three word David says, When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. Not if I am afraid, but when I am afraid, because we are going to be afraid in this life. And I think it’s helpful. First of all, to distinguish between different types of fear, just like we’re distinguishing between different degrees of anxiety. Not all fear is bad fear. In fact, fear can be a mercy from the Lord that he’s instilled in us as a protective measure to defend ourselves against danger. Why do I respond in fear when my toddler daughter darts toward the street? It’s a gift from the Lord. So not all fear is bad. But that said, I do find it helpful to think about fear in terms of the posture of our hearts, or the sight of the eyes of our hearts. And I love the story of Peter when Jesus calls him to walk out on the water. And if the fear of the Lord is the posture of our hearts, keeping our eyes on him, being in the word, learning what he says about who he is, and, and asking him to help us trust him. Then the less we will be afraid by looking at other things, not that we won’t be afraid, because we will, we will not be completely removed from fear until we’re in his presence someday. But I have found that to be helpful if keeping the eyes of my heart on the Lord gives me a right perspective on who he is, who he made me to be, what his purpose is, for my life might be and for the things happening around me, it’s going to put life in perspective. And the more I steeped myself in Scripture, then when these circumstances come, hopefully, the eyes of my heart are trained to look at him. Not primarily at my circumstances. So I find that fear for me, can turn sinful when I start to see bitter fruit. I I know that I’m keeping my eyes more focused on my circumstances than the Lord when I start to see anger, or doubt, or bitterness, take root think lessness. And I think that we see really clearly in Scripture that those are not good things. So those are just some thoughts.

Betsy Childs Howard
Any of you have advice for how to train your thought life to, rather to look at Jesus, rather than look at the things that make you fearful or anxious?

Suzanne Bates
Well, that is so loaded, that question is just loaded. But

Betsy Childs Howard
they were not expecting me to ask that. Sorry.

Suzanne Bates
I mean, come on. If we could all train our thought lives all the time, wouldn’t we be much better? I mean, wow, we’ve heard this so much this morning, and yesterday through our plenary speakers about our tongue and of course, that has a lot to do with the way we’re thinking about God and thinking about others and thinking about ourselves and thinking about the word and whether or not we believe the word. But I would say that, you know, you can begin to think more about who God is over the circumstances, first, by really having that relationship with him. Second, by asking his word to come alive in your heart, so that you’re able to read it and apply it and then asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct your thoughts to help you to be able to think about him. It is a practice, there’s a book that I love by I’m written about brother Lawrence’s life, and it’s the practice of the presence of God. And I like that little book. It’s very dense, because it actually does a lot of speaking into practicing the presence of God, the awareness of God and knowledge of God over and above our circumstances. Johnny Erickson Tada wrote a lovely little book to many years ago called a quiet place in a crazy world. And you know, just, you know, stories of her life as a quadriplegic, and just how to get through the day today, when there’s so much chaos around in her own world, in her own life and in the world, outside of her. And part of that is a practicing paying attention to God in the circumstances, and wanting that to be the part of you that is driven in your anxiety, or your fear or your depression. But it is a loaded question, because it does take practice. One of the things that I’ll give you an idea about that panic attack that I had on the flight, and I really hadn’t planned on talking about that with you today. And I actually have my computer because I was going to read a quote to you from another book and then forgot to read it to you. So maybe we’ll come back to it. But when I had this panic attack, I knew that I was having a panic attack because I had the desire, I felt like I was going to hyperventilate, my heart was racing, my parts were racing, I felt dizzy, I felt hot, I was in the middle seat of five seats in a row and an international flight, you know how to have the middle section and I thought, This is terrible, I’m gonna have to crawl over people. And what if I throw up on all these people, and I only had in front of me as a screen, the television set that shows you the map of where the plane is over the water, or whatever of the mountains and the terrain. And I just thought, Oh, my goodness, I’m just I’m gonna die sitting in this seat and, and the panic attack came on me. So suddenly, when I awakened and I realize I’m having a panic attack, now I know that because I’m a therapist. And so I began to have to start telling myself the circumstances and one God was in the midst, I knew he wasn’t gonna allow me to be on that plane and get that sick and, and have something happened tragically on the plane as we were going to be missionaries and do some work in Kenya. And so I knew that his hand was honest. But it was hard to keep my thoughts in that direction. Even though I knew what to do to talk myself down. It was hard to keep my thoughts in that direction. But I had to keep saying to myself over and over, you’re just having a panic attack, don’t act like you’re not you’re having one. It’s okay that you’re having a panic attack. You’ve been on the flight for a long time. And so I was doing all of this internal talking to myself, you don’t, you’re not going to get sick, you feel like you’re gonna get sick, you feel like you’re gonna throw up. And that is normal, because that’s what happened with a panic attack, but you’re actually not going to throw up. Just go back to sleep, you can just go back to sleep. And you’ll be okay. So I did this for two hours, two hours of talking myself through, I would doze off and wake back up. And I’m like, No, I still have an hour and a half. Wake back up. I don’t know, I still have an hour. I’m not gonna make it. But I did make it. I did make it and part of that was realizing and trying to rest in the Lord and allowing myself to actually engage that attack. So when we think about controlling our thoughts, oftentimes the hard part is we want to Move away from our circumstances, we don’t actually want to acknowledge we’re in the circumstance. And part of the training is to acknowledge I’m in the circumstance. God is with me in the circumstance, and he can help me in the circumstance.

Courtney Reissig
Did you have something? Okay, I had something that we do with our kids. I don’t know if that would be helpful for like with children. But one of the things we did our sons is we rehearse true things that we know about God. So when we’re sure, and I, I think it’s helpful for adults, Paul says, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And there’s so much about remembering true things about who God is. So we talked about there’s a number of things we say, like, who is who’s always with you? Well, God is always with me. And who is true? Well, God is true is your fear true right now as what you’re afraid of right now. And then we’ll have them name all the true things that they know in the room, and they share them to their brothers. And so like my brother is true, and this person is true, my blankie is true, and like trying to remember true things about who God is, and then is God good, and just things that aren’t that are planting, and then that they can recite to themselves, they have like a little, little thing, we call it the Frisbee of God. And it’s like this little thing, it has all these true things about who God is, and they can read it. And it doesn’t take the anxiety away. I mean, they still have it, but it does help give them true things about who God is, which I think is really important for us. And we’re struggling with believing those things, because our circumstances say it’s not

Kristin Wetherell
true. And I have found scripture memory to be so helpful. There’s a reason that Ephesians six calls the word, the sword of the Spirit, because often anxiety and fear are battles that we’re waging war against. And so taking Scripture with me in my mind, or just posting it around my house has been really helpful to me too. Well, that

Betsy Childs Howard
leads into we were going to talk about what’s the relationship between anxiety and spiritual warfare? Yeah. And and Ephesians certainly does bring that together. I think anxiety is the kind of battle we need to fight on all fronts. So we fight it in our minds, we fight it in our bodies if we need to, and we certainly bite it in the word and on the spiritual level. Suzanne, did you have comments

Suzanne Bates
on Yeah, so she said, my little hotspots, warfare is huge. So this is something that I love to talk about with people, because I think, in the church today in our country, we don’t take it as seriously. As we sometimes we need. We put so much pressure on us. It’s all about us, the good, the bad, and the ugly, whatever is happening, it’s all us all the time. And when it’s not us, then we blame God and we accuse him, and we shake our fist at him and say, you’re making my life miserable. When oftentimes, sometimes I should say that more than often it’s the enemy pressing in. We’re after all in his terrain. And I think that sometimes anxiety can come over someone and really, when they come in and talk to me, it looks like anxiety. It sounds like anxiety, it feels like anxiety, and it’s warfare. It’s actually spiritual attack. Now, that’s a whole nother topic. Because you could say, well, how do you know the difference, right? And I take them through that process. And I know how to look for those things. That’s what I do. And so I do look and see if it’s warfare, or if it’s some anxiety, anxiety might be there. But it may be exacerbated by the enemy stumping on someone’s head. And it can feel like you’re going to be completely taken out, he is powerful. And he kicks us when we’re down, you have to know the ways of the enemy. So when it’s warfare, the spiritual practice of memorizing verses can be very helpful, recognizing again, that it is worth there. So you know how to do battle. And what certain strategies would you take the scriptures actually tell you how to do that in Ephesians, six and other passages. And so you can begin to walk through and say, What do I need to do to combat what is the enemy stumping on me? And then just what is some maybe general anxiety that I’m having. But I find that scripture memorization is a huge one to practice, identifying the enemy, knowing the schemes of the enemy, knowing when he presses in, and how when he does that in your life, knowing who is the victor, Christ is the victor in case you’re wondering, and applying the blood of Jesus in those places, the finish work of cross on the Christ, the resurrection power of Christ. These are things that you can begin to also work through and talk through. Now there’s a whole lot more there that I’ve done with different clients in different ways. But I won’t go into that now because we really is a whole nother topic. But please pay attention to the fact that sometimes it is warfare, and you will know this dread This is one indicator for you. When you are in warfare, and when you’re having you’re racing anxious thoughts There accusatory, you know, you’re not going to be able to get through this, you know, you’re going to always be this way, you know, you’re just gonna treat your children terribly, you’re gonna always have anger problems, you know, you’re going to ruin their lives, you know, you’re going to destroy your marriage, you know, you’re going to lose your job, because you can’t get it together. You know, you. When you hear that those thoughts come in that way, you need to say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Because maybe it’s the enemy pressing in. And likely, I would say it is. He’s just touching on you while you’re already vulnerable, and in a weak spot. And so that is a different battle that you have to fight when you’re anxious, and you’re tired, and you’re weary, and you’re worn out, and you feel like I can’t go on. It’s hard to fight. When your body is having things happen. It’s hard to emotionally fight. That’s when you call your girlfriends or your sister girls, and you say, hey, I need some prayer. And I need you to pray over me for warfare.

Betsy Childs Howard
So we just have a few minutes left. And this is a huge topic to cover in 45 minutes, but we want to try to get really practical. So we’re gonna, I’m going to give out three imaginary scenarios and ask each panelist to respond to one of what advice you would give this person. So Kristen, Marta has three young children, she craves order, but her life feels out of control things at home feel like they’re getting on top of her. She worries about her kids getting hurt to the point that she’s afraid to let them play out of her sight. She hasn’t been to church since her last baby was born, because she’s afraid to leave him in the nursery.

Kristin Wetherell
I relate to Martha, I’ll tell you that this is the last season of our lives. So I just kind of want to look at this in three ways, briefly, kind of the spiritual, the practical, and then the mental aspect of it. So spiritual, I mean, primarily Are you abiding in Jesus through His Word, that’s first and foremost. That way we can take scripture to heart That way, we can remember the promises of God and learn to trust the character of God more and more. But I love this, I heard this from a friend. And it’s replacing moments of fear, with moments of grace. So there might be one scenario going on in the situation with Martha and say, her baby in the nursery, but there’s also another reality going on. And one might be fearful. What if he’s sad, I don’t want to leave him. Or I’m not sure about trusting the volunteers. But what about this is a chance for my son to experience the love of the body of Christ and the love of Christ through the church. So ask him Lord, like how I mean, see what other reality of grace is, amid this fearful reality that I’m going through. The more practical stuff, it’s been so helpful for me when I feel like things are getting on top of me at home, to meet with an older mom who’s walked before me in this. And to learn from her, just some really practical things have come my way from meeting with women from my church. Do the next thing, instead of making a list of 15 things, which is what I do. My friend said to me, just three things, just three, and then tackle one of them at a time. So trust God for grace for the next moment. And don’t worry about the things that you have to do tomorrow so much. This has been huge for me in this season of my life. But Martha could hire help hire a babysitter, find some time and some margin to rest so that things don’t feel like they’re getting on top of you so much. Very practical. And then mental. And I actually do this, but I’m learning from a book that I’m reading that your brain can’t handle two mental processes at once in terms of thinking two things at once. So I just start to talk to myself. When I feel like I’m getting overwhelmed and Suzanne, you touched on this, but it’s really helpful to just say, you only Kristin, take a deep breath. You only have to do the next thing. What’s the next thing? Let’s do that thing. You know, and just to kind of interrupt the process of worrying thoughts. And singing is actually really helpful to me. I’ll just start singing a song if I feel like I’m getting overwhelmed and I can’t handle a fearful situation or things at home are overwhelming to me. I’ll start singing a song.

Betsy Childs Howard
So much helpful there. Okay. Very quickly, Courtney. Sara was in a serious car accident. That wasn’t her fault. She walked away from a totaled car and injured. But now when she drives her heart races to the point, she feels like she’s having a heart attack, and she’s also become an insomniac.

Courtney Reissig
Yeah, I can relate to this one. Um, so the first thing I would say is find someone you can talk to I think for those this type of anxiety can be really hard. You feel like you’re alone and in many ways you are lonely. You’re the one who experienced it and everyone else wasn’t there. Everyone else didn’t experience it. They didn’t walk through it. So I would say find someone you can talk to. I think particularly with the insomnia thing, that insomnia is a vicious cycle. So you can’t sleep. But sleep is going to make you feel better emotionally, but then you can’t sleep. And so it’s just this horrible vicious cycle. So this is a place where I’m not a medical doctor. So I cannot give medical advice. But I think talking to your doctor about the insomnia, what Suzanne can tell you, because she she does this all day long. But talking to your doctor and talking to a friend, and talking to a counselor, I think would be incredibly helpful in these instances, because it’s a multiple things going on, you’re dealing with, you dealt with trauma, and then the trauma is now having a physiological effect on you. That’s not related to the injury. So I think that would be the first step. I’d say, yeah,

Betsy Childs Howard
that concept of the vicious cycle is so key with this because things can spiral down. And if you can interrupt that, that’s great. Okay, last one, quickly. Jane, and her husband is for you. Suzanne, recently started a small business. It hasn’t been as profitable as they expected in the first year. Every time she thinks about their future, she pictures them going bankrupt, losing their house and moving in with her parents. What would you tell her?

Suzanne Bates
Well, that’s another situation when there are many things going on, I think I would really start with her orientation about who the Lord is, and asking her about how he is a part of their process of the business. I’ve worked with a lot of people that don’t necessarily know the Lord. If they don’t know the Lord, I’m not going to start there. But I am going to ask about their dreams, I’m going to want to know more about what they were thinking about what she did have as an expectation that was going to happen, what they did anticipate that it was going to look like and how if she once I find that information out, then I’m going to be able to sit with her and, and just help to encourage her in what is the what are things that she’s already done that are really good and well and positive. Sometimes we just have to change the narrative a little bit. And so I would help her to start thinking on the other side of not what has an accomplished been accomplished yet, but helping her to identify what has been accomplished, because that might strengthen her to be able to think differently about the circumstances and what they have going on. There could be many other factors and the fact that the business hasn’t gone well, I mean, COVID ahead, it could have been any number of things that are outside of their control. So I would also want to spend time with her thinking about those aspects of what is it within the realm of your control, what is in the within the realm of your husband’s control. And even if they talk about those things, and work on them together, I know plenty of couples that have done businesses, and they’re really not quite on the same page. So it also doesn’t turn out the way they hope for that reason. But I’m going to explore a lot of different areas for what’s happening with her spiritually, what’s happening with her emotionally, what’s happening with them, maybe even financially, what’s happening with them, in terms of socially, and that’s the constructs that they have to support them in the process of this new business adventure and endeavor. And then I’m going to really just come to that point of what she can and cannot control and, and we’ll probably just do some work on how to strengthen her in some of the things that they are doing. Well, there’s so many other factors involved when you’re dealing with another person. And that would be the spouse and the business, that that person would if they’re not working with me, if they’re not coming to my home talking to me and I only have her, then that’s the only place that I’m going to be able to work out. But there could be many things that are happening on another side. That might need to be considered as well for why things aren’t going well. If she can’t sleep, and she can eat and she’s having a lot of problems related to that and her anxiety, then of course that’s going to be another area of dealing with and talking with her about what’s happening for her physiologically. When is she able to rest it may be helping her to do some mindfulness in places where she can get quiet, get some time to herself. And think about what’s important to her in those moments with all the other stuff that she cannot control. You know the Serenity Prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I can change and they cannot change and the courage to change, to change the things that I can. Sometimes that little simple prayer has to become part of the equation.

Betsy Childs Howard
I’m sorry to say we’re out of time, but I want to say a very brief prayer for all of you for you watching online. So let’s go before the Lord together. Father in heaven, I thank you that you know how we were formed. You remember that we are dusts. And as a father has compassion on his children, you have compassion on those who fear you, or we want to fear you, not our circumstances, not the future. We pray that you will give us daily bread and Daily Grace. Help each of us to help each other put our eyes on you, and not the things that we fear. We commit our anxious hearts to you looking forward to the day When we will dwell in your presence forever and have complete peace. We ask this in Jesus mighty name, amen.