Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work.
—Peter Marshall
The dictionary defines anxiety as "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” I would define anxiety with the simple question “Carol, what are you going to do when your exchange program ends?”
Every time someone asks me this question I feel anxiety. I feel like somebody had punched me in the stomach. Mostly because I have to answer with I don’t know. I truly don’t. I know what I want and what I am praying for, but honestly thinking about that future gives me the feeling of worry, nervousness and all the description above.
Well, I don’t think anxiety is a new subject for anybody so I am going to introduce to you some of my stories with anxiety. Here we go!
02/05/2017
The patriots are losing. The game is 28 for the Falcons against 3 for the Patriots. There is only one quarter left. I cannot believe the Patriots are going to lose this game. If I was home I would have turned off the TV, but since I am watching with a bunch of friends I have to suffer watching this every minute. To me the game is lost. It is done. I don't even know how people in this living room can still have hope. There is no way. We lost the Super Bowl. (For those of you that don't understand football I am talking about the biggest game on the football league. I am a patriots fan and the score wasn't a very optimistic. It is like losing from 4 against 0 on soccer with 20 minutes left.)
By the end of the third quarter the patriots score a Touchdown, but this is so painful to watch that they don't even score the field goal.
Do you know what was this? Anxiety. For such a small thing like a football game. I just couldn't wait for the end because I was too anxious and declared the game lost before it really was.
However, the last quarter begins and when everything felt lost there was a comeback. There was a “miracle”. When a bunch of us could have lost hope because things weren't solved in the times we wanted to. It was on the last minutes, by the time we thought it would be most hard, there was a comeback. The game changed. The Patriots tied the game. The game goes to Overtime and the Patriots won! I am a sports fan. I love using sports analogies for everything in life. I wish I could explain the feeling of this comeback. I remember thinking it was the best game I've ever seen and I wished on my head that one day I could see this teen play live. One day. It wasn't even a prayer it was daydreaming. It was me imagining things that look so far from my reality and it was just a dream.
11/17/2018
Rebeca and Kay came over to hang out with me in Brooklyn. We went to the mall. We got very late to come back to work and everyone was worried. It was a pretty fun day it was so much fun that I was kind of mad that I had to go home to work.
When I came in into the house my boss tells me she had a surprise for me and she hands me an envelope. I opened the envelope and I started to jump upside down and scream. I say, "thank you, thank you, thank oh my God I can't believe this! Thank you." The kids are jumping and running across the living room with me. One of the kids asks me why are we celebrating. I laughed and told her we have tickets to watch the patriots live at the stadium on the Thanksgiving Sunday. None of the kids was that excited, but I kept jumping upside down. I wanted to cry. I couldn't believe. Was that real life? I asked my boss if it was real and she said it was. She got the tickets for me.
She remembered that in one of my interviews I said that I wanted to watch the Patriots live so she made a way for me to go. I just couldn't believe. Oh God you are so good to me. That didn't even seen real. I couldn't believe that something that I thought it was a fantasy actually came true. I just can't to this day. I told everyone I knew about the tickets. I was beyond happy.
03/07/2020
Sometimes in life things don't happen when we want to. Sometimes in life processes take time. I would say actually that most of the time things don't fall off the sky and magically happen. The miracles that we pray for or that we wait for don't happen at the time we want or at least don't happen the way we want to.
Sometimes we feel like we are running out of time. We feel like the game is lost and there is nothing we can do. That's how I've been feeling this last month.
I feel like sometimes the game is over and that anxiety is going to take over me.
I don't know the future and for the first time in my life I don't have a plan. I don't have a fantasy. I have wishes, but I cannot get there by myself. I feel lost like if the game was over.
However, let's say that we still have a part of the third quarter and the fourth quarter to go. However, like on the Super Bowl day three years ago I lack faith and I tend to think that the game is over before it actually is.
The Unknown
Before I wrote my last blogpost, I went to a season of fasting and when I was fasting I prayed about something. Well, when I started the fast I was doing a devotional it said we should pray and request the desires of ours hearts and I did. However, during the fasting time what I was requesting became small compared to my growing relationship with God. Anyways on the exactly next day that I finished my fast I got what I prayed for and you would imagine that I was super happy about it, right? But, I wasn't. I thought that the answer I was praying for was what I wanted, but it was not. So, I prayed again. Is this really what I am supposed to do? I don't think so. I think I prayed for that answer because I wanted safety to trust in something possible to happen.
However, I don't think anymore that this is what God wants for me.
Deciding to reject the offer that has been given to me puts me on a place of unawareness.
I had a plan and accepting that offer would be part of the plan. Denying the offer takes me to the place of not knowing at all. It gives me anxiety.
I feel like if I had played all my cards and now I am done. I don't have any moves left in this game. It's the end.
That's why I am writing this right now because in the middle of all God has been speaking a lot to me. I truly believe that God wants to do something in me before He does something for me. Like my mentors have been telling me a lot lately “Carol, we don't know the end of your story now and why you are going through this season exactly. However of one thing we are sure is that this is definitely a school to shape your character.”.
I am not giving much details about the situation yet because I don't think it is time right now, but I will talk about my process with God. To be really clear of what is giving me anxiety is the future. It is what wakes me up at night and makes me cry. It is the unknown.
I've seen God in the unknown and this is the time to really trust that He is going to take care of everything. The main problem is I have a hard time surrendering to whatever happens.
That's the struggle.
It's like saying God whatever You do it's fine, just tell me what You will do. I am in that place of wonder.
However, God is more worried about taking care of my heart than giving me a solution.
It would be very easy for God to give me what I want and then I “could relax”, but I know that if He did that because I know my heart I wouldn't be growing, my trust wouldn't be growing, I would be trusting my safety to a situation and not to God.
I know what I want, but there is no way to get there by myself and I don't know if God is going to deliver me the things like I want to. I have to trust Him that whatever happens in the future is the best, but I am scared.
And for that reason I have to surrender. I have to stop trying to make my desires God's desires. I have to believe that if the previous answer was no it is because this is not His plan for me.
Anxiety is something so surreal that I am afraid of something that didn't even happen and it might never happen. Like in Elijah story whose biggest fear was to die and he never did because God spare Him from that. God could have told Elijah that he was not going to die, but why He didn't?
I am going to speak for myself and say He doesn't give me the answer because He wants me to grow. When I don't know what to do, where do I run to? The answer must be God. That's where I should run to.
All this anxiety is bringing to a place where I have to come to God and say that I cannot do it myself. I just can't. I lack of faith, but who is the one that gives faith?
What I am trying to say is that I have no idea how the future is going to be and what God will do. That terrifies me it also drives me closer to the Father. I know He is the only one who can solve my problem and not my physical problem, my heart problem.
The game is not over. And how do I know that? It's because if God didn't change the situation He is not done with me yet.
Even in the unknown and even in the waiting. God is good.
I am not making excuses for my sin what I am trying to change is the view of what we have of things. My anxiety should bring me closer to God. God is near and He is waiting for me.
It is very hard for me to let go of my desire for a solution, but I trust that my God is good. He provides me with everything I need so I have what it takes to fight my fight and you have what it takes to fight your fight.
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:24-25
As we see in Romans having hope in what we can see is not hope at all. However, waiting patiently for things we cannot see that's hope. That's how we build our trust in God.
That's what God spoke to me and He is developing in my character.
I am writing this and I have no clue what is going to happen in the next 5 months, but I decided to take a jump of faith. I decided to have peace in the middle of the storm and it is not easy at all. It is not, I cry so many times in despair. My friends and family are hearing the same story for a month now. However, I can make a choice of keep fighting on my own. Keep wrestling or I can surrender. I don't always have the power to control things, but I always have the power to surrender.
I hope I can come back here in five months from now with everything solved and crystal clear. Maybe not, maybe in five months things can still be blurry, but right now and then I can hold on God's hand. I can surrender to Him my mission and my path.
Explaining now why I started this article with that Super Bowl story…
I didn't know yet on that day of the Super Bowl that I was moving to the United States on the following year. I didn't know that day that God was going to bring me to Brooklyn. I didn't know that day that God was going to give me the tickets to watch the team play live. I didn't know that day that using that game day God would give me a friend that has been an amazing blessing to my life. I didn't know that the day what the future would hold.
I made a wish and the process between that wish and the game day was tough, but man how much did I grow.
This is something much bigger than a game, but God's love and care for me is so great that even I wish to watch a football game live He made it happen.
Not at the time that I wanted. Not the way I wanted, but the way He knew it was best for me.
Life is unexpected, but how do we react to the unexpected and to who we run to that makes the difference.
Think with me, if you had everything in your life solved you wouldn't need faith. You could live by your own understanding. You could live by reasoning, not faith. However, when you don't understand something you receive the great opportunity to increase your faith.
It's not because we don't see God doing something right now that God is not doing something. We should be praising God for who He is not for what He does.
Anyway, what do I do while I wait? I don't think sitting down and letting the anxiety take over me is a good idea, so I run to the one who can help me. I work in everything that it is on my hands to do. I pray, I fast, I spend time in the Bible, I listen to worship. I've been memorizing Bible verses the help me on my anxiety crises. While we wait we should develop our faith. While we wait we should grow closer to the Father. There is always a choice. We can grow apart from God like spoiled children that didn't get what they what at the time that they wanted or we can grow closer to Him. Understanding that He is never early, never late, He is always on time and the best time to worship Him is now.
Not when you get what you want. Not when things are working out. Now when you are too far. He is the One who can helps us.
He is the One who does the work. The Bible says, "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:7 if He says He counts the hair on our heads I am pretty sure He is watching our situation right now and knows when it is time to intervene.
Remember that when you are fighting against anxiety. Remember that you are not alone. Remember to breath and seek the one who can give you peace.
There is a miracle on standing still and waiting. Be still and know that He is God. Psalm 46:10
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