Get Quiet in There!
Oct 27, 2021
When we are experiencing anxiety and worry, we have thoughts/voices running through our heads. What if we reframe those thoughts into prayer . . . what might happen?
(Please note I am referring to the emotion and feeling of anxiety, not the medical condition of anxiety.)
For many, the past two years have been wrought with anxiety. Feelings of worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an upcoming event or something with an uncertain outcome. How could we not be anxious, right? A pandemic . . . all the steps and stages of learning about COVID. Then, waiting on vaccines, then the uncertainty that came with them. When do we as a world reopen, how, and what will the impact be? Then COVID variants. The world has had much to be anxious about.
Yet, part of dealing with anxiety is naming it.
It’s important to note that anxiety tempts us to catastrophize and inflate every risk into a potential cataclysm. If we are not careful, then we are surrounded by catastrophes on all sides, and we shrink into our primitive minds. We move immediately to the “fight or flight” response, but through prayer/petition, we rename those anxieties.
When we rename our anxieties, we also rename our needs.
I’d invite us to explore the statements below.
Identify an area where you struggle and then contemplate changing and reframing the anxiety into a prayer/petition. Use the word “Help.”
God, help take my . . .
Anger and turn it into patience.
Fear and turn it into courage.
Exhaustion and turn it into resilience.
Severed relationship/lack of boundaries/allowing myself to be used and mistreated by others and create boundaries and healthy relationships.
Judgmental personality and turn it into mercy.
Being aloof and not caring for others and turn it into compassion and empathy.
Not able to pursue a goal and turn it into being calm.
Pain and turn it into healing.
Anxiety and turn it into calmness and peace.
Do any of these areas resonate with you today?
Use the prayer, “God, help,” and experience transformation.
