As I was sat in church on Sunday, I felt so conscious of myself that I didn’t know how to be. I didn’t know how to interact with God, how to talk to him. I felt so aware of everything wrong with me that I felt like I had gone back to an uncomfortably familiar place, a place I thought I was free from that I would never have to go back to. So, in the midst of wrestling with feeling unworthy to even utter the words of the worship, not knowing how to come to God with this, I wrote it down in the form of this spoken word, I guess we could call it… Broken, I come to you.
Being in this place was incredibly dangerous because it felt so easy to slide back into it. It was a place that I knew, but also a place that I felt lost in. I didn’t belong there anymore, and I knew that so why was I letting myself stay? Why was I letting myself drown? It felt like every insecurity that God has taken away from me, was suddenly weighing me down again, but the worst bit about it was I was the one picking them up and holding onto them.
I used to really struggle with anxiety, and I’m not going to touch on this too much right now, because I don’t think I’m yet equipped to talk about anxiety and mental health. But what I can talk about is how it impacted me. I was so bound to constantly feeling on edge and worried about every little thing. When I was travelling was when it was the worst; I had a panic attack on a plane on the way to Copenhagen with friends, I missed family events because I was too afraid to leave the house. And this was a process that God intervened and freed me from (not saying that my mental health now is perfect, and I don’t ever have bad days still, because I do!). But God equipped me and showed me how he never abandons me and how He is always there to get me through whatever I am going through, whatever I am feeling. I have felt in a good place with this for a while, but suddenly the past week I have slowly been spiralling back into a place of anxiety, which on Sunday suddenly felt very real and very intense once again. Yet, this time I knew something I didn’t know before - I knew that I have V I C T O R Y in this.
‘Because every child of God is able to defeat the world. And we win the victory over the world by means of our faith’
– 1 John 5v4
I had complete faith that even in this place of pain and confusion, my God would rescue me; my God was bigger than anything standing against me. Because my God goes with me into battle. At church someone gave me a picture, they said they saw God holding me, just holding me. This was while I was standing in church overwhelmed by anxiety, confused by where I had ended up. While I stood in a place of brokenness, God was and is holding me. No matter where you are, in a new struggle or facing a familiar giant, God is holding you, He has got you, you are in His arms.
‘For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to you victory’
– Deuteronomy 20 v 4
It really REALLY sucks going back to a previous place where you have known freedom. But do not believe the lie that you aren’t still free, or even worse that you never actually obtained that freedom in the first place! You can stand confident in the victory God has given to you.
BTW when God gives you your victory, nothing can take it away, not even yourself.
So, maybe you can join me today in praising God no matter the circumstance. No matter how you are feeling. No matter how long it takes, to pluck up the courage, to come to him – He will always be waiting for us.