itsawonderfilledlife

We live in an anxiety-ridden society, with stats on people dealing with anxiety-related disorders only climbing.

It would seem that in my fifteen years of working, primarily, in high schools, anxiety has become a regular conversation among students and staff.

Anxiety does not express itself the same in all individuals. There is no more a stereotypical sufferer of anxiety than there is a stereotypical female, for it manifests within the strengths and weakness, the experiences and voids of the individual. It has many faces … sad, fearful, gregarious, kind, angry, happy … as many faces as the individuals who live and struggle to live their best life.

I do not know of a ‘cure’, I am not a certified counsellor, I am no expert, nor even scholar in the field of anxiety. I do know it … first person, professionally and through living vicariously through individuals who I love. None of that makes me an expert.

Something we can do, when helping to love people through the reality of anxieties, is to build them up. Specifically, we could remind them (gently) who God says they are, if not in words, through our care of them, redirecting, reassuring and refilling their dark self-thinking and self-talk with the truth of who they are, in the eyes and heart of the Creator … their Creator.

1 John 3:1a tells us that we are so loved by the Father that we are his children.

1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us that we are God’s temple, where his Spirit lives.

Romans 8:37 says that we are more than conquerors!

1 Peter 2:9 says, “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

Truly, we are worth the world to Him!

Perhaps they could relate and be encouraged by the Lauren Daigle song You Say, which might help them to hear the encouraging reminders of the overcomers they are through Christ.

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