Countering Anxiety with God’s Truth
I kept a secret for months, too afraid to speak it aloud to anyone. The secret thrived on an irrational fear, so in my embarrassment, I was quiet.
Then, one day, my husband described a terrible nightmare. “You died,” he explained. “And I was left all alone to raise our kids.” I froze in fear. Was his dream a prophetic warning? Almost immediately, my secret came tumbling out to him: the fear of dying in childbirth had been gnawing at my heart for months.
It started as soon as the pregnancy test came back positive, a nagging worry that blossomed into full-blown panic with my husband’s dream. Ironically, my third pregnancy was going according to plan, right on time. All checkups had confirmed that baby and I were healthy. As we neared the end of my pregnancy, it seemed like the day of the c-section would arrive uneventfully. Everything was fine, except for me. I was terrified of dying on the operating table.
My mind started slipping down the what if rabbit hole. What if my worst fear came true? What if I left my husband to parent our three kids alone? What if my kids grew up never knowing me?
Those what-if worries followed me into the operating room as I sat hunched over my enormous watermelon-shaped belly, an almost impossible contortion at that stage of pregnancy. “Don’t breathe. Stay perfectly still,” the anesthesiologist instructed. No worries there, buddy. I haven’t really breathed in weeks, I joked to myself. I felt a prick, blunt pressure, and a burning sensation in the small of my back as the spinal tap slid in. The room buzzed with the medical equipment standing ready to welcome our baby girl. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on her. Would she have red hair like her daddy? Would she be stubborn but loyal like her mama? No matter how I tried to focus on the wonder of new life, the familiar anxiety wriggled up my spine and spread through my mind, playing out my husband’s nightmare and my fears.
As the anxiety tightened around my heart, I prayed. I prayed for God to ease my rising panic. I recalled Psalm 27:13—“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (NIV)—a verse that had comforted me in other seasons of life. With each breath, I breathed in the reality of God’s living goodness and exhaled the anxiety of death.
Though my fear in the delivery room was irrational, anxiety has been a shadow over many parts of my life. My parents’ divorce. The death of my niece. My firstborn’s diagnosis of a rare genetic difference. Regrets, grief, worries, and what ifs have created sleepless nights and spiraling, looping thoughts. The intensity of the emotions in those seasons has felt suffocating at times, but God has transfixed His word against those broken circumstances to show me that His strength can carry me through. As the anxiety raced through my heart in the operating room, my mind reached for scripture because divorce, death, and rare diagnoses have taught me that the truths in scripture help ease the rising panic and counter the waves of anxiety.
In those moments of intensity, I may only be able to grasp one simple verse, but scripture always invites me deeper. Psalm 27 proclaims that because “the Lord is my light and my salvation…the stronghold of my life,” I do not have to fear. In the face of great difficulties (real or dredged up by my anxious imagination), I can be courageous and confident of heart. This courage and fearlessness are rooted in the presence of Lord, “gazing on [His] beauty,” (v. 4) and “seeking him” (v. 5). Circumstances, however daunting, are temporary (even though the scars may be lasting), and by fixing my gaze on a living, eternal, and faithful God, I am hidden by him and “set…on a high rock” (v. 6). Even as trouble surrounds me, I can focus on “the Lord [who] is the stronghold of” my life (v. 1).
That September morning, in a hospital in southern Pennsylvania, an eight-pound baby girl with just the finest dusting of blond peach fuzz came wailing into our lives, and my husband did not become a widower. This year, my artistic, animal-loving girl started kindergarten, and I am so grateful to be her mama. The relief of her presence—and my presence in witnessing her life—still catches my breath short some days.
But not every circumstance resolves so neatly or with the happy ending. Families break, never to be mended. Graves carve gaping holes in our hearts that are never filled. Diagnoses thrust us into new realities that we never imagined or wanted. Through it all, God hold us and sustains us. What more courage could we ask for?
What about you? Today, can you see the goodness of the Lord? Are circumstances or anxieties clouding your sight? Perhaps we can pray as the psalmist David: “Lord, hear my voice when I call; be gracious to me and answer me…God of my salvation. Even if my father and mother abandon me, [remind me that You care] for me” (Psalm 27: 7–10). Amen.
, a writer and certified journaling instructor, lives with her husband, three kids, a few dogs, and some chickens in South Carolina. When she’s not pondering words, she enjoys nature, deep conversations, and at least two cups of coffee a day. She loves to connect with others about family, special needs parenting, mental health, grief, and faith. You can find more of her writing on her blog Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy.
Photograph © Some Tale, used with permission
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