{anxiety}

I promised a little snippet each week from my detox study. This week the focus was on anxiety.

To be honest, for the most part, I wasn't feeling it. Not to say that I never struggle with anxiety or fear (and definitely not to say that I don't struggle at all because there are plenty of weeks that are going to kick me in the butt.). It's just that over the past few years, God has just shown up for us over and over again. From our fear over Claire not being able to walk and/or grow to two moves and countless concerns in between, God has been FAITHFUL. He has showed up to meet our every need and shown us over and over again that He does indeed work all things together for good. In that process, I have learned to hold tight to His perfect plan for our lives and to not fear troubles that come across our path. There is something that continually causes me anxiety, however, and that is my need for perfection. I am a perfectionist who will spend three (or four...ok maybe five) hours online creating (and paying a fortune for) the cutest valentines I can find because whatever my girls bring to school needs to be PERFECT. I will spend months on end planning a birthday party down to the very last detail because what good is a party if it's not PERFECT. I get stressed out if my girls are displaying the same bad behavior over and over again because although they are human, why can't they be PERFECT?!?! I am willing to pay top dollar to live in the town that was voted "#1 in America" because that must mean its pretty darn close to PERFECT. That being said, this is what jumped off the page at me this week:

"We live in a culture that expects women to have perfect looks, perfect marriages, perfect children, and perfect careers, treating anything less with disgust(who me?!). Every single one of us is drowning in an unrelenting flood of stressful tasks, demands, and pressures. Believe me; even those who exude an air of confidence and poise secretly struggle with feelings of anxiety and neverending worry. But God never intended for us to be caught in this emotional cesspool. God's perfect love will calm the raging storms of anxiety and the thunder of worry in our lives-if we will allow him to rescue us."

"Perfect love drives out fear." 1 John 4:18