Proverbs 14:13, “Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief.”
“Denna, did you forget your coffee? The mug is cold but I’d be happy to heat it up for you.”
I was about two months into my new job at our ministry organization’s home office, feeling as disoriented as a lightning bug in a blizzard when my coworker stood outside my office door.
My heart had been heavy with grief and culture shock after our move from the wild and winsome West to the structured hierarchy of a Midwest office setting. A few days a week I drive to the office and pull in the back parking lot. I simultaneously soak in the last worship song or Scriptural encouragement from a podcast and swallow my tears. I rift through my purse to find my key. Often, my thoughtful coffee-bringing coworker (a retired pastor with the steady gift of shepherding) keeps an eye out so he can hold the door open.
Small gestures of goodwill mean a lot to those in transition turmoil.
I walk down the wide hallway towards my office, turning on lights as needed (There were many months of little to no sunshine in Central Illinois this winter.) and greet my husband whose office is right next to mine. He is my ‘familiar’ where half of us at the office are new and/or amidst major ministry transitions. Every week feels different and I am unsure where I fit.
I had two anxiety attacks in the span of the first seven months of our transition to a new home/neighborhood, new church, new jobs, new doctors and new school/sports teams for our three daughters who moved with us. My husband helped me through the first one but was on a ministry trip when I had the second one. I was navigating busy morning traffic with our high school daughter, tucked in the back seat with pillows, ice machine, and crutches 10 days post knee surgery on our way to her PT appointment. The gas tank lit up with a bright red ‘E’. My adrenal system was hit with a wave of panic-induced questions:
- What if I ran out of gas before I reached a gas station?
- What if I got lost trying to find said gas station?
- How would I switch my phone’s directions while driving in unfamiliar AND heavy traffic?
- What if we were LATE and stressed out the hard-working front desk ladies, the PT lady our daughter already looked up to, AND scarred our daughter for life!?
“Call dad and ask him if I’ll make it to the clinic on ‘E’ if I’m not even halfway there yet!,” I barked to Abby. She did and he suggested I get gas to avoid running out on the interstate.
Abby calmly typed Costco into her phone so I could follow spoken directions. My anxiety rose as I waited in line then fumbled with my credit card when it was my turn. I practiced deep-breathing. I reset my phone’s directions to the clinic and pulled out, not realizing the “avoid all major roads” settings button had been hit. I did not recognize where we were at all.
“Abby–I think I’m going to have a panic attack. I’m so sorry. Please keep talking to me,” I said just as the flow of traffic took us into a tunnel. My thoughts tunneled too.
We came out on the other side as my forehead broke into a clammy sweat. I heard a siren and honestly wondered if my phone had picked up my body’s internal emergency alarm and sent out an SOS. An ambulance came up right behind us in the middle lane and I couldn’t think of what side I was supposed to go to. “Abby, what do I do!?” “Go left!” “I think it’s right?!
I was paralyzed and praying that I wouldn’t black out. It did give me the chance to slow down and try to think more clearly. The ambulance went around us, traffic resumed, we arrived safely at the clinic, and I called my husband to debrief as soon as I could. Perhaps there were angels driving that ambulance?
I felt embarrassed with my anxiety attacks but also knew the sweet benefit of sharing with a friend, so I told one friend. She connected me with an elder’s wife in our (new) church that had been through similar experiences and was readily available to talk about it. She set up a time to get together with me and ministered greatly to me giving me comprehensive and helpful advice. Three older women from church reached out too–listening, sharing insights, praying over me. I titled a working notecard, “Denna’s Daily Defense Against Anxiety Attacks.”
My first daily defense reads, “Tell God my emotions/worries/fears; let Him tell me who I am. (Eph 1). Pray. Listen.”
Recounting daily who I am in Christ reminds me of what stays the same amidst great change. From Ephesians 1:
- I am blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing.
- I am chosen.
- I am holy/blameless before Him.
- I am loved.
- I am adopted.
- I am redeemed.
- I am forgiven.
- I am lavished with the riches of His grace.
- I am given wisdom/insight/the mystery of His will.
- I am given an inheritance!
- I have HOPE in Christ.
- I am sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
- The eyes of my heart are enlightened to know:
- the hope He has called me to
- the riches of His glorious inheritance
- the immeasurable greatness of His power toward me
Further down on my daily defense list I wrote sermon notes from a recent message at church:
- “Reorient again and again to God like Jeremiah. Lament – Jesus did and when we do, it doesn’t take away hardship but allows us to go through it WITH Him. Write/speak my personal laments/can use Scriptural laments too.”
Lastly, I’m keeping track of what I’m calling ‘pit prayers’ in light of encouragement from Joseph’s life in Genesis as I pray my way from feeling anxious to resting in the Spirit’s anointing.
PIT PRAYERS
Genesis 50:20, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
Psalm 88:1-2; 6, “O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep.”
Psalm 46:10a, “Be still, and know that I am God…”
2 Corinthians 12:9–10, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Mark 14:3–6, “And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
1 John 2:27a, “But the anointing that you received from him abides in you…”
At the writing of this article, it’s been three months since that last anxiety attack. I praise God for the healing I’ve experienced and for the healing I will experience in this beautiful messy transition journey my family and I are on. I pray something I’ve shared blesses you on your journey.
