I had been so consumed with taking care of everything and everyone else, trying to keep it all from falling down around me, that I hadn’t taken care of myself. This included not having health insurance. I hadn’t had health insurance since my son was born 9 years before, so I avoided the doctor (and the dreaded doctor bill!) like the plague. Because of my constant anxiety over finances, I didn’t think I could afford health insurance; so I did without, choosing instead to work hard to pay for private school and other things for my children.
I wore myself out, literally.
Letting go of control . . ..
What does it take?
For me, it took God literally knocking the breath out of me. The day I was released from the hospital I could breathe again, both physically and emotionally. I handed my husband the finances, without exceptions, chains or questions. He gets to make all those decisions. It is out of my control.
Surprisingly, though, I feel more in control of my life now – because now, I can actually live it. I can live in the moment instead of always mentally making money calculations in my brain, or checking my bank account balance to see if we are in danger of overdraft, which was always my fear.
During that hospital stay, I had time to think; and in the quiet, God was able to deal with my anxious heart. He revealed to me that my anxiety had been holding me captive in an emotional jail, and He broke chains that I had put on myself for years.
My problem wasn’t being money hungry; my problem was that I desperately wanted to keep my husband happy. Why? Because my biggest fear was his leaving me, although, again, he had never given me any reason to feel this way.
As I thought further, I realized that this stemmed back to my childhood fears of being left alone. In the third grade, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks. The trigger? The fear of my momma leaving me somewhere. Every time she left, regardless of where it was, I feared that she would not come back and get me.
And yet, my momma, just like my husband, had never given me any reason to believe that she would ever leave me. One thing is for sure, I know someone who will never leave us or forsake us, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Do you struggle with anxiety? What would it take to make you let go?
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This article originally appeared at AlyssaAvant.com.
