My morning prayers are inspired by the images you see in this blog. Sometimes I simply sit with what I see, lost in awe of the art patiently created by a friend, or a photo that captures a moment I would surely never have noticed. In time I jot down what I see and those notes become the blog posts I share. For many weeks I have been praying about anxiety, at a loss for words and surely without an image to inspire me. Then my amazing friend Dorothy Smith posted this acrylic painting entitled ,’Balancing Act’. What I saw in her work crystallized my thoughts and prayers.
Psychologists define anxiety as ‘apprehension, tension, or uneasiness that stems from the anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external’. The word anxiety seems to be part and parcel of almost every conversation. Sometimes anxiety is caused by a particular situation. Often anxiety is caused by things that are bigger than life, things we wish we could control but are beyond our reach. Are we all really anxious or are we simply convinced we should be anxious? Has the fight or flight response been dampened down into just freeze?
I see anxiety as a desire to either do it all or do nothing. Neither alternative works very well. Whether we like it or not, what we do, and even what we say, affects others. Small actions and gestures can either make or break our day. How we welcome others into our homes frames our entire time together. That welcome applies not only to guests, but to those we live with. Do we create anxiety simply by skipping the common courtesies of life? Are we damaging ourselves by failing to treat others as we would like to be treated?
Perhaps anxiety stems from a deep wound we have buried inside ourselves. Some of us may carry around a burden that gets heavier each day, a wound that is unable to heal because the wound fails to see the light. I don’t know about you, but once I let the trauma surface, I find I am far from alone. A healing had been prepared for me, a healing that was more that I could begin to imagine or hope for.
Burying my hurt not only affected me, it also affected those most precious to me. I held back part of me I was sure they could never love. All I really did was create a gulf between me and them, a gulf filled with fear and despair. With a hole like that in my soul, is it any surprise I lashed out? No wonder life seemed so overwhelming.
So I set about a healing journey that is now almost three decades long. This sort of healing is a process, a balancing act. Sometimes I need to be alone to deal with what surfaces. Other times just being in a coffee shop with people around me works. Often I just need to be held.
Yet what helps the most is dialogue. For me prayer is dialogue with God, where God does most of the work. I simply show up, expecting nothing and hoping for the best. Some days I think why did I bother, only to find at the end of the day how that time apart made all the difference in the world. I am called to reach out to others, to be present to their hearts and minds and souls. Yet in God’s economy, listening to others, deeply listening and meeting them where they are, opens up a space where both of us heal.
Does that mean I am immune to anxiety? No, far from it. Yet belief that there is more than is humanly possible and trust in the healing power of prayer leads me to do my part. God may call me simply to listen and share the journey with another. Make time today to take care of yourself and others. Accept that what God asks you to do is often inconvenient and uncomfortable. Trust the healing that has been prepared for all of us. Say yes to the small part you are called to play, often without ever knowing if what you did made a difference. And always remember, it’s God’s plan we are meant to live out, rather than our own.
Text by Connie Chintall ©2024, All Rights Reserved
Art entitled ‘Balancing Act’, 20×30 acrylic by Dorothy Smith©2024, used with her permission, All Rights Reserved.
Seek the Sacred Amidst the Ordinary 