My dear friend,
Prayer is dynamic. Beautiful. Powerful. Life-changing. Healing.
And most importantly, holistic, dynamic, and relationally based.
I’m sorry for the times I’ve consciously or unconsciously thought, “You need to pray more. You need more faith,” when you’ve shared your anxiety. Like Job’s friends, it makes me feel safer to supply easy answers than to sit in the uncomfortable ash heap.
Because, dear friend, me sitting next to you could be an answer to your prayers. Or maybe the prayers of a grandparent, a pastor, or a coworker. Jesus always healed and operated from a place of relationship. Conversation. Understanding. He met people where they were at.
So, here I am.
Chances are, you, my dear friend, don’t need to pray more. You are probably already crying out to God on a moment-to-moment basis. You are experiencing something beyond the normal day-to-day worries most people are familiar with. To equate anxiety with a bad case of the Mondays is unhelpful.
To view it as merely a “spiritual” issue can tempt me to push all of the blame on you and absolve me from caring. Jeremiah was the weeping prophet. David tossed and turned at night. Didn’t they need friends to support them? Didn’t they need their ailments, seen and unseen, cared for?
God is practical and loving—he created our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. To view anxiety as merely a “physical” issue can tempt me to stop praying and to stop seeking God on your behalf. Or to grow hopeless when obstacles arise as you navigate ways to heal and find tools you can use.
I might be the one who needs to pray more. I need to pray that God would remove stigmas or unhelpful biases I have in my own heart about mental health and anxiety. Like splinters in my heart, they fester and block my own compassion.
Here’s the good news, friend, I’m not responsible for saving you. I’m not a lone wolf who’s going to solve everything. Or responsible for answering why you experience panic attacks, racing thoughts, and sleepless nights. Or deciding if medication is or is not right for you.
The devil may already be trying to shame you and discourage you from seeking help. Forgive me if I ever add more shame to your burdens.
I don’t want to add any more rocks to the bag you’re working so hard to unpack.
Here’s what I can promise you. I’ll give you rides to appointments if you need it. I’ll send you funny memes and GIFs on bad days; tight hugs and encouraging scriptures; healthy burrito bowls when you’re too worn out to cook.
When you cry, I’ll probably cry too. I’ll do my best to celebrate when you’re celebrating.
Dear friend, I’ll try my best to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Forgive me if I lose patience. I’ll ask for the Holy Spirit to guide me in small, simple, and consistent actions of care toward you. I’ll pray for healthy boundaries in our friendship.
Romans 12:12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.
This thing is, this anxiety is a very small part of our larger relationship. You are hilarious, strong, and so talented. I love the time we spend together. I want to try new hobbies with you, watch our favorite movies, and laugh at stupid jokes only we understand. I won’t treat anxiety like an elephant in the room when it’s really more like an erratic cat that darts across the hall. I won’t let it distract us from the good stuff.
Maybe we’ll get to witness a radical, overnight prayer of healing. Or maybe we need to light a candle of prayer for weeks, months, or years. Or some combination of the two. Either way, I pray that day by day Christ will bring more light into the darkness.
And so, now if you tell me, “I have anxiety,” instead of thinking, “You need to pray more,”
I’ll say, “Thanks for telling me. That’s a really brave thing to do. I’m here for you.”
And we’ll let a little bit of the light in.
Katrina.
“If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.”Psalm 139:11