Walking in Faith and Living with Fear

I’ve struggled with anxiety and fear for most of my adult life. I remember when I first recognized “anxiety” … I had a panic attack while driving on a highway, heading to the Mall of America. I had to pull over alongside the road and sit for a while with the windows rolled down, just trying to breathe. For a few miles before I stopped, I was scanning for hospital signs, so that I would be prepared if I needed medical attention… I wondered if I was having a heart attack, or, who knows. That was my first onset of a panic attack and I had several more after that.

I had no idea what was going on at first and wound up at a bookstore in the self-help section, scanning for books with titles that described what I was feeling. I finally found a couple which described exactly what I had experienced. For several years, I did a little counseling, reading and practiced techniques that were designed to help one’s mind and body relax and work through these feelings as they came up.

As the years went by, I would notice periodically that I started to have more physical reactions during times of uncertainty or when I felt fear on some level. I would break out in hives on my chest and face, even if I appeared calm to others. My stomach would turn in knots and I would feel nauseous. I remember the day when I thought, wow, if something REALLY bad happened to me or my family, I may wind up in bed and not able to do anything. Incapacitated. I was concerned about that happening as I could sense that the level of stress and anxiety in me was increasing despite my learned techniques from years ago. Again, my rashes appeared on my skin, and at one point my fingers swelled up so much I had to have my wedding ring cut off. While there were metabolic and hormonal components to these physical issues, they ultimately stemmed from stress and fear. I had to find a way to cope with what was going on within me.

Once I ran the gamut of medical and hormonal routes, I realized I needed to focus on my spiritual life. I needed the Divine Physician. I read a lot of books about providence, peace, faith, suffering, etc. When I was brave enough to share my struggles with a few people, the well-intentioned responses I received were about trusting God more, and people encouraged me to have more faith. The general overall feeling I got from people was that if I had more trust, I wouldn’t have all this stress, anxiety and fear. While I know people meant well, and that there are definitely elements of truth in what they were saying, it felt dismissive to me. I totally understand that “perfect love casts out all fear”, but none of us are perfect and can love as perfectly as God can. While this is the goal, it is very difficult for someone who struggles with anxiety and fear to simply be told I needed to have more faith, more trust, in order to relieve myself from the paralyzing feelings I was dealing with.

Not only was I already trying everything I could to help myself, which took a lot of effort, I began to feel bad that I apparently must not have had enough trust and faith in God for Him to relieve me, give me some peace or a sense of strength to be able to deal with this. Since fear and anxiety are not from God, and God does not desire for us to live a life in fear, I felt I was obviously doing something wrong. I went through a bit of a spiritual crisis on top of the anxiety, simply trying to keep my eyes on the goal, on Jesus, as I realized how very little I understood about God’s love for me, and how He sees me; He knows my heart and that I want to love enough to cast out all my fears.

I have come to settle on the fact that for this time in my life, I might just have to hold faith and fear in each of my hands. Rather than think I’ve been and I am doing something wrong spiritually if I still have anxiety, or beat myself up over my very human feelings, emotions and the temperament that God gave me to begin with, I’m allowing myself to recognize that I am dealing with a large range of circumstances that affect me in this manner but that does not mean I am completely lacking faith and trust in God. I will always desire more faith and more trust, as we all should, and I will probably never be content with where I am spiritually. But I am not going to continue believing that I’m somehow failing spiritually in God’s eyes whenever I struggle with fear and anxiety. I believe continuing on a path of deeper trust and faith in God can and will free me from some of my fears and anxiety, or at least help me make peace with that part of myself more easily while I’m on the journey.

My spiritual director was instrumental with a huge “aha!” moment for me when he first told me that God is already pleased with my simple acts of faith and acts of the will. I am intentionally choosing to tell God that I trust in Him, that I have faith in Him. God knows our hearts. Making the simple act of saying this to God and believing it is ok. I’m ok. I can make peace with myself for where I’m at in the moment while still desiring to grow deeper in faith and trust.

In addition to my usual morning offering, acts of faith, hope and charity, which “cover” me for the whole day, I’ve taken to reciting the Mary Undoer of Knots prayer, and the Surrender Novena, both of which remind me to place myself in Mary’s and Jesus’ hands and not try to control so much by myself. By intentionally saying these prayers and meaning them, I’m making additional acts of my will to trust in Jesus and His mother while trying to turn those things that cause fear and anxiety over to their care. I will not be able to do this perfectly in this life, however, for the moment I feel like I’ve made a little peace with holding both fear and faith in my hands… while I don’t think there is anything theological about this, for me, faith and fear is not an "either-or". It’s a "both-and". I am living with fear but also walking in faith, and choosing to trust that I’m growing closer to God along the way by my repeated decisions to turn to Him even in my fear.