I trust God and take Prozac!

This comes as no shock to those who know me:  I take a pill for anxiety.  I have for years.  I've come out of the closet long before it was cool ... perhaps it still isn't cool.  Because of the pill, I've been able to sit across women, over cups of coffee and feel the pain as they express their shame, their sense of brokenness, their hurt over the concept of taking a pill and trying to balance their faith in a powerful, healing God.

Still reading the book one thousand gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right where You Are by Ann Voskamp.  I want to write the words of paragraph that I found to be ... nothing short of profound.

True, certainly, there are organic, biological causes to anxiety, and there may certainly be underlying chemical issues that warrant medication.  I have filled prescriptions.  This has been right.  All anxiety is not spiritual.  And yet I know and haltingly confess:  Much of the worry in my own life has been a failure to believe ... a wariness to thank and trust the love hand of God. (p. 148-149)

Go Ann.  Much of the worry in my life has been partly chemical ... but more worry that God is not good and can not be trusted.  If the bottom falls, the foot drops, the last straw laid ... will He be good?  I know with my intellect the answer.  My intellect says: yes.  My inner heart that has more power and is prone to anxiety says:  I don't know.

Knowing He is good ... has been good ... will always be good is a discipline of my heart, will, and the lassoing of anxiety.  "Jesus replied, 'This is the work (service) that God asks of you:  that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]'" (John 6:29 AMP).

God has given me daily opportunities to make a choice.  Believe Him ... and His goodness ... in the middle of complicated ... OR ... not to.  When I don't ... when I choose the "not to" ... stress raises it's ugly head to the point another pill is popped for all the wrong reasons and my foundation is shaky.

I make my lists of gifts.  I'm on #102.  Being grateful.  That's what keeps this discipline of trust alive in my heart, real for me,  transforming.  I can't be grateful and stressed at the same time.

counting ...
me