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God Help Me,
This Stress Is Driving Me Crazy!
Finding Balance through God’s Grace.
Chapter One
What, Me Worry?
Dismiss
all anxiety from your minds. Present your needs
to God in
in every form of prayer and in petitions full
of gratitude.
-The Apostle Paul writing from his jail cell to
the people of Phillipi
(Phil 4:6)
"What do I have to do to get a break?"
Crazy schedules,
conflicting responsibilities, complicated relationships,
never-ending piles of work and bills, ghosts from
the past, and the feeling that we're being pulled
in a bazillion different directions. Sometimes
it seems like life intends to squeeze us until
we POP!
But through all this, there is a constant, quiet
voice calling to the center of our soul. In the
eye of our mental hurricane, there is a gentle,
loving whisper. "O my child, you are busy
with many things. Be still. Do not be afraid.
I am with you."
God Doesn’t
Care About My Anxieties, Does He?
Sadly, so many of
us doubt that God really cares about our every
day anxieties. We forget that the God who has
numbered the hairs on each or our heads is not
above caring about the petty details of our lives.
Instead, we think that God is too busy solving
the wars, famines, floods, and the million or
so other “real” problems in the world
to concern himself with our silly concerns. Shouldn’t
we just “offer it up” and get over
whiny selves?
Well, not entirely.
While there certainly
is merit in, as Paul says in Colossians, joining
our sufferings with Christ’s cross for the
good of the Church, this does not mean that God
does not wish to deliver us from our anxieties.
After all, Jesus reminded us that that just as
earthly parents want to give good things to their
children, our Heavenly Father--whose love is more
perfect and profound than anything we could experience
on this earth--wants to shower his goodness upon
us. What parent wants his or her child to be consumed
with worry? If we, who are far from perfect, wish
to spare our children from their smallest sufferings,
how much more would our Heavenly Father want to
deliver us from our anxieties? When Jesus’
disciples began fretting, “What shall we
eat? What shall we drink? What shall we put on
today?” Jesus comforted them, confident
in the providence of his Father, “Do not
be anxious…. Seek first the Kingdom of God
and all things will be added unto you.”
In the two thousand
years since Christ walked the earth, the Church
has continued to echo this sentiment. From the
Apostle Paul—proclaiming from prison no
less—that we should not allow anxiety to
disturb our minds (Phil 4:6), all the way through
to the modern age. As a Catholic, it is significant
to me that during the longest pontificate in history,
God sent Pope John Paul II to proclaim to the
world over and over again, “Be not afraid!”
Likewise, every time I go to Mass, I hear these
words. “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil
and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy,
keep us free from sin, and protect us from all
anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming
of our savior, Jesus Christ. [emphasis mine]”
The ancient Tradition
of the Church deems this prayer to be so important
that she inserts it into an extraordinarily exalted
place; a place many would consider to be smack
dab in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer!
It comes right after, “and deliver us from
evil” and before the Doxology (e.g., “For
the Kingdom...”). To me, these powerful
words represent both a prayer and a promise for
every Christian. That the Lord desires to “Protect
us from all anxiety.”
Do you think, maybe,
God is trying to tell us something?
Still, it seems
to me that this is an extraordinary thing to pray.
Protect us from all anxiety? Isn’t that
selfish, or at the very least, hopelessly unrealistic?
Life is stressful. Dare we ask the Lord to deliver
us from something that is as much a part of daily
life as breathing? How many of us can even tie
our shoes in the morning without experiencing
some small pang of anxiety (that’s the reason
I wear loafers, by the way.....) And yet, those
words, “protect us from all anxiety”
are repeated every single day in every single
Catholic Church throughout the world every time
the Lord’s Prayer is uttered. Clearly, something
must be meant by them. What?
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