Saturday morning I woke up and I had my usual dose of anxiety. It sucks, but its real. I usually wake up with anxiety, and since I’ve moved to St. Pete I haven’t been able to find a doctor for my normal medicine.
Like I said, it sucks.
But I also woke up praying. I sat at the end of my bed, with my eyes closed…not something I do very often, but I did it that morning.
What I was doing didn’t need to make theological sense (which is often the reason I don’t participate in certain traditional forms of prayer), it simply needed to make sense to my anxious thoughts. I needed something to cool my racing mind and thumping heart, so I chose the practice of stillness, of verbally communicating to the Divine my inmost turmoil.
I prayed, “today is the day You’ve made, but I feel like crap. I might live and move and have my being in You but I feel like shit.”
No audible voice spoke to me,
So I jumped up and took a shower. I didn’t instantly feel better and I didn’t feel better in an hour or two, but I realized I wasn’t praying for some strange sense of comfort but rather to include God in the crazy storm of anxiety I felt. Comfort wasn’t on my mind rather the hope of sensing that God understood and even felt what I was going through was enough. It’s interesting to think that my feelings affect God, but that’s exactly what I knew. I knew that my heart racing with anxiety was affecting God and so I smiled and told God, “jokes on you buddy…”