I have a pet named Anxiety. Many of us have pets with the same name, they come in all sizes, colors, some have softer coats than others and some 
even come with extra special decorative collars, mine has an obsessive compulsive accessory.
Now unfortunately for those of us who don’t really like pets, I don’t even allow shoes in my home let alone pets, you can’t simply get rid of your pet because you don’t like it. We will just call it a “permapet” because it will never leave, but we can tame it!
I have what I call high functioning anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. If I am not able to control, manage, treat, orchestrate, contain, or suppress my fun pet it then leads to severe fatigue, fear and depression.
Quick back ground so you get a better photo- college education -masters degree, veteran –usaf pilot, mother of 4 living boys, lost my only baby girl at 26 days old- CHD, miscarried 10 + times, widowed from suicide, re-married to a widower, business entrepreneur, quality assurance specialist – job I love.
Sometimes my pet gets lose and when it does I become extremely irritable, I can’t stand to be around anyone and this can take a serious toll on my relationships. This become really fun because the more that I feed it, the worse it becomes. My pet loves lack of sleep, social situations and “crunch points” which are created when I have a timeline and can’t figure out how to get done what I need to. I begin to obsess over everything. Here is an example, if my son has flip flops on I will take a pair of sneakers in my car in case there is a natural disaster, what if we had to walk a long way. The “what ifs” take over frequently…
How do I manage my pet? I literally have a bizzilion coping techniques, I won’t go into all of them here because I will leave that for another post. Here is the point that I want to make today, as a Christian many people have this incorrect thought process that they can “pray away” this pet. Can’t be done.
You cannot simply go to church, read your scriptures and pray. And don’t sit there and think, “oh how little faith” because if you are I can guarantee you have no idea what this pet is.
You don’t pray for your pet to leave, you pray that you can better train your pet. You pray that you can manage your pet that God will give you the strength daily to deal with what you have. We at times actually make this worse because we get it in our heads if we are living righteously we shouldn’t be dealing with this right, wrong.
God is there it HELP you through this. He knows and understands what you are dealing with and he is here to comfort you, to hold and to provide strength. No different than with our own relationships, you can’t simply “remove” the struggling emotions of others, but we can offer condolences, humility and love.
Using the gospel as your center point you can then begin to find the things that help you to control your anxiety, because YES you can still have a high functioning productive life. You can become the “You-er than You”, I promise…