Philippians 4:5-7
New International Version (NIV)
5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
This verse has been quoted to me a thousand times in my life. It was a major reason that I felt so inferior was the fact that not appearing anxious was natural for many of my friends, but for me it was an all-consuming matter to not fear. Over time you have this deep, subconscious feeling that either you are junk, because you can't reach that level of peace, or that God is mighty unfair.
But, I sincerely believe that we all don't start from the same place. I have no problem under-eating (although I wish I did at times) but for the anorexic, it is a constant nightmare. We are not the same. I don't have to fight those demons. But I do have to fight the anxiety demons.
Lately, once more I was thrust into the center of an extremely anxious situation. I won't go into details here as that is not the focus of my posting. But I will summarize by saying for about three weeks I was teetering on the edge of financial failure as a business owner despite working extremely hard for the past few months (and the reason I don't have a moment to write here anymore, expect for days like to day, Christmas day and I'm not working).
Oddly it had to do more with computers than anything. In September I switched to a new billing company for my medical practice. They use a different software than our practice had been using. To make a long story short, because of the new software, Medicare and virtually all of our private insurances simply stopped paying us. Bills were pouring in and I ran completely out of money. The bank refused to lend me a dime even though the insurance companies owed my business almost $100,000 (most of which I will never see). So that's it in a nutshell. I am only out of the woods by the fact that I am due to get a check tomorrow for $6,000 for which I can pay my employees but I can't pay myself for this month and who knows what will happen next week.
Okay, with that said, I want to talk about the anxiety part of it. As I am getting older, I want more than ever to find that peace. I don't want to lie on my deathbed knowing that my life was filled with anxiety and sleepless nights.
I have come a long ways. I mean, even starting this business in the face of extreme odds (and those odds against me are the reasons the banks won't loan me money) and that took a lot of courage. But I want to find a way that when I'm face with those traumas of life, being told I have cancer, being told I'm being sued and etc. that I can find a way to pray and to believe God.
But this brings me back to the spirit of this blog. There are many of us who have spent a good portion of our lives in the evangelical world where fake miracles were the fabric of our everyday lives. We got burnt. On this side, it would be very easy to believe that God never solves our problems. That the worse outcome, the one we fear in the middle of the night, is the one that is inevitable. But I will be back with some more thoughts on this topic. But somehow this passage has to be true despite the nagging reality that it doesn't appear to be.
This verse has been quoted to me a thousand times in my life. It was a major reason that I felt so inferior was the fact that not appearing anxious was natural for many of my friends, but for me it was an all-consuming matter to not fear. Over time you have this deep, subconscious feeling that either you are junk, because you can't reach that level of peace, or that God is mighty unfair.
Lately, once more I was thrust into the center of an extremely anxious situation. I won't go into details here as that is not the focus of my posting. But I will summarize by saying for about three weeks I was teetering on the edge of financial failure as a business owner despite working extremely hard for the past few months (and the reason I don't have a moment to write here anymore, expect for days like to day, Christmas day and I'm not working).
Oddly it had to do more with computers than anything. In September I switched to a new billing company for my medical practice. They use a different software than our practice had been using. To make a long story short, because of the new software, Medicare and virtually all of our private insurances simply stopped paying us. Bills were pouring in and I ran completely out of money. The bank refused to lend me a dime even though the insurance companies owed my business almost $100,000 (most of which I will never see). So that's it in a nutshell. I am only out of the woods by the fact that I am due to get a check tomorrow for $6,000 for which I can pay my employees but I can't pay myself for this month and who knows what will happen next week.
Okay, with that said, I want to talk about the anxiety part of it. As I am getting older, I want more than ever to find that peace. I don't want to lie on my deathbed knowing that my life was filled with anxiety and sleepless nights.
I have come a long ways. I mean, even starting this business in the face of extreme odds (and those odds against me are the reasons the banks won't loan me money) and that took a lot of courage. But I want to find a way that when I'm face with those traumas of life, being told I have cancer, being told I'm being sued and etc. that I can find a way to pray and to believe God.
But this brings me back to the spirit of this blog. There are many of us who have spent a good portion of our lives in the evangelical world where fake miracles were the fabric of our everyday lives. We got burnt. On this side, it would be very easy to believe that God never solves our problems. That the worse outcome, the one we fear in the middle of the night, is the one that is inevitable. But I will be back with some more thoughts on this topic. But somehow this passage has to be true despite the nagging reality that it doesn't appear to be.
1 comment:
I'm sorry you had such a rough time. It sounds horrible. I haven't had the best time myself, recently, but nothing like that.
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