Anxiety is an ever-present threat to the ever-running mind of a mom. As someone who was not prone to anxiety, motherhood threw me for a loop. Suddenly, I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Especially after spending over a week in the NICU due to birth complications, anxiety was around every corner. Was he growing properly? What happens if he gets sick? Am I doing the right thing? Is he doing the right thing? The questions were constantly spinning inside my mind.
Once those first few fragile days and weeks passed, there was a whole new set of questions. Do I sleep train? Should I nurse to sleep? How should we nap him? What happens when I go back to work? This is the life a mom.
I realized quickly that I would have to manage the anxiety or it would manage me. There were so many tips and tricks that I wanted to try, but at the end of the day the exhaustion would set in and I would put those things on a mental check list to hopefully get to later.
During one middle of the night feed, the Lord gently reminded me that I was looking for peace in all the wrong places. Instead of dwelling in the presence of the Lord, I was scrolling social media looking for help. Instead of pausing to spend even five minutes in the Word, I was reading what could go wrong with my brand new baby and how to prevent it.
I found myself in the book of Joshua. Joshua received a calling from the Lord to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering. All throughout the book of Joshua there are layers of the small faithful steps of people that acknowledged who God is and acted in accordance. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” The things unseen. I trust God is there, that he is working, that he is true and then I act in accordance. That means that regardless of the things that could happen, I trust that God is who he says he is and that he has a plan. This settles my heart and reminds me that I cannot control the outcome, no matter how hard I try. I can’t know for sure that my child won’t get sick no matter how hard I try or that my family won’t go through difficulties but I can trust that God is in control.
As I kept reading through Joshua and studying it (I recommend John MacArthur’s study Joshua, Judges & Ruth) I found that faith is the anecdote to anxiety. If I trust God, trust that he has a plan for my life and the life of my family, and I walk in faithful obedience, I find that the anxiety has no room to take over.
I remember growing up that my mom was always on the look out for the things that could go wrong especially with two young boys that got into everything. She was always thinking ahead. I never understood the importance of that until I became a mother. There is a level of healthy mom-awareness that is needed in order to keep the family safe. I now know why my mom had that awareness because now so do I. So often this awareness becomes anxiety and takes over putting me in a place where I am no longer trusting the Lord but instead I am letting fear control me.
Back to Joshua; the Israelites have finally reached the Promised Land but need to cross the Jordan River. The Lord instructs the Levites to carry the Ark of the Covenant ahead of the people about 1,000 yards. The importance of this was for the Israelites to see clearly that the Lord goes before them and provides a way. The Jordan stopped flowing and they all crossed on dry ground, the second time they crossed a body of water on dry ground. Once they reached the other side the Lord instructed them to take 12 stones and set them up as a reminder in Gilgal of what the Lord had done (Joshua 3-4). We often lose sight of the Lord’s faithfulness because we forget what he has done in our lives over the course of time. This is when the anxiety creeps in and threatens to take over. The Lord always provides, even when I cannot see it. The important thing is for me to look up and see what the Lord is doing and build an altar to remember what he has done. Not only does this help with the anxiety but then we can tell our children that the Lord is faithful, a reminder to us but a teaching moment for them. When I remember the faithfulness of the Lord, I find that my anxiety slowly calms.[1]
I can point to many times when the Lord has faithfully provided. It often does not look the way I want it to or expect it to, but it is always for my good and for His glory. Not only this, but also we look ahead to the hope of eternity. As moms we sometimes need to just sit and dwell on that thought even for five minutes during nap time. Anxiety does not have to have the final say because it does not have the final say, Jesus does. That is the hope that we have, because Jesus died and rose again, he defeated death. What peace we can find in this reality.
I decided in those wee hours that I would get rid of social media for an undetermined amount of time and spend more time studying the Word. I also decided that I could spend the middle-of-the-night-feed praying instead of watching a show. It may look different for each mom but my encouragement is to take inventory. Does time in the Word take a back seat to scrolling? Does prayer make the end of the list of things to do? Because what I found is that my search for peace from anxiety was time with the Lord and remembering his faithfulness in the past and the coming faithfulness of eternity spent with him.
Every day is another chance to surrender to the Lord and continue to cast all your anxieties on the him because he does care. And in the middle of all the chaos, when the thoughts and feelings start creeping in, the Lord says to us: “Be still, and know that I am God” (English Standard Version, Psalm 46:10).
[1] John MacArthur, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, The MacArthur Old Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), 45.