Anxious Flyer Much?

You don't notice the sometimes frightening bumps and sudden jolts when your whole flight has been that way.

I remember back in May when I was travelling to Turkey with a group of friends and we were flying the infamous Malaysian Air. We were flying from London to Istanbul and I had been nervous about flying Malaysian Air but on this particular flight my anxiety was getting the best of me. Every little bit of turbulence was freaking me out and when we had arrived and were making our decent to land, we didn't. And the second time we didn't. This is when my anxiety started to climb. All these irrational thoughts started racing through my mind. Like maybe we can't land because terrorists have taken over! Or we're not landing because there's a terrorist issue on the ground at the airport! Or simply, this is it, we are all going to die!!!!

All of these thoughts were going through my mind in a matter of minutes. All the while I'm trying to calm myself down and not totally pass out or start crying because I have no idea what is going on. And then in the middle of my internal freak out I hear the quiet still voice of Jesus say to me, "Anna do you trust me enough to give me your anxiety?"In that moment, when I felt Jesus speaking to me and felt for the first time on this whole turbulent flight His peace and comfort, I was ok. I stopped and took a breath and replied, "Yes, but I'm freaking out!"

And then on the third approach, we landed.

I feel like God lets us go through stuff, like little freak outs on turbulent flights, to bring us and draw us closer in to relationship with Him. And it's our choice if we respond to His knocking on our hearts.

I've probably struggled with anxiety since I was a small child but only have I recently come to terms with it. The more I go through life and meet people who have experienced similar anxious feelings the more I feel ok with it. And the more I keep talking to and trusting the Lord with my worries and sometimes very irrational concerns, the easier it is to live and breathe in freedom from it.