Beneath the Waves

You know that feeling you get when you’re in water that’s way over your head? I’m not talking figuratively – I mean literally.

You’re treading water, but the fatigue is setting in and the best you can do is keep your face above the water. Not your head – just your face. With every new wave, you swallow more water. You work so hard for the little air you’re able to take in. Then, to make matters worse, your heart rate is sky-high and is making breathing even more difficult.

You know that if you don’t get to shallow waters soon, you will drown.

Yet, with every stroke you take, you seem to fall deeper below the waves and no closer to the shallows.

This is what anxiety feels like for me. I work hard against the tide, but it just continues to drag me under. Each time it leaves me a little more disoriented, a little less sure of which direction I’m supposed to be swimming.

These last few weeks have been filled with this panicked feeling of treading water. School is the primary culprit, but it has help from job hunting, moving yet again, PA school details, COVID-19, social issues and so many other things. All of which are taking turns at grabbing my ankles and jerking me under. Every time I turn around there’s something else to take care of or worry about – something that’s falling apart.

Anxiety wrecks me in ways that depression never did. While depression is a dark pit of nothing, anxiety is all bright lights and loud noises. I am left feeling overwhelmed and blind, wondering if I’ll ever find my way out.

“What was I doing? I came to the kitchen for something.”

“What’s my name? Oh yeah, Rebekah, okay.”

“Did I kennel the dog or did I forget to do that?”

“What day is it?”

All seemingly harmless questions, but all a very real sign that my brain is not okay. I feel myself slipping.

I am afraid.

But, Psalm 119:116 says,

“Sustain me according to Your word, that I may live; and do not let me be ashamed of my hope.”

I love this verse because it’s so fitting to my particular journey with anxiety. I want to live and be an active participant in this life I’ve been given. The only way to do that – to find life – is to let God sustain me. The only way to swim, and not simply tread water, is to spend time with the Lord. His word is the life raft He sends out. It is the inner tube I pull over my head. Not only does it keep me from drowning, it gives me the ability to swim – to see above the waves and make it to where I need to be.

I need the Lord’s strength in order to stand against the continual battering of the waves that life sends my way.

I also don’t want to live my life ashamed of what I deal with and go through. I need help. Yes, I struggle with anxiety and depression. That’s the thorn in life that I’ve been given.

And that’s okay.

I’m really not embarrassed to tell you that it is only Jesus that has gotten me this far.

I am weak.

I am not enough on my own.

I am broken and beaten.

But, Jesus. Jesus saved me and carries me every day. Jesus gives me what I need to face each new day.

I don’t have to be afraid of falling beneath the waves when I serve a God who walks on the water.