Coping. I just read this tweet that said, “In the morning, in the evening, in your coming, and your going, in your rejoicing, and your weeping, HE IS FOR YOU.” He being God. My heart flipped over in disgust.
If you know the most recent drama in the Christian women blog-o-sphere, you know why I was disgusted. This positive, no-hardship-at-all, life-is-just-great, with-Jesus-there’s-no-chronic-pain tweet wasn’t teaching me how to cope. It didn’t even mention coping at all.
Coping With Anxiety
When I’m being torn in half by anxiety, the last thing I want to hear is that someone (especially a DIVINE someone) is cheering for me. The pressure of that is too much. I’d much rather suffer alone.
Being Jalen Suggs at the Final Four, sidelined for the first ten minutes, knowing that everyone on national television is expecting me to deliver another highlight for their Instagram feed? I’ll leave that to him, thank you. God made some people to withstand that type of pressure. I am not one of them.
Yes… That’s preferable. Going through it without a fanbase is better. No one knows my goals, so no one can know my failures. Seems alleviating enough, right?
No. The one thing that tweet forgot is the very title of this post.
“In the coping, HE IS FOR YOU.” or more appropriately,
“In the coping, HE IS WITH YOU.”
God doesn’t want us to fill our minds with things that do not heal us, teach us, or secure us. Vaguely positive affirmations are not for the deep-of-heart. Vaguely positive affirmations are not for you. They aren’t for me either.
I need substantial reassurance. You do too. Reassurance in the coping mechanisms, the strength within, and the ability to persevere.
That type of reassurance is found in the revision above: “In the coping, HE IS WITH YOU.”
All the Peace,
AK.