Today I was anxious.
It’s been a week full of anxiety-inducing events. I felt anxious, unsure, sad, and mad all at the same time. I wonder if maybe you felt the same way?
Weeks like this can bring down the morale of the whole culture. Another school shooting, the anniversary of the attack on 9/11, and a new wave of racism and hate crimes after an incredulous comment about pets at the presidential debate. And none of these things happened to me or in my home, but I felt them deeply. Each of these realities is challenging on its own, but when compounded into a short amount of time it becomes fuel for anxiety. With no time to process between events, our bodies and minds aren’t able to recover before the next trauma.
It’s easy for me in the face of tragedies like these to think of a solution. But often, my ideas are too simple and too focused on the solution instead of the problem. It seems that my mind acknowledges the anxiety I feel in these situations and comes up with the simplest way to get rid of that anxiety without just ignoring the events.
The reality is, there is no perfect solution. There is no clear next step.
But there is always hope.
Hope battles anxiety face to face. After all, hope asks the same question that anxiety does: what if?
“What if this happens again?”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“What if racism never ends?”
“What if people learn to love?”
It’s the same two words, but hope offers life when anxiety says there is none. Hope offers love when anxiety is too afraid to even consider feeling it. Hope sees God working when anxiety’s eyes are closed.
Today I was anxious. And today I was hopeful.
