I am someone who has had anxiety my entire life.  I remember being in fifth grade and hearing a story about a child who had appendicitis and almost died; and after hearing that story, my biggest fear was getting appendicitis.  I always had the fear and sense of doom hanging over my head.  In my early twenties my anxiety again was fueled by the idea of some body system of mine failing and I was going to die.  I was your typical person who got my diagnosis from webMD and was dying.  It was getting out of hand and I knew something needed to change; so instead of googling symptoms and diseases, I began to google scripture and utilized God to simmer down my fears.  It worked and my days were less anxious; things would freak me out but it wasn’t debilitating.  Until Andrew happened.

It only makes sense that after Andrew died, my world would fall apart and I would lack control over my daily life.  I was lost and didn’t know what to expect with grieving and because of that my body was attempting what it could to process what had happened to us but was failing and I was loosing control.  I began therapy and it helped; my year was hard but manageable.  Between the anniversary of Andrews life and death passing and just giving birth to another child, my world began to look like a a tangled ball of yarn with knots, chaos, loops here, and loops there.  I had no control again and knew I needed help.  My therapist and psychiatrist thought medicinal support would be a step in “getting better,” but there was more I needed to do.  I again needed to process what was stemming my anxiety, fear, doom, and pain.  Never did I think Andrew was the sole reason I was struggling so bad, when I thought it was my fear of all the bad things in the world.

The medicine helped get my mind out of the fog and I knew I needed to be proactive and make other changes.  I began going to the gym and doing my best to have other healthy life styles.  With my daily journaling, I began to write down what I was grateful for, why my day was rough, and what I could do to fix it or prevent that issue in the future.  I spent time reading scripture and meditating on the versus that stood out to me.  All of these things have helped tremendously but still, there is more that I needed to do; after listening to the sermon given by The Orchards lead pastor on Psalm 22, my eyes have finally opened to how sin and Satin have played a role in grief and my day to day life. In his sermon the thing that stood out to me the most about anxiety and depression, is that when we are having these feelings, we need to examine what is between us and God, because with God we have the endurance and ability to get by.  We have hope.  When we are so lost and focused on what is messing with our mind and heart, we abandon the ship God is navigating and begin to drown in the waves of the ocean waters we are treading.

So what is my storm? What am I doing wrong? What is my sin, that is pulling me from God’s truth?  I’m doing all the right things.  I understand Andrew was sick and couldn’t live because his body failed him.  I’m praying, reading scripture, reading my devotionals, singing worship music but I’m still drowning.  I am a good person and doing all the things that should be freeing me of my anxiety and sorrows but it’s still there.  Then listening to the sermon a light bulb went off- my problem was Andrew.  Andrew is my sin.

I can feel my throat closing as I typed out those last two sentences and I can feel the pain in my chest because Andrew is my child and my world, he shouldn’t be what is preventing me from a life of less anxiety or bad days.  I know something isn’t right when I think about my death and how exciting it will be when I get called home because I get to be reunited with Andrew.  There is a problem that when I die my first instinct is to run past God, in search for Andrew and my first heavenly embrace to be Drew, not God.  I realized that I am no longer living for God but living for Andrew and that is a sin.  I am dwelling in what was and what would be of Andrew’s life.  I look for signs of him in daily life.  Good moments happen and I smile and think of him.  I simply have his name on repeat, in my mind, all day long.  I have anxiety, depression, sorrow, and pain because what I am focusing on in life is Andrew and not God.  That’s grief and what causes it to be so debilitating.  Life can be joyous again but we have to let go of the idea of what happened and what would be.

God showed Andrew mercy by freeing him of his broken body but I as his mother still have his soul entrapped to the baby I once carried in my womb and held in my arms.  I realized to alleviate my suffering and sorrow, I need to let Andrew go.  By that I mean I need to let go of what happened and what would have been.  Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting Andrew ever existed but freeing him of his heart defect and simply carry his spirit within my soul.  Andrew’s purpose was fulfilled and I need to focus on what is still before me.  I need to grab the life-ring that God has thrown into the water because jumping into the ocean, trying to search for and save Andrew is going to cause my death.  I can’t save him but God can save me.  I don’t think it’s possible to let Andrew go but it is possible for me to put God before Andrew.