Joy is my word for this year, though you probably wouldn’t know it because I haven’t posted about it for months. It’s still been on my mind. Some days Joy has been harder to find than others, but I feel it in my heart again. I’m finding it in the right place.

Not many people know this, but I can sometimes be somewhat paralyzed by anxiety. There are times where anxiety just overwhelms me. Sometimes in the middle of it, I try to capture what I am so anxious about and I can’t even remember or it’s something so inane I soon can calm myself.

I think most times I just walk away from the situation that would cause me that anxiousness, causing it “to go away”. Then somehow it keeps arising. It could just be something as “simple” as a phone call, walking up to someone, speaking up… Sometimes it’s just the what ifs. I start thinking, then I start worrying, next thing you know I am overcome with the panicked feeling. It terrifies me, so I don’t do it. I let it lie.

Why does it terrify me? Maybe it’s my people pleasing, I’m somehow afraid of what someone might think of me or being dismissed by them. I wonder how I must sound to them. All of this unfounded, of course. The person on the other side of the conversation may be the sweetest person I’ve ever met, but all I’m thinking is: Do I meet their standards? Am I good enough?

There are other times I have no problem doing these things, somehow I find the boldness.

This summer our pastor preached on 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 and God really spoke to me through it.

Here’s a little snippet of it:

I think through that and some other work God has done, is doing, on my heart, He is changing me.

The anxiety still peeks around the corner, sometimes I can feel it rising in me, but I know what to do with it. I know the Truth, I know my future, I know the King. I know the Ruler of my soul.

When I feel it coming, I examine my thoughts, I remember Truth.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Corinthians 3:4-6

The truth is I am not a master pianist. I am a plunker. I plunk and it really is no good.

My plunking is really no good, EXCEPT, I have the Master Pianist playing with me and what He plays is beautiful.

And I realized whatever it is I’m anxious about it, God’s got it. It may totally scare the CRAP out of me, but all I have to do is plunk and He plays the rest. I just have to say Yes, I am your servant. Use me.

I may still feel a little nervous at times, but I’m starting to walk the way He wants. I’m moving in the right direction. I’m no longer the child sitting on the floor in a silent protest, throwing a fit, or running the opposite direction. I’m following Him. I’m grabbing His hand because I can’t do this alone.

And in that, His sufficiency, knowing that He is enough, and recognizing that I am not, and never will be… there is JOY.