Worry and Anxiety

Do you find that the presence of worry and anxiety in your life, rob you of peace and joy?

If so, you're not alone. I would consider myself to be an excessive anxious worrier. According to Health Canada, twelve percent of our population struggle with worry and anxiety issues, of greater and lesser degrees.

In nineteen ninety nine, three point eight percent of hospital admissions were due to anxiety related disorders. That statistic however provides a limited picture of the over all problem, given the fact that anxiety often goes unreported. There seems to be a stigma, that those who suffer with anxiety are characterized as either weak or sick.

The causes of anxiety vary and are still under study. Theories of causality range from traumatic life experiences, to biochemical imbalances in the brain, to over or under protective parenting styles which lead to wrong assesments regarding ones abilities. Often these possibilities must be explored, sometimes with the help of a doctor or counsellor.

Spiritual prospectives on worry and anxiety must also be considered. Christian author and apologist Chuck Swindol says, "worry works like bad cholesterol. It clogs the flow of love and grace toward people. God's divine prospective get's choked out. We worry when we subtract God's presence from our crisis."

I feel convicted when I read what Chuck Swindol has to say about worry. When I worry, I find myself trying to run ahead of God and figure out my own way, rather than disciplining myself to place all of my concerns in his hands. How about you?

If you face a struggle with anxiety and worry and find it difficult to place your concerns in God's hands, take the opportunity to be encouraged by a portion of a poem I want to share with you called, "Hands." I'm not sure who the author is and the reference to sports heros in the poem are a little dated. The message of the poem however, is timeless.

"A basketball in my hands is worth about nineteen dollars. A basketball in Michael Jordon's hands is worth about thirty- three million, it depends on whose hands it's in. A baseball in my hands is worth about six dollars. A baseball in Mark Maguire's hands is worth about nineteen million. It depends on whose hands it's in. A tennis racket is useless in my hands. A tennis racket in Venus William's hands is championship winning. It depends on whose hands it's in.

Nails in my hands, might produce a bird house. Nails in Jesus Christ's hands will produce salvation for the world. It depends on whose hands it's in.

So put your concerns, worries, fears, hopes, dreams, families and relationships in God's hands. Why? because, it depends on whose hands it's in."

Diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when he was two years old, Terry Harris in the opinion of many experts within the medical and education professions, would never walk, talk, read, write or go to a regular school. It was recommended to his parents that he beplaced in an institution. In 1995 Terry graduated from Brock University with a B.A. in English Literature and obtained a degree in marriage and family therapy in 1999 from Tyndale Seminary.