I Treated Faith Like an Emergency Contact

Why is it that I can clearly see the truth when a friend is struggling, but when it's my own life, I suddenly can't see it at all?

I think that's what anxiety does.

When anxiety feels louder than the truth

It takes one worry and turns it into the only truth you can see. It magnifies it until it feels bigger than reality itself. I call that the enemy. The enemy is there to lie to you, convincing you that your fears are facts and your worst-case scenarios are inevitable.

But once the panic attack passes, once the anxiety settles down, I can usually see reality again.

Nothing changed. The situation didn't suddenly get better. My mind just stopped believing the lie.

When it comes to other people's problems, I can see things clearly. But when it's my own life, anxiety becomes the lens I look through, and suddenly everything feels impossible.

I found faith during the deepest depression of my life because I couldn't keep carrying the lies anymore.

The lies were devastating. I couldn't keep waking up every day believing the things my anxiety was telling me were true.

During some of my darkest seasons, I had two people I called almost daily. Sometimes I just needed someone to remind me what reality actually was because my mind wasn't letting me see it.

My sister-in-law was one of those people.

She answered the phone every single time. She listened to my fears about my health, my future, my family, and everything else my anxious mind was trying to carry.

I needed somewhere for those worries to go besides my own head.

That's also why I created a simple anxiety journal.

Not because I have some magical solution to anxiety, but because I know what it feels like when your thoughts won't stop circling.

Sometimes the goal isn't to solve the problem.

Sometimes it's just to give the fear somewhere else to live.

A blank page can do that.

Giving worry somewhere else to live

You don't have to show it to anyone. You don't have to reread it. You don't have to keep it forever. You just need a place to put the worries so they aren't living in your head rent-free all day.

For me, talking to someone helped. Journaling helped. Prayer helped.

None of those things immediately changed my circumstances, but they helped me carry them differently.

My aunt was another person who helped me. She was a woman of deep faith, and whenever I talked to her, she gently pointed me back toward God.

It was during those conversations that I started leaning into my faith harder than I ever had before.

Not because I wanted to.

Because I had run out of other options.

For most of my life, I treated faith like an emergency contact. I turned to God when I felt overwhelmed, uncertain, or out of options.

But my back injury changed something in me.

For the first time, I was facing a situation I couldn't fix. I couldn't work harder. I couldn't research my way out of it. I couldn't plan my way through it. I couldn't control it.

And if I'm being honest, control has always been one of my biggest struggles.

I wanted to control outcomes, timing, people, and pain.

But this situation forced me to face a hard truth:

I was never actually in control.

Learning to trust the path ahead

Only God was.

Slowly, I started giving things to Him—my anxiety, my pain, my future, and all the things I couldn't fix.

As I surrendered each one, something unexpected happened.

The anxiety didn't disappear overnight.

But it got quieter.

Don't get me wrong, I still struggle. I still have moments where anxiety grabs hold of me. But every major challenge I've faced—infertility, health crises, marriage stress, financial uncertainty, and parenting struggles—has led me back to the same lesson:

Surrender.

Not giving up.

Not pretending everything is okay.

Not ignoring reality.

Surrendering the things I was never meant to carry alone.

There are people I can't change, timelines I can't control, and outcomes I can't guarantee.

The only thing I can do is pray. Not necessarily for the problem to disappear, but for God to move however He sees fit.

And trust that whatever comes next, He already knows the way forward.

If you're walking through your own crisis right now, maybe that's your reminder too.

You don't have to carry it all.

You were never meant to. 🤍