SUNDAY SERVICES:

My birthday is coming up this week. The big 31…not so big I know, but it’s got me thinking back. 

I think about my 20’s and man were they a doozy. I’m sure most people can say that about their 20’s. 

For me, I think about the amazing experiences…and the heart-breaking ones. 

I think about the five surgeries I had, including one that was one of the most traumatic experiences in my life. I think about my very public struggle with health, both physical and mental. 

I think about the wonderful, amazing friends I made and the ones I lost along the way. 

I think about falling in love and getting my heart broken. 

I think about the people who lifted me up and the people who tore me down. 

I think about losing my faith in God and everything I believed in; and then finding my way back to a relationship with God, stronger than I ever could have fathomed.

And so we keep going down the rabbit hole…

I will never forget the morning I asked a friend, “How are you?’ and he answered, “Battling the black dog!”

I responded, “What does that mean – the black dog?”

“You’re not familiar with that term?” He asked.

“Not at all.”

“It’s depression. Winston Churchill called it ‘the black dog’.”

“I am very sorry.  How are you battling?”

Before he could answer, we heard the signal for our meeting to begin.

My thoughts turned toward Depression.  It was only in retrospect that I surmised my friend used that term with me because of my work as a mental health counselor.

A life free from worry.  To some of us, it sounds like Shangri-La: wonderful and impossible to find.  But we aren’t doomed to be worry's prisoner.  Read on if you would like to know “How do I stop worrying?”

I am no stranger to this topic.  Over the course of my life I have chewed my nails to stubs, bitten the skin around my nails, pulled out my eyelashes, and stress-eaten cheese, chocolate, and jellybeans.  

I have stayed awake countless nights, playing out different horrible scenarios.  I have had panic attacks and crying jags.  It’s not pretty to admit, but I have let worry take over my life.

If someone had said to me in a time of intense worry, “I know the secret of how to stop worrying,” I would have laughed (bitterly) in his face.