Change...

For quite a while now I have from time to time suffered with anxiety. The anxiety has come in many different forms and usually follows with a spell of depression. It came into my life in 2011 after my HD diagnosis and has been on and off since then. All this time though I have been journeying with God and have seen His work within my life. I have seen so many connections with the events that have occurred and my journey with God. It is as though I have all these puzzle pieces which are coming together to form a picture of my life. This season that began in 2011 has been a tough one yet I can strongly see God's hand throughout it all.

2014 particularly has been spectacular. It has been a year of the beginning of a breakthrough. I have felt a rising sense of a volcanic eruption moving within me. I can feel great change but it is as if I am standing on a ledge of a cliff with my old life behind me and God is offering my new life to me. It has taken me all this time to walk up to the ledge and finally stand there.

Whilst praying to God this morning I spoke to Him about my anxiety that had built up so strongly lately. The anxiety is like a surging rise of panic that builds within me. Sometimes it builds over days or longer. Then one day it just bursts forth. A darkness surrounds me and I feel I drown in the fear, choking from it. In these moments I forget about God. I am just so consumed by the anxiety.

Yet this morning during my talk with God he revealed something to me in the form of pictures. It is like I am wearing a really comfortable worn pair of slippers. They are covered in holes and are falling apart but they feel so comfortable to me as I've worn them my whole life. God came into my life and He offered a new pair of slippers but these were different. He said these slippers will never get worn out, they will forever remain as new as they are now. I was in awe of this but then I looked down at my comfortable ones and felt afraid that the new ones would not feel the same. I could see how amazing the new ones were, way better than my ones! I was wary as to why God would want to give me something SO amazing for free - a free gift! Why me I thought? I took one of the old slippers off  and then another but still I did not put the new ones on. The fear was stopping me from doing so.

Then I prayed more and more insight was given. I have been so used to living in the darkness.I then saw Gollum from The Lord of the Rings sitting in his dark cave for years. I've got comfortable living in the dark, hiding from the eyes of others, enjoying not being noticed. The Lord came along though with His bright shining light and my life became illuminated before me. He wants me to step out in the light with Him and I do for a time but sometimes I return back into the familiar dark. Then the Bible verse John 3:19 came before me, "But people loved darkness instead of the Light".

The anxiety and depression are from my old life, the life I have chosen to leave behind but they return because I still return to some of my old ways, my old mindset. God wants me to fully turn away and I feel as though my life is hanging by a thread. I have left it all but one thread still remains that needs snapping!