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Dear Friends, Ever been unable to turn your mind off? The what ifs, the anxieties, the worry? It’s like a record left spinning long after the party’s over. It’s a merry-go-round that doesn’t seem to slow for long enough to step off. Anxiety can be truly disruptive. Let’s talk about it. But first, here are some lyrics I’m singing to Jesus today: You never sleep nor slumber Sometimes, when the day is over and the cacophony of work and schedules and kids quiet down, the hum of anxiety can amplify. What was a background presence becomes a siren that can no longer be ignored, and certainly not slept through. Night can be the worst. But there’s an attribute of God that convinces me He’s just what we need in these moments. Isaiah 40 tells us “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, never faints nor is weary”. Psalm 121 tells us, “He will never slumber nor sleep”. Now, telling someone who is anxious not to be anxious is probably one of the least helpful things you can do. So I won’t. But what I will say is this: When you find yourself awake, staring into the dark, feeling worry swell in your mind, you are not alone: He is awake with you in the night. Yes, He does lift the weight. Sometimes He does it miraculously in a moment, it’s gone, and you’re sleeping like a baby. Sometimes it’s a process and takes time. But even right in this moment, before anything improves, He is with you. The God who thinks more thoughts of you than there are grains of sand on the earth (Psalm 139:18) is awake with you, present with you. He’s a generous Father who loves when we come to Him. He’s a gentle shepherd who won’t abandon His sheep. He’s a night watchman over your life, your future, your family, who won’t close His eyes for a moment. Take comfort. –Anna |
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Hi Friends, I’ll never forget it. I showed up for class in college, slid into my seat, and noticed the girl on my left had a large smudge on her forehead. She was an acquaintance, and in my earnestness to be a “real friend”, I pointed it out. “You have something on your forehead”, I said, gesturing to her as if wiping at my face. “It’s Ash Wednesday,” she said, turning in her seat. Whoops! Neither my husband nor I grew up in churches that followed the church calendar or included liturgy. So...
Hi Friends, Last week we talked about finding every last bit of our ordinary lives in the grand storyline of God. This week, let’s look at how we help one another do just that. When Eugene Peterson counseled pastors on how to help their parishioners find themselves in God’s story, he said, “Listening is the first step. It is the precondition for… making the transition from what a person perceives as alienation and experiences as a jumble of unrelated irrelevancies to a sense of coherence and...
Hi Friends, Sometimes we do this thing when we read the stories of people in the Bible. We wake up early to read Scripture, and we see the epic work of God in and through the lives of men and women. Then we put down the book and head to the kitchen to clean up the sea of Crispix a sleepy kid spilled across the floor. Back to normal life. But I want to alert you to something real happening in your life. As real as the cereal you crushed under foot and now have to find the hand broom to sweep...