Tag: faith

The Anxiety Train and How to be Free

by krichards2012, posted in life

Picture yourself, standing at a train station. It’s crowded, loud, busy, and yet it’s a lonely place. Although many are surrounding you, loneliness still encapsulates you. The train stops and it looks familiar. Although you have taken this train too many times, and dread the course, you still get on, because it’s familiar territory. On the train you go, taking your same old seat, next to the same old people. One’s name is Fear, the other Worry. Across the aisle from you is Doubt, and Doubt’s friend Defeat. You lift your chin to see who is in front of you, and once again Anxiety is dressed in the brightest, most deafening of attire. Depression sits next to him, sulking in the shadows. You turn and look out the window, ready for the trip. Knowing it leads into a darkening spiral that seems to never end. During your trip, your fellow passengers ask you the same questions, “How can you go on living like this,” “Who do you think you are,” and the all covering question, “What if…..”.

 Fear asks you, “What if you die from this? What if you will never be free of this trip?” He looks at Worry who asks, “What if you cannot afford your bills when you get off? I have heard you aren’t quite making enough these days. Not to mention, what if you never lose the baby weight? Surely you are worried if your husband will still find you attractive?” Doubt walks over, interested in the conversation, and asks, “Yeah, what if God never answers your prayer for healing, and what if God does not even hear your prayers? Surely if He heard your prayers you would be off of this ride. What if God does not even love you?” You take a deep breath, ready because Anxiety and Depression walk up. Anxiety says, “What if you always take this trip? What if you never get off this ride? What if you never achieve anything in life?” And Depression adds in, “What if life is not worth the hassle? What if you never find hope for joy again? What if… what if… what if…. “

This ride seems to take a lifetime, and your reserves are emptying. Exhaustion, weakness, loneliness, isolation, hopelessness, darkness. You feel as though there is no end in sight, yet at the same time the end is all you hope for. I have been in that place. I have taken that train ride way too many times. The train stops, and relieved, you get off, hoping to be delivered from the heavy presence of Fear, Worry, Doubt, Anxiety, and Depression. You take a step off the train watching your feet so that you do not stumble and look up. It is the same station you left from. Busy, crowded, lonely. The train leaves and you walk around seeing steps ahead that you aren’t sure where they lead. Behind you arrives the next train, that takes the same route, to the same destination. Will you get on again?

Above is an excerpt from a book I am writing. You see fear and anxiety controlled my life for a very long time. I had automatic returns to fear. When something happened, fear was my companion. When there was unknown, anxiety was my answer. I was so smothered with the never-ending cycle. Until I became free.

You see I read all kinds of stories about people dealing with fear and anxiety. And my heart breaks because there never seems to be any hope present in them. When I was going through it, I couldn’t find anyone to tell me, “I made it through.” And that is what I craved!

I promised that when I made it through, I would tell the world so that they could have hope! It was a slow process, but God freed me from fear and anxiety. It took everyday renewal of my mind; every day taking captive every single thought that came against the knowledge of Christ. Every day making sure I didn’t let a single negative thought go through my mind without telling it to go away and answering it with the truth.

It was a lot of hard work. I wish there had been an easy way out. But it took understanding the roots of my fears, the fruits of my fears, and the answer to my fears. There are 3 things I would tell you to do today if you want to begin freedom towards peace.

1. Understand the Roots

Fear and anxiety are not overnight processes, they are thought patterns and behaviors that take years to form! So it won’t be an overnight process to be free from that way of thinking either. Anxiety is not a character trait; it is a thought process.

So first you have to understand what it is that is causing you anxiety. At first I believed there wasn’t a clear reason, I just felt anxious. But as I continuously listened to triggering thoughts I realized my root of fear was a wrong view of God; I was so afraid to fail Him and that He would punish me if I messed up, that I was afraid to take any steps in life. It wasn’t until I understood this root, that I was able to start my healing process.

2. Understand the Fruits

Roots always grow fruit. Anxiety, depression, and fear are all fruits of something. Whether it’s wrong thinking, believing, trauma, you name it, there is something that has led to your mind believing that anxiety, fear, and depression are it’s answer.

I was in my undergraduate studies, studying abnormal psychology at the height of my anxiety. I was so terrified I was mentally unstable; that because I was dealing with anxiety I was somehow a bad Christian and something was wrong with me. I thought I was broken.

I was not broken but my thinking was broken. Joyce Meyer calls it “Stinking Thinking”. Our brains filter our experiences; what we think, we do and feel. Understanding that my anxiety was a fruit of wrong thinking helped me to know how to fix it.

3. Know the Truth, and You Can be Free

John 8:31-32 says, “If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Even though I have my degree in psychology and counseling, I actually didn’t go to one counseling session during this time. Not that it is wrong to, it just wasn’t on my path to freedom.

I truly became free through the Word of God. Even when physically looking at the Word gave me fear and anxiety, I still read it. Because I knew that it held Truth and that Truth was my answer.

The day it all clicked was the day I read 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God’s judgement] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love].”

You see, my fear came from expecting punishment from God and not being perfected in His love. When I realized how much He loved me, that He had good plans for me and not plans of destruction, I realized there was nothing to fear. Sounds real easy right? I still battled anxiety after initially reading this scripture, but it gave me my answer. I sought God’s love and Truth, and renewed my mind daily.

If What if showed up with a negative present, I answered it with a positive what if. What if you never get married, it said. I answered with, What if my husband is waiting on me tomorrow. What if you are never free of anxiety? What if my God delivers me and uses my story to heal others!

Your mind is a battlefield so don’t allow it to flippantly think and feel whatever without realizing that it is going to affect you.

So I hope that this testimony brings you hope. That it lets you know freedom is available to you!

Marriage Hurts but Marriage Heals

by krichards2012, posted in life

Marriage is the most difficult and beautiful thing I have ever experienced. Both hard and easy at the same time. Sounds impossible right? But it’s true. I find marriage both as natural as breathing and as difficult as rock climbing rope free up a 750 foot mountain (that escalated quickly).

Marriage, how I understand it, is the unification of spirit and flesh; two spirits and flesh becoming one. That’s why in the flesh marriage hurts; and in the spirit, your marriage can heal.

My husband and I just recently went through one of those “fun” growing times together. Personal struggles and relational struggles came together to a pinpoint which led to a perfect storm of tension and conflict.

The hurts of marriage come when one flesh fights against itself, injuring the other part as if it were somehow separate. Harsh words, wrong thoughts, selfish actions, all of these come against the flesh of your marriage and attempt division and anger.

Satan is against your marriage from the start, I hope you know that. That’s not to cause fear or trepidation, but it is to cause you to be on alert and stop treating your marriage so trivially. He wants to divide and conquer; divide the marriage, conquer the family. And all we have to do is look at divorce rates to know that he is somewhat succeeding.

I believe it’s because so often we live in the hurt factor of marriage without ever touching the healing portion. We allow the fleshy part to rule over the spiritual and then wonder why our “godly” marriage pictures that of the world.

We got to the pinpoint and realized that it was time to fight back. We put the baby to bed, came together and battled in prayer. We asked for forgiveness from one another, we confessed our sins to one another, and we reminded one another of our vows and love.

And although there had been hurt, surrending the fleshy part of our marriage to God, allowed for His hand to come in and bring about the most beautiful healing my spirit has ever felt.

Tears, smiles, kisses, and redemption all met together there in complete surrender. It was a glorious moment in our marriage I know we will remember forever. All it took was surrender; surrender of pride, surrender of bitterness, surrender of expectations. All of it, tossed into the hands of the One Who carries us.

I say all of this to bring hope to the broken marriage or the single person afraid of taking that step into marriage.

Amidst a world that only highlights the brokenness of such a holy covenant, there is another side of complete restoration and redemption that is available as well.

I’m not here to say my marriage is perfect and we are doing everything right (obviously). What I am saying is after a week of trying to do it all on our own and in the flesh, we found it was so much more beautiful to hand it over to the Father.

So take that step of surrender. Confess your sins against your spouse, whether that’s bitterness, anger, unfaithfulness. Request forgiveness and make sure to forgive. Remember why you chose marriage and love and continue in it. And let God do His beautiful work in your lives.

Happy homemaking is about making your home happy and holy. And a strong marriage will do the trick! Love you guys!

Be Still, Don’t Feel

by krichards2012, posted in life

I love the movie Frozen, and I cannot wait to have a daughter who will enjoy singing along to it with me! One of the lines in the oh so famous song, “Let it Go” says, “be still, don’t feel” and now you’re singing it in your head. You’re welcome.

With Disney plus out, I have been binging on Disney movies and watched Frozen this week. And this line has stuck in my mind. Not because this is the most catchy song ever, but because God spoke the same thing to my heart. Be still. Don’t feel.

Now you may be thinking, wait, God told you not to feel? And you would be exactly right. But God gives us feelings and emotions? Why would He tell you not to feel?

Because our feelings are a part of our soul that needs redeeming and sanctification every day, the things I feel may not always be from God. Sometimes I have to weigh what I am feeling next to the Word of God in order to know what is of Him and what is of myself.

This past month has been tough for me spiritually, personally, and mentally. God has been pruning me of myself, taking away selfishness, impatience, anger, and so many other things (why are we so messed up???). It can get very overwhelming in these seasons because it feels like no matter where you turn, you are being shown another bad part of yourself, and it really starts to weigh on you. You question everything about yourself, trying to do everything in your own power to fix yourself.

But I believe that is the hardest lesson in the midst of all of this; learning to be still and let God fix me. Letting Him finally be God over my life instead of me attempting to maintain control ALL. THE. TIME.

Now on to feeling. In the realness and vulnerability I promised to have on this blog, I had some rough feelings this week. With my selfish nature and impatience coming to the surface, you can only imagine tensions between my husband and I have been at an all time high. And because I have been so fleshy, I have not relied on the Spirit’s guidance but rather myself. So that has led to me overthinking, over reacting, and feeling/thinking up a false narrative about my husband, all because I did not choose to surrender my flesh to the leading of the Spirit.

So what starts as a small misunderstanding grows into feelings of division, separateness, bitterness, and anger. All because when a thought and feeling appeared that was contrary to truth, I decided to hang on to it rather than get rid of that garbage. And it continued. And continued. And days later I am literally a dumpster of feelings and emotions. An emotional wreck.

I was so anxious and in so much turmoil that I finally in my stubbornness decided to turn to God and hear what He had to say (should have done this sooner). And He tells me one line, “Be still. Don’t feel.”

1. Be Still. I needed to still myself in Him; rely myself completely in Him, and let Him speak truth to my mind. I needed to allow the Spirit to reveal my messiness so that it could be healed, rather than rely on a broken mind to filter my experiences through. Had I done this sooner, I would have realized that what I am going through is called purification and I need to lean on Him harder than ever before.

“Be still and know (recognize, understand) that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

“The Lord will fight for you while you [only need to] be still [keep silent and remain calm].” Exodus 14:14

It’s time we actually start practicing what we claim all the time. If we claim that God is Lord of our life yet continue to disallow Him to reign, are we hypocrites? I know I haven’t been surrendering like I should, and that needs to change if I want to live in the Spirit and not the flesh.

2. Don’t Feel. Feelings, although real, are not always true. Your feelings only have as much merit as they align with the Word of God. If they speak anything contrary, then it is a lie, and needs to be made obedient to Christ.

“We are destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ” 2 Corinthians 10:5

Thoughts and feelings not aligned with the Word of God destroy our lives. My feelings this week, had I continued in them, could have destroyed my marriage. My feelings could have broken a family apart. Feelings and thoughts are serious matters, and that’s why we are told to take captive every single thought. Those feelings that I was having were allowed because of pride, selfishness, and bitterness.

So I leave you with some wisdom God gave me this week. Stop feeling and thinking toxic things you were never meant to carry. We have the minds of Christ, and are given specific guidelines on what we should be thinking about and letting in our minds. If it’s contrary, make it obedient!

“Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].” Philippians 4:8

Just a simple switch of my feelings and thoughts from lies to truth led to one of the most redemptive, healing, and merciful moments I have ever had with my husband. A moment of God’s pure peace, grace, and restoration in our marriage. No it wasn’t a BIG problem; but taking our small issues and handing them to God protects our marriage from big cracks in the foundation. So there is no problem too little to take seriously in your marriage.

I urge you to watch your feelings and thoughts. Don’t let unredeemed, broken things tell you how to live, react, and carry out your life. Let God be the one Who reigns even over your hearts, minds, and emotions.

I love you all and hope that through some of my hard lessons you can learn to be still and don’t feel every feelings and thought thrown at you from the enemy.

Happy homemaking! Go make your home a place where God reigns!

#Momfail: They All Fall Down

by krichards2012, posted in life

Can I just be honest and vulnerable here? This week has felt like a non-stop strand of mom fails. Non-stop.

Have you ever just messed up so many times you just feel like stopping? Or running away? Or just crying? Or maybe all of the above? That’s been me this week.

So John has been accelerating in movement. I’m talking crawling, pulling up on furniture, moving from item to item, trying to LITERALLY JUMP OFF OF STUFF. I’m pretty persuaded he wants to injure himself.

It’s one thing if babies hurt themselves when you’re not watching, but to have them hurt themself everyday when you’re just two steps away is pretty frustrating.

Let me let you in on this week. He fell off the bed, he hit his eye on the dresser knob (don’t ask me how), he’s fallen from holding on to the table about 15 times, slipped in the bathtub and got water in his face, and the list goes on and on.

It has really made me question my ability as a mother this week. I am sucking it up real bad at the moming. I know all babies fall down, especially when learning to move their little bodies, but at the same time you can’t help but blame yourself when it happens and you can’t stop it!

In all honesty its just been a really hard week for me in general. As a mother and wife I’ve been going and growing through some things. I have felt like no matter how hard I try, I end up failing. I’ve been studying the fruits of the Spirit and ironically feel like I’ve done nothing but walked in the flesh this week. Impatience, anger, frustration. Just falling on my face, over and over.

And as I write this, maybe that’s the whole lesson for me this week? Maybe God is wanting me to realize, like babies, we all fall down. But scripture says the righteous man falls seven times but gets back up.

So, if you’re a mama who has failed this week? Get back up. If you’re a wife who has been naggy a little too much, get back up. If you’ve complained instead of being thankful, cursed instead of blessing, or have really done a bad job at portraying Christ, my answer is this: get back up.

Keep pursuing holiness and not perfection. Keep pursuing His strength and not your own. Keep leaning all of yourself on Him completely.

Paul says that he boasts in his weakness, because where we are weak, God is strong! (2 Corinthians 12:9)

God’s grace is sufficient for you AND your clumsy little baby.

I love you guys! Happy homemaking!

Eat when you’re hungry, not when you’re starving.

by krichards2012, posted in life

Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Matthew 4:4

What I am sharing is a personal revelation God gave me today but I believe it may help someone. I’ll start from the beginning.

Lately I have been feeling extremely frustrated. Everything has gotten on my nerves; my husband’s breathing, my baby constantly crying when I’m trying to put eye ointment on him.. even my own self has been frustrating (I broke a favorite ornament last night because my hands were shaky).

I just have felt at my limit. With everything. Like a car hanging on the edge of a cliff, and with one leaf it will crash to the bottom with a loud BANG.

This morning was no different. We woke up, had coffee, I was irritated. Trying to feed John who enjoyed 15 spoonfulls of oatmeal and then the 16th one he acted like it was disgusting, spitting it out so it went everywhere. My breakfast getting cold as usual; my hot coffee being enjoyed lukewarm, as usual. I stood up, yelled at him, yelled at my husband, stormed out of the room.

My husband followed me, and it irritated me of course. I yelled, “Why are you following me???” He calmly takes the baby, and says, “Go pray.” Everything in my flesh wanted to smack him. I don’t want to pray. I don’t want to change. I want to be irritated! “Go pray.” He said again.

I reluctantly stomped upstairs to my office and knelt down. As soon as I hit the floor I began to weep. Weariness, frustration, weakness… all came down and hit like a big wave. But the last thing that hit was STARVATION.

My husband and I have been watching a new TV series we found called “Alone”. Professional survivalists compete to see who can survive the longest in hard terrain. We were watching one of the men and you could clearly see that he had let himself starve almost to death. What was astounding was he was sitting on a mound of food! He had been saving fish for the season when he knew the fish would be lacking, but while saving for a season of lack, he was letting himself starve! He got so hungry he decided to try and shoot an animal with his bow. But he had starved himself so long, he couldn’t even pull back the bow and have a weapon. So he crawled back in his shelter, and STILL didn’t eat.

God spoke so clearly to me as I called out to Him, asking, “Why am I so frustrated? Why do I feel so weak?” He said, “You’re starving.”

I realized I hadn’t read my Word or spent some sweet time with Him all week (excuses of busy schedule entailed). And He brought to my memory the man on the show. I was the man. Starving, weak, without a weapon.

I have the Word at my fingertips every single day. Food for my spirit. But sometimes we treat that food as the man treated the fish. We save it for a rainy day; when we are struggling, sad, fearful. But instead of eating when we are simply hungry, we wait until we are starving! And we risk damage to our spirits!

The man had to leave the show because his body was at risk for organ failure. And he cried to the cameraman, “But I have food…” tears running down his face, “I have so much food”. And I cried back, “But you’re starving! You can have food all day, but if you don’t eat it, it doesn’t help!”

I cried as I knelt on the floor in my office. I have food, but I haven’t eaten, and now I am starving.

I am tired of letting my spirit go so long without food, that I end up in starvation mode. Angry, weak, frustrated; yelling at my loved ones, yelling at myself, thinking my life isn’t good, or blessed. When we let ourselves starve spiritually, our flesh grows stronger. It’s opposite of starvation in reality. As our spirits weaken, our flesh strengthens, and we become a puppet to a nature we are free from.

This man had so much fish; and was skipping meals in order to save it for later. If he would have eaten when he was hungry, he would have never been starving.

Let us eat, everyday, as we do with food. Knowing it’s time to eat, we eat. We don’t wait until our bones cry out in starvation, we eat because we know we need it! Why don’t we do the same with our spirits? We know we need His Word to strengthen us, cleanse us, guide us, uplift us, yet we wait until we are starving to go to it!

So as I sit convicted today, by a gracious God Who softly pointed out my weak spots, I am realizing that I have been starving myself, and sitting on a stock pile of food. It’s time we go to our Words, feed ourselves, so we can feed others.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

matthew 5:6