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Tsunami Alert


Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (II Corinthians 12:7b-10) 
                Part of the homework for the Anxious for Nothing study involves some analysis. We were asked to look at a psalm, underline all the characteristics of God we found in it, and identify which attribute we have the hardest time trusting. My answer was that I find it difficult to trust His graciousness. When I am feeling anxious, it tends to seem to me that I am the exception. He is gracious to everyone else. He performs miracles for everyone else. He answers everyone else’s prayers, but not mine. Since God is perfect, there must be something very flawed in me for God to so consistently be unable to entrust His grace to me…. When I’m thinking clearly, I know this is nonsense, but when one is in pain, even the mental pain caused by anxiety, reason goes out the window. All that remains is the pain and the fact that God hasn’t done what I want. 
               Since part of my goal in taking the study is to learn to identify anxiety before the emotional tsunami hits, this is probably one of the warning signs. The analogy that follows is a bad analogy. It switches referents, which is forbidden in the use of analogies, but it works for me. From what I’ve heard, when a tsunami is approaching land, the ocean draws back from the land. Unsuspecting tourists and fools wander out onto the new shore in search of stuff or stand there gazing at this unprecedented sight instead of scrambling onto high ground. And that’s when the tsunami hits. 
               So when the life-giving ocean that is God or peace draws back, instead of wandering out on the sand, I need to remember to climb onto the Rock, prepared for the tsunami of anxiety or trouble to come.  It doesn’t work because the ocean and the tsunamis are one and the same and neither God nor peace is the same as anxiety, but I hope it works by giving me a warning.

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