Anxiety in disguise...

It's a hot summer's night and you're fast asleep in bed. You suddenly wake up...was that a sound or not. You pause and wait...nothing. You roll over to go back to sleep, and then it happens again. That noise! That familiar noise that makes you stomach sink. Your heart is already racing as you turn the light on. You glance around the room and there it is....a stupid parktown prawn!! (PTP)

Your mind races as you come up with an idea of how you're going to capture it without waking the rest of the house up. A tub! You quickly, and quietly, stumble out of bed, out your room to the kitchen and find those empty margarine tubs in the cupboard and then head back to your room, closing the door quietly behind you.

You jump back onto your bed and lean over to find the PTP...but it's no where to be seen. Your heart skips a beat as your ears turn extra sensitive to hear a noise....any noise. Nothing. Heart racing, you know you cant go back to sleep. You hit the curtains in case it's climbing up. Nothing. Taking a deep breath you jump into the middle of the room and get down to look under the bed, dressing table and work table...no sign of it. You sit there, tub in hand waiting.....and then you hear it. A scratching sound coming from behind a box. Your heart starts racing all over again! You wait and wait for what seems like hours and finally it comes crawling out from behind the box. You watch it as it makes it out further, but it's still on the skirting board...and you know you can not capture it there....so out of madness, you try talking it into either walking on the wall or the carpet....preferable before it goes behind the bedside table. Finally, a few inches before it goes behind the bedside table it listens to you and crawls on the carpet. In that split second you POUNCE and put the tub over it before it can jump and get all angry at you. Holding the tub down firmly you hear it jumping underneath. THUMP THUMP THUMP....finally it stops. As your heart begins to slow, you realise the lid is still in the middle of the room....so using your feet you pull it towards you and slowly lift the one end of the tub and slide the lid under until you can close it....big little PTP is stuck inside!

You make your way to the door with tub in hand and place it on the floor with a brick on top of it....no ways it's escaping!! You climb back into bed but still can't sleep as the PTP jumps every now and then or seems to be "scratching" it's way out. It bugs you until morning when my dad come and takes it out and deals with it.

The point of this story is that it reminds me a lot about anxiety. Our mind is like my room, and the PTP is something small and stupid that keeps me awake or anxious. We may think we have the situation under control in a little tub in the corner of our mind....but its still there and it still keeps us awake at night, anxiously. Until we give that small thing over to our Heavenly father to deal with, there isn't much we can do about. So don't be anxious about anything - give it to God instead.

 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:6 & 7