An Offer Anxiety Can’t Refuse

Hello World!

While this month ends, (September) I realize I can’t finish the big blog post I’m currently working on. I haven’t posted this month. Anxiety wants me to freak out. I have already in such small blips. I feel like I have to release all of the bottled-up anxiety that shakes me, like the 2 Liter Dr. Pepper I brought to church youth group for quite a while. I fizzle over as much as I try to contain it. It’s hard to express emotions when you have to keep it altogether for those you love.

There is one person I love, who I don’t have to keep it altogether for though. I don’t have to wear a fake smile. God. God only knows my struggles. God knows everything. I can take all my anxiety to Jesus, who loves me besides my anxiety. God does not want me to anxious, but it is a natural feeling. I’m no stranger to anxiety. At Camp Texas before my freshman year, my camp, the Ring of Fire, had an icebreaker where we would introduce ourselves with an adjective that starts with the same first letter as our name, our name and an action that we all did. I called myself “Anxious Andy,” and I held my hands to my mouth like I was biting my nails. Anxiety has come to me anytime. Even when I first visited the one of the toughest engineering professors at UT Austin, Dr. Rodin, in office hours, I had an anxiety attack and nearly cried while he suggested I go to the mental health clinic on campus. That was early in the semester. I did get to contact them and visit them later on that semester.

There’s the common go-to bible verses for anxiety.

“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your minds in Christ Jesus.”

-Philippians 4:6-7

I do believe God is truly speaking to our anxieties here. So, we are called to answer to our anxieties with prayer, being thankful for all that God has given to us. We can let God know our struggle is real and He can help put us at peace.I want to take it just a step further than that. I have anxiety in my prayer life. I feel like I have to pray the rosary every day and go pray this and that. These are good habits, but they can be poisoned by my anxiety. I tend to focus on the “requirement”. Sound familiar? Plot twist: It’s about intention. Intentional prayer is the answer. Sure, I do enjoy my daily rosary, though I might mess up. I want to focus on the intention. I like to have the mediation of the mysteries of Jesus’s and Mary’s lifes. I like to think about the mysteries, and truly wonder why they are a mystery.

I like to think of a few more things before I finish tonight, and one is for tomorrow morning. In the morning, I like to do the Morning Offering prayer. I pray some version of this in the morning for quite a while. I first received a version of this while in Spiritual Direction when I struggled with offering up things. This prayer covers just about covers everything.

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father this month.
Amen.

So, I’m going to let my blog become a bit of an offering to God. That way it all comes back to God, and I’m not too anxious about editing it too much or delaying it. It’s so God can speak through me in many different ways. I’ll end with a verse I probably mentioned before in a different post that I memorized in Boy Scouts.

Therefore, whether you eat of drink or whatever you do, do it all for the Glory of God.

-1 Corinthians 10:31

Until I write again,

The Nerd of May