My Story of Overcoming Fear and Anxiety

"I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."
 Psalm 34:4

Fear is a funny thing. It’s an emotion we let dictate so many decisions in our daily lives.
Should I let fear stop me from doing something? No. But have I? For sure.

Do fear and anxiety ever affect the decisions you make in your day to day life?

I remember when I would get so full of anxiety, I couldn’t go anywhere alone. I would try to get friends or my little sister to tag along with me.

Now let me tell you how the Lord helped me to overcome the fear of going anywhere alone.
He challenged me.

There was a concert that I wanted to go to. It was a Christian spoken word band playing. I knew I wanted to go, but none of my friends could or wanted to go, so I decided that I was going to go alone.
Going alone was not an easy decision.
My brain went into chaos mode and wrestled with itself, debating on if this was a good idea or what would happen.

After thinking hard about it, I decided that I wasn’t going to let fear and anxiety dictate my decisions anymore. And let me tell you, I’m so glad I made that choice. I went, and as awkward as it seemed for me, nothing felt more rewarding.
I leaned into God more than I ever had at that point in my life.
Going to the concert alone allowed me to be in conversation with the Lord and let me tell you, He was there. He never left my side.

He challenged me to get out of my comfort zone, to trust Him, to take back my life, not to be held back by fear and anxiety, to take a step of faith.

Because of that decision, I grew.

The Lord built my confidence that I was able to go places alone. Even if anxiety and fear tried to lie to me and tell me I couldn’t. Which after that, they still tried to get into my head, convincing me that I couldn’t go to other places alone.
But I knew that if I could do it once, I could do it again.

From then on, it became my choice.

Was I going to let fear and anxiety dictate my life and my choices, or was I going to trust that God would give me the strength to go places alone and overcome my fear?

Slowly, I started going more and more places alone, and eventually, the anxiety and fear were gone. And if it came back, I knew that they had no say in anything anymore.

I share a part of my story to encourage you. You don’t have to live in fear forever. Anxiety doesn’t have to rule your life anymore.

What are fear and anxiety stopping you from? I challenge you today, my sweet friend, to look fear in the face and say not today, not ever again. God is so good, and He is with you.

Download 14 Bible verses to help you overcome fear and anxiety

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