Hi y'all,
for some reason my extremely long thread with whole my story got deleted. I don't know how to take it, haha.
Anyway I have experience with general anxiety, panic anxiety and OCD. I've been fighting this with the Lord's help for about two years now. The key is not to judge yourself in the midst of crisis. We are living in a broken world and bad things are happening because of the curse of Adam to this race and this planet. Let's not expect that the prince of this world will want to bless it, bless the people and bless the people of God! But let's assume and believe that amid these bad things Jesus still loves us, although we may feel weak, vulnerable and "good for nothing." You are precious to the Lord no matter what's happening within you or to you. We are his beloved children and none will snatch us out of his hands.
Look, life is bizarre at times. God brought me through anxiety and panic attacks - I no longer have them (I'd been taking meds since early October 2008 till March of this year) and when I switched a doc to a real trained psychiatrist here in Slovakia she changed up my meds and the ocd got out of its way too. Some thoughts (I was obsessively scared of homosexuality in all possible contexts - scared of them, scared of the notion, scared of that possible happening to me, etc) come here and then, but it got significantly better. At the beginning of this journey, however, I felt like no one could help me and it was a status quo, that I'd end up in forever. When you're amid this horrid state, you feel there is no help to you and sometimes we tend to feel that God has forsaken us. But he actually didn't. he is patient with sinners, why shouldn't he be patient with his children being ILL???? No no no, he is so patient and long-suffering. His love is so abundant and lavish upon us. Hallelujah!
I came across this forum yesterday because some ocd thoughts have crept into my mind a few days ago regarding my faith. My wife and I were watching a movie Troy and this obsessive thought came to me saying that all faith are the same, that I'm believing non-sense, even that I don't believe in Jesus at all. And you know what? When these thoughts come, they seem so real and so tangible that you think that it is truly you. the Good news is that it's not the case. Especially hard on me was our service we held on Sunday. The church we attend is a very lively,growing, pentecostal-charismatic church and the experience was despite the fact that the church is so great and God-favoured, the experience was horrid. All the time the thoughts of unbelief and negating of my Christian truth and experience were racing over my head. It was tough. After my sunday afternoon nap I decided to do impossible - to pray. I started to pray, and prayed and prayed and the peace of God was so beautiful that a few moments that I thought took a few minutes ended up being three quarters of an hour! Yesterday was still not the greatest, but God is giving me more and more peace and it's getting better. See, sometimes when I'm reading a theology book and or listening to a sermon (which I do very often and enjoy greatly!) the thoughts would come "you don't even believe in this, you're always questioning it, it's non-sense, pure mythology, you're not a believer, just an outside watcher" but I rather ignore these and focus on the truth. Though it may seem that this is so real, it doesn't express your true devotion to the Lord, but just the discomfort of your chemical imbalance in your brain and also satan, who wants to condemn you. Remember, no one will take us out of Christ's hands. It's not that easy.
May the Lord keep us in his shalom.
Yours,
Peter alias bluesyboy1