When We Worry About Our Worry

the guilt of anxiety

Worry is a strong man. He’s held you down for years, pressing his weight on your chest, daring you to push him off.

And the worst part? It’s not just his grip that makes you feel powerless. It’s the guilt that comes with it. The worry about worry. The quiet voice that hisses, If you really trusted God, you wouldn’t feel this way. Now you’re not only pinned, you’re ashamed—caught in a battle with something you can’t even see, convinced you’ll never be strong enough to win.

And I’ll be the first to tell you: I’m not writing this as someone who has mastered it. I thought I knew what anxiety was—until I watched my daughter suffer. Then suddenly all the teaching in the world slipped through my fingers, and I was a mess. My body cooked in adrenaline, my mind scrambled for control. It felt like I knew nothing at all.

But maybe that’s the trick of anxiety. It convinces you that there’s no way out from under it. That its grip is permanent. That the only options are to fight harder or collapse in defeat.

And yet there is another way.

You don’t have to win. You don’t have to outmuscle the strong man. The very weight that has crushed you can be turned against itself.

There’s a martial art called aikido in which the master doesn’t block a blow or fight force with force. He steps aside, blends with the momentum, and redirects it until it collapses under its own weight. That’s what happens when you stop shaming yourself for worrying and start naming it honestly. You don’t fight it head-on; you let its own energy move you closer to God.

Because worry doesn’t mean you are faithless. It means your heart is crying out for safety, for intimacy, for assurance. And here is the staggering truth: God doesn’t just hand you those things—He is those things.

“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” -Psalm 18:2

Think of it. In the swirl of all your worst-case scenarios, He is the One who already knows the end from the beginning. In the silence of a dark night, when loneliness is loud enough to rattle your bones, He is there in the room with you, nearer than breath. In the bone-deep exhaustion that leaves you unable to stand, He is the power that steadies your knees. And when shame whispers that you are too anxious, too weak, too much to be loved, He is love itself—unchanging, unembarrassed, and unafraid of your need, and more than enough for you.

This is the God who meets you when the strong man presses in. The very weight that once pinned you down becomes the force that drives you into His arms. Worry, in all its heaviness, is not your undoing. It is your flare, your holy reminder that you were always meant to be held.