I’ll admit, I was just sitting here just thinking on practical ways to fight anxiety (things that I already know) ….and then the Lord reminded me of a memory from Kindergarten…

So when I was in Kindergarten I remember a time when as a class we walked in a line down to the cafeteria, it was one of the first days of school and we were taking a tour of where things were in the school. Well, as we got down to the hallway of the cafeteria I caught a glimpse of a picture on the wall out of the corner of my eye, and somehow I got into my head that it was a picture of a kid with intestines coming out of his stomach! (I know, what in the world!?) But once I “saw” this I got into my head that this is what I saw, and I was terrified. Since that day, I was anxious and terrified to walk past that poster to get to the cafeteria. I would hide my eyes and panic as I walked by, but up until that point I would worry over it all day EVERY DAY. At one point I was so sick and tired of it that I would try and pitch a fit over it so that I wouldn’t have to go to the cafeteria for lunch. The teachers made me go, but I would get myself into trouble from trying to get out of it and end up sitting in the corner in the “naughty chair” because of this!

I don’t know how long this lasted, but one day when all of this had gotten to a point of “ok, this can’t happen anymore” and I can’t remember if it was Mom or my Kindergarten teacher, but one day I told them what I thought it was that I saw in this picture and why I was afraid of walking by it and looking at it, because of what I saw in my head. When they found out why, they said, “Ok, we are going to go together and go and look at this picture, and you are going to see what it really is. You are going to SEE what is real and get this false picture that you think you are seeing out of your head.” And so they walked with me, I am pretty sure I was kicking and screaming on the way down there from what I can remember, but when we got to the poster on the wall that had troubled and ate away at me for so long, and they told me to look at it, I finally looked and was amazed at what I actually saw with my eyes….

It was nothing but a picture of a kid finger-painting these lines onto a piece of glass in front of him.

Definitely NOT a picture of a kid’s intestines coming out of his stomach.

I saw a glimpse of what I thought I saw and decided it was true, and I thought I had something to really fear based on this false truth I had in my head. I cannot explain to you the relief I felt when I saw what it really was.

Thank you, Lord for reminding me of this today!

–Heather