*goes running once* *has to take five ibuprofen before going to sleep*

 My anxiety has reared its ugly head once again, and this time, instead of lamenting about mental illness on Instagram, I decided to delete the app and go for a run. And now my FitBit actually has steps on it and I've remembered I have muscles in my shoulders for the first time in years and I feel like I'm moving towards something. Literally and not-so-literally.

Could this be strength?! Or something like it?

I could talk all day about how many good things I have pushed away because of anxiety and how little good that did me (shocker), but what I really wanna say is probably the most obvious thing in the world. Luckily, only three people still read this blog and one of them is me and the other is my mom.

You can't get over your anxiety by sitting in it. That's like saying you can't get dry if you keep sitting in a puddle. WOW AM I GOOD AT METAPHORS OR WHAT (definitely or what). 

You have to move.

I'm reading the Old Testament right now (for the first time ever, all the way through. I KNOW) and that book of scripture is basically just God asking his children to do the most anxiety-inducing things you can imagine. Abraham? Sacrifice your son. Abraham's wife? You're going to have to wait 100 years before you have a son. And then I'm going to ask your husband to sacrifice him. Oh, and can we talk about how infertility is a huge theme in the Old Testament? It's just...a lot. A lot of hard things these people had to go through. And that's not just in the Old Testament, but it's definitely got that theme of "sojurning in the wilderness while waiting on the Lord" kinda feel.

But none of the prophets you hear about in the Old Testament or their children or their wives sat around waiting for something to happen, waiting for God to bless them. They did what he asked, always, without waiting, and that kind of faith is exactly the kind I need to get over anxiety. To get past my own mental roadblocks that tell me "this thing is out of your control and therefore everything will go wrong."

Do you know how often that's true? 100% of NEVER.

The last thing I scribbled in my sketchbook was this note from my phone, and I have no idea where it came from (it's not from me, that's for sure):

You cannot see the gift in what you resist.