Daily Devotion #2

Find the Source of Your Anxiety

 

"Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down, But a good word makes it glad."  Proverbs 12:25

 

I have been a faithful knuckle-cracker since the tender age of 8 years old.  Today I read that knuckle-cracking is a nervous behavior, a sign of anxiety. We all suffer from anxiety at some point or another, but we should not let it cripple us, we should try to do everything we can to remove it. I bet you wonder, what could I have been anxious or nervous about at 8, right?  I think I had just moved to a new school, with new people, and I did not know anyone.  In fact, it was in eighth grade that I met my best friend, Courtney.  I was always a sensitive girl, very sensitive to others thoughts and feelings about me.  I went to that new school because I had tested into the AAP program and it wasn't at the school near my house.  So I figure now that the source of all that knuckle-cracking was the need to be accepted, making friends, being different, going somewhere new—a whole lot of stress for an 8 year old!  Do you realize how much pressure it is to go into a new environment where you don't know anyone!!!  That's almost as bad as public speaking...I'm getting better at that as well!

 

I randomly decided today that I wanted to stop.  Not because of all the unproven literature about arthritis, but because I just decided I want to stop.  Maybe it was my mentee telling me that it was bad, and me telling her that I've been cracking them for that long.  Cracking your knuckles for nearly 20 years for no apparent reason other than it being a bad habit does something to you.  Philippians 4:6 says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."  Obviously now I recognize the need to get to the source of my problem, and to deal with any and all of my nervous habits; the best way to do this is to bring it to God so that He can reveal the way to get rid of it.  Anxiety causes stress and stress can "make you dead", lol.  I don't want to shorten my life span by being a knuckle-cracker, harboring pinned-up anxiety!  Are you anxious about something?  Do you recognize it?  What are you gonna do to get rid of it?  PRAY!

 

"Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"  Matthew 6:25

 

P.S.  I eventually found some rubber bands and put them on my arms to snap back every time I crack my knuckles or think about it...forces me to really think about why I'm doing it...getting to the source thank you God!