Lately, I am becoming more and more aware of how many people are suffering horrible anxiety. My heart goes out to them because it anxiety attacks are extremely difficult to cope with, and they just keep coming waves. I suppose for the most part it’s a problem that comes from maturity and having experienced so much in life. So many new things remind us of old happenings and we immediately see the dark side and the problems involved, and the negative things that can result. Or old problems still haunt us, and even though they are only fantasies, they stir up emotions and bring on panic attacks.
A famous spiritual writer, Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, discusses this and similar problems in a letter to one of the persons he counseled. It is worthwhile sharing what he has to say, “The trouble is… the fact that you cling so fast to these doubts and fears. You concentrate upon them too much, instead of ignoring them and casting yourself upon God in utter self-abandonment, as I have consistently exhorted you for so long past. Only through this holy and happy self-abandonment can you ever enjoy an enduring peace full of perfect trust in God, through Jesus Christ. Yet, once again, what do you have to fear in this self-surrender especially after so many plain signs of God’s great mercy to you? You seek for conscious support in yourself, and in your works and conscience, as if they provide more assurance and stronger support than God’s mercy and Jesus Christ’s merits, and under the assumption that these cannot lead you astray.
“When we reach the lowest depths of our nothingness, we can have no kind of trust in ourselves, nor in any way rely upon our works, for in these are to be found only wretchedness, self-love, and corruption. Such complete distrust and utter scorn of the self is the one source from which originate those delightful consolations of souls wholly surrendered to God – their unalterable peace, their blessed joy, and their unshakeable trust in none but God. Would that you knew the gift of God, the reward and the merit and the power and the peace, the blessed assurances of salvation that are hidden in this abandonment; then would you soon be rid of all your fears and anxieties!”
While his thoughts seem rather heavy because we don’t speak like that today, his insistence on abandonment of our lives to God has deep meaning. People who have come close to God, and have developed an intimacy with God, know the peace and joy that comes from that intimacy. This intimacy brings with it such a comfortable feeling by being in God’s presence, turning your life over to God, or abandonment of oneself to God, as he words it, is not something morbid or depressing, but a natural response that comes from the realization of your intimacy with God, and with Jesus. Worries, fears and anxieties dissolve when you feel God’s embrace.
