I wake in the dark, always just a little after 4am… the world is pounding in my veins, a feeling of suffocation blanketing my spirit. I get up. I go to the bathroom. I try to lay back down, but the feeling is so intense it has begun to nauseate me, and I get up for the day. I dress in the dark, let the dog out of his crate, and pad quietly from our room so I don’t disturb my husband (who has been up working in the night).

This is how 95% of my days begin. Sometimes the panic passes quickly, within a couple of hours. Other times it stays with me most of the day. I manage to function around it as much as possible, but it’s like a shadow on my spirit, ready to engulf me if I step too far away from the light.

When it engulfs me, I become very easily controlled and manipulated by the enemy. He tries to use all of the adrenaline pumping through my system to strengthen my fears, my lack of trust, my lack of self-worth. He does this to distort my perspective of circumstances and drive wedges into the godly parts of my life. The challenge is in getting the wedges out once they get in. It takes trust and faith… so what do you do when both of those things are shaken?

Isn’t that a question we all face more often than we don’t? The only place we can take those kind of questions is God. You pray and ask Him to show you the way through. You pray and ask Him to show you where your perspective is off. You pray and ask Him to show you what you either need to be doing but aren’t, or what you are doing but shouldn’t be. You pray and ask Him to soften your heart and help you to stop closing it off in the name of self-defense.

No matter how hard it gets, we can only out one foot in front of the other and keep asking God to guide the next step.

“Remember [O LORD ] my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall (bitterness). My soul continually remembers them And is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, Therefore I have hope. It is because of the LORD ’ S lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, Because His [tender] compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.”
‭‭Lamentations‬ ‭3:19-23‬ ‭AMP‬‬