With spiky orange hair and bulging eyeballs, she is an unlikely protagonist. But “Anxiety” takes center stage in Pixar’s latest animated film “Inside Out 2” which I preached about last Sunday (CLICK HERE if you missed it). One of the film designers said that “Anxiety” was originally sketched as a monster and then a dragon before they finally settled on the current iteration, an orange blob with a wide grin who was far less alarming.
I had one regret after that sermon. And that is that I may have taken Anxiety too lightly. Sometimes she feels more like a dragon or a monster than a perky, beady-eyed cartoon character. For some of us, lots of us really, and likely someone you love, Anxiety takes up residence like a squatter and refuses to move on. In writing about our own emotional and spiritual pain one Christian author, Sarah Bessey reminds us of the theme of wilderness in the Bible. Wilderness was that place where God’s people wandered aimlessly because the future was so tenuous. She writes that for some “wilderness has been your primary address for as long as you can remember.”
If I could add one line to last week’s sermon it would be this: If you have persistent or debilitating anxiety, please reach out for help! Talk to a family member, a friend, a pastor, a physician. A psychologist can provide talk therapy and a psychiatrist can prescribe medicine. All the clergy on our staff have a referral list of professionals who provide mental health services. There is no need to suffer in silence. You are not alone.
On multiple occasions in my own adult life, I faced a problem/challenge/life transition I needed help with, and I found talk therapy to be a healing balm and a sacred space.
As Bessey writes: “It’s here I discovered that the wilderness isn’t a problem to be solved, it is another altar of intimacy with God.”
Grace and peace,
Carla