First Sunday of Advent: Anxiety

"Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from...the anxieties of daily life."

So that was written in the Gospel of Luke as something said by Christ to his disciples. It's about the end times, about the day that will "assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth." End times talk kind of goes in one of my ears and out the other. But that first sentence got me.

Don't let the anxieties of daily life exhaust you. I should paint that on a canvas and glue it to my face. I am always letting the anxieties of daily life exhaust me. Not the work of daily life, not the parenting and driving and teaching and cleaning and eating and going places of daily life, which are exhausting enough by themselves, but the anxieties.

Am I good enough? Will I manage to achieve my goals? 

Are my kids living up to some vague external standard that I don't care about deep in my heart but feel like maybe I should? Have I become...average...or worse, somewhat below average? Is my house clean enough if a neighbor were to knock on the door? Do I really fit in on this block anymore? Do I need to start over? 

What do I get LisaBillyEliJakobJeff for Christmas? When do I possibly get that done? God what about the girl scout troop trip? 

Did I screw up at work, or rather, how badly did I screw up? Did someone notice? Why can't I get it together? Why did I say that to her?

Why does my knee hurt? Did I call the dentist back? Is Daisy's eye ever going to get better? 

What am I forgetting?

The little internal voice in my head is not my friend. It isn't my conscience. It is just anxiety. I manage to self-talk myself right into paralysis pretty much anytime I start falling behind in any realm of my life. Some of those thoughts, like whether I called the dentist back, are legitimate. But measuring myself against an imaginary yardstick of popular opinion is not healthy for me or anyone near me.

And there is Christ, telling us not to get drowsy from the anxieties of daily life. Don't give a hoot about any of that stuff. Do what I can and leave the rest for tomorrow. Do one thing, do it well, and move on. Go to bed. Don't kill myself trying to measure up. Just be.

Because I find, the dentist and the knee aside, that nobody is really keeping tabs anyway. I tell this to middle school girls all the time: everyone else is so caught up in their own anxieties that they can hardly even register that you're there. No one remembers. No one notices.

Tis the season of tension headaches and sleep deprivation.

But it doesn't have to be.

Do not worry, God says. Do not be afraid. That's what worry is, after all, just fear by another name. Don't be afraid. We weren't made for fear.

Do not worry.