Anxiety is one of the most common struggles people face today, yet it often hides in plain sight. It shows up in quiet moments, lying awake at night, replaying conversations, or bracing for things that haven’t even happened yet. It whispers questions like, “What if something goes wrong?” or “What if I can’t handle what’s ahead?” If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in that cycle, you’re not alone. And more importantly, you are not without hope.  That is why I wrote Waiting to Worry: A Guide to Overcoming Anxiety. Understanding the Battle: Anticipatory Anxiety One of the most exhausting forms of anxiety is something called anticipatory anxiety—the fear of what might happen before it ever does. It’s the kind of anxiety that: Turns a routine doctor’s visit into a worst-case scenario Makes a simple conversation feel overwhelming Causes your body to react as though danger is already present Your heart races. Your thoughts spiral. Your body prepares for a threat that hasn’t arrived. From a clinical perspective, this is the body’s fight-or-flight response being activated unnecessarily. From a spiritual perspective, it is a battle in the mind—where fear attempts to override truth. And if we’re honest, even strong believers struggle here. You Can Have Faith and Still Feel Fear Many Christians quietly carry anxiety because they believe it means their faith is weak. They ask: “Why can’t I just trust God?” “What’s wrong with me?” “Shouldn’t I be stronger than this?” But Scripture tells a different story. David cried out in distress. Elijah battled discouragement. Paul endured overwhelming pressure. God did not reject them in their fear—He met them in it. Anxiety is not a sign that God has left you. It is often the very place where He draws near. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” – Psalm 46:1 (KJV) Where Faith Meets Practical Help As both a pastor and a licensed clinical social worker, I have spent years walking with people through anxiety, from the pulpit and across the counseling room. What I have learned is this: Lasting peace comes when faith and practical tools work together . In Waiting to Worry, I bring these two together by offering: Biblical truth to anchor your thinking Clinical strategies to calm your body and mind Guided exercises to help you break the cycle of fear Because peace is not just something you pray for—it is something you learn to walk in. Breaking Free from “What If” Thinking One of the most powerful steps in overcoming anxiety is learning to challenge your thoughts. Anxiety thrives on “what if.” Faith is grounded in “what is true.” The Bible instructs us clearly: “Whatsoever things are true… think on these things.” – Philippians 4:8 (KJV) A simple but life-changing question you can ask yourself is: Is this a fact, or is this a fear? That question alone can begin to separate truth from distortion. A Simple Practice You Can Start Today Here is one practical tool you can begin using immediately: The “What If” Exercise Write down your top three worries Ask yourself: Are these happening right now? Notice how many are future-based fears This exercise helps bring your mind back to the present, where God’s grace actually meets you. Because most of the things we fear… never happen. And even when life brings challenges, God’s strength proves sufficient. God’s Peace Is Available to You One of the greatest truths I want every reader to understand is this: Fear may be real—but it is not final. God offers a peace that is not dependent on circumstances. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” – John 14:27 (KJV) This peace is not the absence of problems. It is the presence of Christ in the middle of them. A Journey to Freedom Waiting to Worry is not just a book to read—it is a guide to walk through. Inside, you will find: Faith Truths to ground your thinking Counselor’s Tips for real-life application Calls to Prayer to connect with God in the moment Declarations of Freedom to renew your mind Each chapter is designed to help you move from fear to faith, step by step. You Don’t Have to Live This Way If anxiety has been controlling your thoughts, your sleep, your peace, or your decisions, hear this clearly: You are not broken. You are not weak. You are not beyond help. You are in a battle—and through Christ, that battle can be won. The same Jesus who calmed the storm is still speaking peace today. And He is speaking to you. Take the First Step If you are ready to stop living in “what if” and start walking in peace, Waiting to Worry: A Guide to Overcoming Anxiety is here to help guide you. You don’t have to face anxiety alone. You can learn to wait… instead of worry.

We all know that sinking feeling of being really hard on ourselves. For some of us, we experience it as a gut-wrenching, overall sensation of being “bad” or “wrong” at our very core. For others, it’s a harsh internal voice that seems to stand at the ready to bring us down, just when we’ve worked up the courage to try something new, or something we’ve failed at in the past. Just as we’re poised to take a risk for our benefit, this internal voice tells us we’re “no good”, or “will never be enough, no matter what, so why try?”. But what is this feeling, this voice? Why do we attack ourselves in the first place? Something that might surprise many of us: Self-attack is learned, and it often has good reasons. I don’t mean that our self-attack is right. I mean that we come by it honestly, and that there are good reasons we learned to do it. And appreciating this is part of healing. Let’s take a moment to go back in time. Imagine yourself as a young child, or imagine a young child that you know. A teacher once asked me, “Is any child born thinking ‘I’m no good’ or ‘Something is wrong with me?’” I don’t know about you, but I don’t think so! Self-attack is something that children learn. But how and why do they learn it? Go back to this child you had in your mind’s eye before. See how this child is totally dependent on their parents or caregivers to meet all their needs. Not just food and shelter, but emotional needs, too: the need to feel welcomed in this world, the need to feel seen and understood, the need to be loved for who they really are, the need to trust and rely on others. I will go out on a limb here, and say that no child has all their needs, material or emotional, met perfectly by their parents. And not because their parents are bad, but because all parents are human beings: Like all of us, they are flawed. Environmental factors like war, economic hardship, and natural disasters also play a huge role. So imagine this young child again, totally dependent on their caregivers and environment for everything. What happens when important needs go unmet? The brutal reality is often that parents, at that moment, in that particular place, were not capable of meeting their child’s needs. Maybe there was a war going on. Maybe their parents were carrying unimaginable burdens of their own that got in the way. But if this young child were to accept this reality, it would create hopelessness. Parents or caregivers are a child’s whole world. How horrible would it be to accept that this world is simply not going to fulfill these needs they have at their very core? This is the origin of self-attack. In my experience, children opt out of hopelessness, and instead tell themselves, “I’m not worthy of getting what I need.” This is painful, but it keeps hope alive. They think, “If I’m the problem, maybe I can fix myself. If I just try harder, or need less, then I’ll finally be loved the way I need to be loved.” This was actually brilliant. It kept the child emotionally connected to their parents, even when the relationship couldn't hold them the way they needed. It meant maintaining hope in what can be a dangerous and unjust world. Seen from this perspective, self-attack was a brilliant strategy. It helped us to make it through, to survive situations in which the world couldn’t give us what we really needed. But then we grew up. We no longer depend on our parents or caregivers, yet we continue to attack ourselves by telling ourselves we’re bad or wrong at our core, that we’ll never be good enough, etc. The strategy that once protected us now hurts us: It keeps us from going for what we want, it keeps us from feeling confident and lovable just as we are, it hurts us, and keeps us stuck. This is a new perspective for many people: The self-attack that can feel like just “who we are” is really something we learned in order to survive, in order to protect ourselves from the harsh realities of the world. Giving ourselves grace means aligning our inner voice with God's voice, extending to ourselves the same mercy God extends to us. As Paul writes, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). As parents, as people, we are all flawed. God knows this, and meets us with compassion, not condemnation, in our imperfect state. God sees belovedness, not worthlessness; a child learning and growing, not a failure who can never measure up.  Can we learn to look at ourselves the same way? Can we meet our own imperfection with the same compassion God offers us? Hart to Heart is here to help you on this journey