"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:34" Worry goes hand in hand with panic attacks. It seems that when one worry gets taken care of, ten more are waiting to take its place. You find yourself alarmed at every physical sensation and bgin the dreaded "what ifs"; "What if this tingling in my arm is the start of another panic attack?", "What if it's a really big one?", "What if I faint?", "What if nobody helps me?", "What if its something else that is wrong?"... and so on it goes... sound familiar?

In the day to day life of a panic sufferer, worry is a constant pressure. I have to confess that there were days I had worried because I knew I worried too much! Now tell me if that is not a catch-22!

Worrying not only is a waste of time, but it is also a waste of energy. Worry is like a drain sapping away all the juice from yourr energy. It leaves you emotionally tried and can also leave you physically fatigued or even ill. More often than not you are also left in a worse state of mind then when you started - so why do we worry?

If you ever wanted to trigger a nuclear reaction with me in the past you would just need to come up to me and announce: "I don't know why you worry so much - just stop - stop dwelling on everything and you'll feel so much better!" ... Well thank you Mr. and Mrs. Happy face - what an origional thought! My usual snipped remark was "well if I could stop, don't you think I WOULD? Do you think I ENJOY feeling this way?!" Then the person would usually mutter a "just trying to help and back away. When that happened you know what I would immediately do? Wonder "oh no.... what if I just upset them? What if I sounded too harsh?... what if..." *rolls eyes*

I can't tell you how often I tried to stop worrying and failed. But you see, that was the very problem: I tried. What I needed to do was stop trying to do it all myself and turn my thinking to God and His word. Now this too is easier said than done as well. I know. But two things I learned rather quickly when applying this: (1) God knows my heart and knows if I am truly believing and trusting in Him, and (2) in order to stand on God's promises, you have to know them.

Part of my problem when I just tried to turn the worry over to God was I really diden't know the bible as I should. I took other's comments about the bible and tried to apply it not really understanding. I also tried to give God some of my worry but hold the rest for myself. Not that I wanted to hang on, but I felt like I needed to just in case God didn't take care of things! (No wonder I didn't get results!). What about you? Are you holding on or letting go? Are you letting go 100%? That 1% makes all the differance. Are you reading the bible daily for yourself and making the Word your own? You need to. One day we will all answer to God 1 to 1 and we won't be able to ask someone else "well what do you think?" or "what would you do?". God left us an instruction manual for life - we just need to read and apply it.

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