"The degree of my anxiety is a measure of my distance from God."
Anxiety used to be the master of my life. Without a relationship with God, I faced life alone and was in constant fear of not getting my needs met or of losing something I had so desperately fought to get. The past was a constant source of regret and shame, and the future was filled with countless unknown dangers that would surely overwhelm me. All of this made the present intolerable.
When I entered recovery, I brought my constant obsession with the past and future into the rooms with me. Thankfully, my sponsor taught me about living one day at a time, and he showed me that this was where I would find Godtoday, right here, right now. He told me that if I could get present, and thus be in the presence of God, my anxiety would go away.
This was simple advice, but not so easy to follow. The more I worked at practicing it, though, the more I found it to be true. Over the years, Ive discovered that the more I use the tools of the programprayer and meditation, pausing and asking for Gods guidance, and acknowledging in the moment that God is herethe more I find myself in the peace and serenity of Gods presence. Today, I use the degree of my anxiety to measure my distance from God.
