"The United States is now the most anxious nation in the world...

The land of Stars and Stripes has become the country of stress and strife... Stress related ailments cost the nation $300 billion every year in medical bills and lost productivity, while our usage of sedative drugs keeps sky rocketing..."

It is costing more than money. Not very long ago, ayoung pastor of a prominent church in California took his life. Twice in one week I got the message of the suicide of a young person. I was connected to one through ministry and the other a longtime family friend. A beautiful girl, not yet a teenager, told me she does not want to live any more.

"Why?"

"Life is too hard. I have too many problems."

A young man told me his story of debilitating anxiety.

"Why?"

"Too much information, too often, too fast and too negative. Quotas. Demands and expectations that are too high."

I understand the problem. I come from a long line of worriers. It comes naturally to me.

"Anxiety is trepidation.

It's a suspicion, an apprehension. Life in a minor key with major concerns. Perpetually on the pirate ship's plank...

As a result you are anxious. A free-floating sense of dread hovers over you, a caul across the heart, a nebulous hunch about things...that might happen...sometime in the future.

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one.

Fear screams, Get out!

Anxiety ponders, What if?

Fear results in fight or flight. Anxiety creates doom and gloom.

Fear is the pulse that pounds when you see a coiled rattlesnake in your front yard. Anxiety is the voice that tells you, 'Never, ever, for the rest of your life, walk barefooted through the grass. There might be a snake...somewhere."*

Care ministry stirs my anxious tendencies as I dread another person with a cancer diagnosis, a grieving family to support after a dramatic loss or a marriage collapsing on its way to a divorce. Even in the satisfaction of being present with people in their greatest need I worry that my work is not enough and that I might say the wrong thing. Who am I forgetting to visit? What call do I need to return? Who do I need to recruit to care? How can I mobilize them to care? Do I have what it takes to meet the overwhelming needs?

Like grief, I do not need to be an expert on the subject, but I need to know how to face it.

But the most common human experience, loss leading to grief, frequently affects me and the people in my care. Like I need to grieve my losses and have the skills and resources to support people in their time of grief, I also need to have some ability to process my anxiety and help people living in an anxious world.

Anxiety may be next on the list of current needs. I recognize my own need for:

• Quiet time to pray, give thanks and renew my awareness of God's presence. 
• Exercise that physically strengthens me and helps burn off the adrenaline accumulated in stressful situations.
• Materials to read that help me understand anxiety and how to deal with it.
• Fellowship that listens to me so I don't do ministry alone.

Anxiety torments many in our ministries and I feel it in myself.

It won't go away but I am thankful that we can have what it takes to find calm in our chaotic world and when we do, we will bring calm to the stress and anxiety to those in our care.

*The above quotes and the pictures used are from Max Lucado's book, Anxious for Nothing -- Finding Calm in a Chaotic World.