What can we do when anxiety attacks? In Anxiety: Finding the Better Story, Liz Edrington offers a 31-day devotional for teenagers to calm anxious hearts with the peace of Christ.
Emotional Waves to Ride Out
At less than 100 pages, this concise book offers practical and biblical help for those who feel overwhelmed by anxiety. While this book is targeted at teens, I found it useful and packed with wisdom for Christians of all ages. Youth group students, as well as their pastors and counselors, will find this to be an excellent and applicable read.
Edrington begins by asking us to consider anxiety as emotional waves we must ride out. She shows how we are living out God’s story, and we live in “the now and not yet.” We are inbetween Jesus’ first coming and his return to make everything right. Defining and framing anxiety in this way helps us stay grounded to the truth of reality, and not feel like we are drowning in our situations.
Breathing In and Breathing Out
The devotional readings in this book are short—about two long each day. Edrington takes you through familiar Bible verses and applies them to any anxious thoughts you may have. I was most interested to see how she points out how God makes order from the internal chaos of our anxiety in the same way he did during creation. Edrington calls on us to be like God, using our words to name, describe, and offer up our anxiety to God in prayer.
A helpful pattern of breathing in (stating our situation) and breathing out (proclaiming God’s promises) is established throughout the book. For instance, by being grounded in the truth of the death and resurrection of Christ, we can hope in the reality of God’s victory by breathing in—even if the worst happens—and breathing out—death cannot win.
Perfect Life with Christ Forever
The book ends by reminding us that everything really is going to be okay. And while this might seem like a simple platitude, it is grounded in Biblical truth. The end of our story is that we will have perfect life with Christ forever.
Edrington encourages us by saying how this ending is already coming true. We can look for signs of the love of God around us, we can listen to his Word. We can be filled with the Spirit. This book gives hope and grace to those who need it, by looking at Jesus who promised and bought it for us.
I received a media copy of Anxiety: Finding the Better Story and this is my honest review.