“Mom, why does this always happen to me?”
It was my daughter’s Senior year of high school. We were participating in a preview weekend at her chosen university, and while the other prospective students attended their first class, my girl was curled up on the bathroom floor of our hotel room. We had both been so excited about the weekend. I expected it to be filled with new friends and fun experiences—the perfect way to show my girl she was capable of moving seven hours away and living on her own!
Instead, “what ifs” about the future raced around her mind, creating a whirlpool of anxiety she just couldn’t shake. Consumed with fear, she woke up sick to her stomach, drowning in apprehensive thoughts and feeling like a failure.
As a mom, watching your child struggle and feeling powerless to help is the worst. After praying over her and trying every calming trick I knew, I resigned myself to spending the day in our hotel room.
We all face unexpected storms in life—broken relationships, a scary diagnosis, job loss, prodigal children. And like my daughter, it’s not unusual for these circumstances to create a tempest inside us, leaving us feeling anxious and overwhelmed. What do we do when life rages around and within us (or in our teens) and we can’t see a way out?
I remember sitting in the hotel room that morning, opening my Bible, and begging God to calm the storm that was raging inside my girl.
My Scripture reading that day was Matthew 14:22-33. I read about the time Jesus sent his disciples out across the lake ahead of Him…straight into a storm. When the wind picked up and began tossing the boat around, Jesus walked to his friends on the water. Peter, filled with both fear and courage, stepped out of the boat and onto the sea toward Jesus, only to look around and realize the absurdity of his plan. With the waves crashing around him, Peter took his eyes off the Lord and began to sink. In desperation, he reached out for Jesus, the only One who could save him.
I’ve read this story dozens of times, but this time, verse 32 stood out to me: “And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.”
With my daughter still curled up on the bathroom floor, I turned my frustration on God.
“Lord, I don’t understand! Peter trusted you. He had enough faith to step out of the boat and walk towards You. That was difficult enough; was the storm really necessary? And why did you wait until AFTER he got back in the boat to calm the winds? Couldn’t You have made it a little easier for him?”
And that’s when it hit me. The storm wasn’t an accident; it was an intentional part of the process.
Sometimes, the only way God can grow our trust in Him is to let us experience circumstances we are unable to navigate on our own. Sure, if there had been no storm, Peter wouldn’t have been distracted and would have easily made it safely to Jesus without sinking.
But Jesus knew what was coming. In the years ahead, Peter would face severe persecution, multiple imprisonments, and tremendous suffering. If Christ’s Church was to be founded on Peter’s example and testimony, he needed a faith strong enough to withstand those trials. Courage was not enough. Peter needed a sense of desperation for the only One who could save him, as well as the confidence of knowing that Jesus could be trusted.
Peter needed to learn that he could turn to Jesus in the midst of life’s storms.
So did my daughter.
And so do we.
Most of us probably won’t end up trying to walk on water in the middle of a raging storm. However, like my daughter, each of us experiences situations when life and fear overwhelm us, and our faith begins to sink. Satan wants nothing more in those moments than to convince us that Jesus has abandoned us and we are on our own. But that is a lie.
So, how do we reach out to Jesus in the middle of the storm? How do we learn to control our anxious thoughts?
When you or your teen feel overwhelmed with anxiety, following these steps can help you take your thoughts captive to the authority of Christ and replace them with the peace that only He can give.
Anxiety is always rooted in fear. What are you afraid of? Be specific. Satan works best in chaos, so he likes to keep our fears swirling so they seem bigger than they really are. But God is a God of order and peace. Naming our fears out loud and calling out the lies we are believing brings them into the light, enabling us to break free from harmful deceptions.
Once you’ve named the lies and fears, ask yourself what is actually true. Do you really have a reason to be afraid? Are you believing a lie that goes against God’s character or promises? Tell yourself the whole truth.
That night in the storm, Peter’s circumstances were scary and even life-threatening. But the greater truth was that God was bigger than the storm, and Jesus, the One who had called him, could be trusted. When Peter shifted his gaze from the storm back to the Savior, everything changed. The same is true for us.
God’s Word is full of promises and reminders of His faithfulness. The best way to confront fear and anxiety is with the truth of Scripture. When Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, He answered each of the schemer’s twisted lies with the Truth of God’s Word. “It is written…” (Matthew 4:1-11). Go back to the lies you named in the first step and counter them with the Truth of Scripture.
Turn these reflections into prayer, asking God to change your mindset and help you live in the freedom of His truth.
When we face unexpected or difficult circumstances in life, it’s common to feel overwhelmed with anxiety. Some people fight, some people flee, and some people freeze in their fear. But in every situation, pausing (confronting the lies) and reaching out for Jesus’s hand (telling ourselves the whole Truth) enables us to move forward through the storm instead of staying stuck or running in circles.
“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
**This 4-step process is used with permission from The Truth Journal: A 30-Day Guided Journal to Combat the Lies of the Enemy with the Truth of God’s Word (by Jana Fraley), available on Amazon.