Fear | Laurie Coombs

Archive for the ‘Fear’ Category

{Anxiety and Depression} Losing Your Life to Save It

Posted on: June 25th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 12 Comments

Anxiety and Depression Losing You Life to Save It

I think my anxiety was brought on by the many years of heightened stress I experienced after my dad’s murder. It seemed the stress built up slowly over time until my body simply couldn’t take it any more, and I just sort of fell apart. But it wasn’t just the murder. I think it was a combination of many things––my type-A personality, my need for control, additional stress caused by a high-risk pregnancy, and the normal stresses of daily life––that contributed to my downfall. I was confused when the physical symptoms of anxiety finally came to a head. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, and this was when the depression hit. All the medical tests ordered by several different doctors came back normal. In hindsight this was a good thing, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. Not finding a cause for my many troubling symptoms left…

Do We Need to Rid Ourselves of Our Weaknesses?

Posted on: June 18th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 5 Comments

God, Jesus, Faith, Christian, Christianity, strengths, weaknesses, weak, strong, strength, weakness, overcome weakness, overcome, achievement, start, finish, finish what you start, 2 corinthians 12:10, 2 corinthians 12:9, made strong in my weakness, when i am weak then I am strong, strengths finder 2.0

I’m a starter. When called to something, I jump on it and get the ball rolling. But I have to admit, I’m not very good at finishing. That’s not to say that I don’t finish, but for me, finishing what I start does not come without a fight. All I kept thinking during those last few weeks finishing my manuscript was, “I want to quit! I want to quit!! I want to quit!!!” I knew I wouldn’t let myself quit, but I wanted to. I wanted to give up the fight. I wanted to take the easy road. I wanted to sit myself down in front of the TV or read a book or do just about anything other than write––all things I hadn’t done for months. But I was determined to finish even though it took every bit of will I had and a strength that truly was not my own. A…

Letters of Hope #3

Posted on: May 6th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 2 Comments

With permission, I’ve decided to anonymously share some of the correspondence I’ve had with readers about their struggles with anxiety and/or depression over the coming weeks. I think some of you may be able to relate with these individuals who are currently battling fear and darkness, and it is my hope that you find comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in this. And I also thought my responses may be of some use to you as well. To those readers who aren’t struggling in this area, I’d like to encourage you to hang in there with me for a few more weeks! I’ll be back writing as I had before long. Thank you for patiently waiting this topic out! I am sitting at work, at my desk, in tears over your article on depression/anxiety. I’ve been experiencing this for some time now and I just started going to a…

Letters of Hope #1

Posted on: April 23rd, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 5 Comments

Joy is coming, fear, anxiety, depression, how to battle depression, battle depression, battling depression, God, Jesus, Christian depression, trust

With permission, I’ve decided to anonymously share some of the correspondence I’ve had with readers about their struggles with anxiety and/or depression over the coming weeks. I think some of you may be able to relate with these individuals who are currently battling fear and darkness, and it is my hope that you find comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in this. And I also thought my responses may be of some use to you as well. To those readers who aren’t struggling in this area, I’d like to encourage you to hang in there with me for a few more weeks! I’ll be back writing as I had before long. Thank you for patiently waiting this topic out! Dear Laurie, I am 40 and I have struggled my whole life with anxiety, phobias, etc. I have been “coasting” using meds etc for 15+years. I haven’t driven on the…

Overcoming Anxiety and Depression {Part 2 – Thoughts}

Posted on: April 16th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 8 Comments

God, Jesus, anxiety, depression, fear, trusting God, trials, hope, you will be okay, healing, faith, how to beat depression, how to get better, what is depression, depression cure, how to beat anxiety, how to overcome anxiety, overcome, cure,

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ… – 2 Corinthians 4-5 (emphasis mine) When I was struggling with anxiety and depression, I truly thought I was going crazy. Terrible, irrational thoughts seemed to swirl through my mind continually, and I was pretty sure that it would not be a good idea to tell anyone what I was thinking. I thought maybe they’d take my kids away or admit me into some facility for the mentally ill. My thoughts were so far out there that I didn’t even know what I was capable of. I didn’t trust myself, and I think that’s what scared me the most. Now that I’m on the other side of that terrible season, I can clearly see that I was…

Scripture to Combat Fear and Anxiety

Posted on: April 2nd, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 3 Comments

fear, anxiety, faith, Christian, God, Jesus

My girls are home for spring break this week and next, and I’m taking some time off to be with them. But I leave you with scriptures that address fear and anxiety. This is God’s Word. It’s truth. Read it as such. God said these things about YOU! What I like to do is write the scriptures that particularly speak to me in that moment on index cards. I have a little index card binder I bought at Office Depot that holds all the cards, and I try to read them out loud every day at some point. This is particularly helpful to do when you’re struggling. Instead of sitting in your struggles, turn to God’s Word and speak truth over your mind, your situation, and your feelings! God bless you! I’ll be back soon… Fear thou not; for I am with thee. – Isaiah 41:10 God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but…

More Practical Thoughts on Anxiety and Depression

Posted on: March 26th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 3 Comments

This is an extremely rough post. It’s an unedited response I wrote to someone this morning, and felt the Spirit tell me to share it here. I, quite frankly, don’t have time this morning to go through and refine my prose, so I won’t because after all, that’s not what it’s all about. Email after email is pouring into my inbox. There are so many of you struggling right now, and I just don’t have the heart to hold this back for the sake of making it read better. Some of you need this now. Some of you are hanging on to your lifeline by a thread. So here it is. It’s not pretty, but here it is. On another note, my daughters are off for spring break for two weeks beginning next week, so I’ll be taking some time off with them. BUT, I will be posting scriptures that…

Overcoming Anxiety and Depression {Part 1}

Posted on: March 26th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 15 Comments

hope, fear, trusting God, trust, overcome, depression, anxiety, what is anxiety, what is depression, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, how to overcome anxiety, how to overcome depression, Jesus, God, faith,

I think last week’s post, When Anxiety and Depression Threaten to Pull You Under, struck a cord. It seems the darkness I had experienced has been experienced––or is currently being experienced––by many. Over the last week, many people have contacted me asking for help, and with each email that I received, I realized just how important it is that I speak out with complete transparency about what I went through and how I got out of it. I originally decided to write these posts on anxiety and depression in response to correspondence I received from a man I sat next to on an airplane a few weeks back. It was one of those encounters that you know God ordained, but you’re not quite sure why you’re telling a complete stranger your entire life’s story until later. Now, I’m accustom to telling strangers about the crazy story of how God redeemed…

Trusting God to Fill in the Gap

Posted on: February 25th, 2014 by Laurie Coombs 1 Comment

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“If we could just get this stuff right,” I said to my husband, “our lives would be amazing.” I had just finished listening to Pastor Andy Stanley’s Breathing Room sermon series, which addresses the importance of the way we spend both our time and money and argues that life is simply better with breathing room. Relationships thrive when there’s breathing room. We experience greater joy and peace when there’s breathing room. And ultimately we have more opportunity to grow in our relationship with God when there’s breathing room. Now, I realize this message may seem like common sense. We know this stuff. It’s nothing new. But I question how many of us still live our lives to the limit. We live in a fast paced world––in a society that makes productivity and “success” top priority. As Americans, we’re called to work hard and achieve the fallacious “American Dream.” But I don’t believe this…

A Lifeboat to Endure the Storms of Life

Posted on: January 23rd, 2014 by Laurie Coombs

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You are loved. With a love unmatched and unparalleled by anything else. With a love incomprehensible to the human mind. A love so great, so unfathomable that many will never fully comprehend its depth this side of heaven. In the book of Isaiah, God tell of His love for us. God speaks these words over you, over me, as an affectionate Father whispers I love you in the quiet, intimate moments before lying his child to sleep. He says: But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your…