I Worry That My Anxiety is Affecting My Kids

And yeah, I'm really grateful to do this episode, and the reason I'm doing this now, if you're a new friend and you have been a longtime listener of Pardon the Mess since before I was hosting, you might not know this about me, but my whole thing that I have done for years basically has just been sharing my anxiety testimony because it was such a huge part of me learning to stop white-knuckling life and trust Jesus and actually be able to have joy, the joy and peace that He promises us when we have His spirit.

A huge part of that was learning to fight my anxiety with the Word of God.

So my first book that came out, that I'm gonna be talking about today, and I'm showing you if you're a YouTube watcher, Afraid of All the Things.

This is, like, my testimony, my faith story, my first book, and, like, the one I always come back to and the one I usually speak about when I travel around and speak.

You know, I-- it's funny because I'm, I feel a little bit removed from that testimony now because God is so good.

And of course, you know, I have my new struggles of 2026 right now, but the anxiety struggle, I just haven't dealt with it in a while, and I never could have imagined getting to enjoy the peace that I feel right now in this season of life.

And the reason I- it's kind of on my mind is I've had several people in my life just this week who are younger moms with younger kids bring up their parenting anxiety to me.

Specifically, not so much like I'm worried about this thing for my child, but like I'm s- consumed with worry over my child's safety.

And I remember being in that position.

I remember being completely consumed by it, and I remember that fear, that anxiety, just a loop in my head, and it would, it would keep me from closeness with the Lord because I was believing some wrong things about the Lord.

And so rather than casting that care on Him like He says to do in His word, I just kind of wrestled with it and tried to take measures to keep my baby safe.

This was-- it was peak bad when I had my firstborn, whose hair is cooking over there in the corner with the tinfoil, when she was a baby, my first baby right off the heels of a miscarriage.

And I've briefly talked about this in a previous episode, but it was real, real, real, real bad, totally consuming.

And so anyway, these younger moms that I've talked to lately who are in my life, I have such a compassion for that feeling and just such an amazement that the Lord has brought me to where I am now.

Of course, I have moments and waves of it.

After Afraid of All the Things came out, I put out a Bible study with Lifeway Women called Anxious: Fighting Anxiety with the Word of God.

And I remember, I think, what was the year that we were talking about that? It was like 2018 or 2019, and we were sitting around this big conference table, and it was me with my testimony [chuckles] and my computer and then all these, like, real theologians and editors and publishing experts sitting around, and we were discussing the title and the cover and all, you know, the outline and everything.

And I remember one a man I super respect who's been doing Lifeway Women Bible studies for a very long time.

He was like, "Scarlet, what if we have the subtitle be-- What if it's Anxious, and the subtitle is Overcoming Anxiety with the Word of God?" Which is great, right? Of course, we wanna overcome anxiety using the word of God.

But as I sat at that conference table, I remember saying, "You know, I love that, but I can't write that Bible study because this is something that I continually have to battle.

I have to discipline myself not only to be in the word of God, but to fight, to take these thoughts captive.

It's not-- It's an ongoing thing for me.

It's not something that I feel like I can say I've overcome." Now, I've already-- I think I've already shared testimonies in the short time we've known each other of things that I know the Lord has helped me overcome, things in my life, sin in my life, and it, it's like a page in a history book, and I know, wow, Jesus, you are a miracle worker.

You are more powerful than my sin and my brokenness, and you have brought me through that.

I have those testimonies too.