Requesting prayer for depression and anxiety

I am new to this forum and am glad to have found it because I really need a place of understanding to vent.
I just feel crazy sharing these things in real life with people I know, but I need to share them.

I have struggled with depression and what I would call severe anxiety for many years now.

I sometimes become very depressed over movies or real life events that, while tragic, had no
real impact on my life personally (like 9/11).

I also become engulfed with thoughts I don't want to have, which either depress me for days or longer or
cause great anxiety in me. For example, I am horrified by the thought of dying or losing a loved one. It
is something I think about more often than is normal I am sure. The thought of dying in an accident is especially
stressing to me so I avoid doing much traveling and do not even drive because I am extremely nervous behind the wheel
of a vehicle. I am nervous in a vehicle as well, but not to the same extent.

I get panic attacks and feel I can't breath and lose sleep over my thoughts of death plenty of nights. I wonder when and how things will happen and worry about being buried and ridiculous things like that. Sometimes I even worry whether or not there really is a heaven and if it will be a wonderful as the bible says it will be and whether or not I will be happy or lonely there

I truly have no peace right now, and I don't know what to do to comfort myself and be okay and normal.

Anyway, thanks for reading and please pray and share advice you might have. Thank you.

Welcome dkliving4him. I know exactly how you feel because I had the worst anxiety for about 18 years. I feel that I am completely healed now and am now in a position where I can offer help to others. I do realize that everyone’s experience of what leads to the fear and anxiety is different, but the end result is all the same. Mine was a walking anxiety, but I won’t discuss that here. I’ve discussed it in other posts.

What I would like to do is address some of your issues. I’m not going to go into it much, but just keep in mind that Satan is behind your feelings of fear of death and questioning of heaven and how good it is. Just keep that in mind and keep in mind that he is the father of lies. I won’t talk about him any more right now.

Two people, other than Jesus, went to heaven in the New Testament and returned to tell it: Paul and John. Paul wanted to make it clear that heaven is so great that it will leave you speechless. Paul speaks of himself in the 3rd person in 1 Corinthians 12:2. We know from the context that Paul is speaking of himself.

Starting back in 2 Co. 11:30, he says, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness….” Then in 1 Co. 12:1 he says that he is enjoying boasting about his weaknesses. It reads, “I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.” Verse 2, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven.”

I’ll pause here. There are 3 heavens the bible refers to. The first is the sky: our atmosphere. The second we see when the sky darkens: the stars, solar system and universe make up the 2nd heaven. The 3rd heaven is where God currently resides as we know “heaven.”

Paul continues in verses 3-4, “And I know that this man…was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” God lets John tell in Revelation 21-22 what he banned Paul from expressing.

So Paul says that Heaven is so good that it is beyond his words to express. Paul, who saw Heaven, is able to say in Philippians 1:21, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” And in verse 23 he says, “I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”

Death is not a bad thing. It is our enemy. The bible says that the last enemy to be destroyed is Death. But beyond death lies life. The next life will be more real than this life. The bible says that our bodies will be like that of the resurrected Lord Jesus’ (1 Cor. 15:49). Jesus ate fish with His disciples in His resurrected body. The bible says that we will eat a banquet feast during the Millennium Wedding Feast of the Lamb. The disciples touched Jesus’ resurrected body. Our resurrected bodies will have physical form where we can touch, pick up things, etc. as opposed to a floating spirit. But Jesus walked through walls in His new body, and shot up to the sky. If our bodies will really be like His, as that verse says, then we will have no problems getting around in heaven. And if we can take that a little further, Jesus died at 33: so, if you were an old, decrepit person when you died, or a baby or fetus that died, both will be resurrected with healthy 33 year old type of bodies that will be strong and vital.

We will never ever experience the death we die as long as we are a Christian. Only sinners without Christ experience death. But for us, the bible says absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The moment you breathe your last breath, you will open your eyes and see Jesus. You will never get to see inside your coffin. You will never see your funeral. You will never see the ground your body will be buried in. Your consciousness will be with Jesus in Heaven immediately.

As far as loved ones, you don’t have to worry about them either (as long as they’re saved). Study these passages that show that you will see your saved loved ones in heaven again: Luke 16:9, 2 Peter 1:5-11, and 2 Samuel 12:23.

We are to live life with our focus on life and not death. Moreover, with our focus on Jesus, who IS life.

And as far as death itself, I’ll leave you with words from someone much more eloquent than myself. These are the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preaching the eulogy of the 4 little girls that were murdered in the church bombing while they were in Sunday school:

“May I now say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families? It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men and poor men die; old people die and young people die. Death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.

I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity’s affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.”

One more thought just occurred to me: Let’s return to 2 Corinthians 12:2, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether it was in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise…”

Twice, Paul mentions “whether in the body or out of the body, [he] does not know, but God knows.” This simply means that when Paul experienced his vision/experience, he is not sure if he was really there in bodily form or if he died went there in spirit and was returned to life by being resurrected from the dead. I am not going to guess which scenario it was because whether it was in the body or out of the body I don’t know either, but God does. But what this passage does tell me is that either way, Heaven will be so real that it will be just like we are in our bodies as we are right now on Earth. Consider this: if Paul was not sure if he was there in body form or spirit, then that shows that when we get to heaven, it will be equally real to us that it will be just like we are in our bodies right now. And that, I believe is before we will be given our resurrected bodies. One day, at the Rapture, just before the Tribulation, Jesus is going to raise up our new perfected bodies, but that’s another topic. I just want to point out here that absent from the body in this age is to be present with the Lord, and our experience there will be as if we are in our current bodies. We will not be able to tell the difference just like Paul couldn't.

Hi, I can understand what you are talking about it’s kind of like what Paul says in Galatians 5:17 “The flesh works in opposition to the spirit, so that you are not to do what you really want.” I have that same battle , I joined this site called Freedom in Christ Movement and they send me daily e-mails with different encouraging words and I would just like to share them with you.

[One evening while preparing a message on the topic of praying in the spirit I tried something. I said, "Okay, Lord, I'm setting aside my list, and I'm going to assume that whatever comes to my mind during this time of prayer is from You or allowed by You. I'm going to let You set the agenda." Whatever came to my mind that evening was what I prayed about. If it was a tempting thought, I talked to God about that area of weakness. If the busyness of the day clamoured for attention, I discussed my plans with God. I dealt with whatever came to my mind.

I wasn't passively letting thoughts control me though. I was actively taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Don’t passively listen to your thoughts, or you might end up paying attention to a deceiving spirit (1 Timothy 4:1).

Phillipians 1:6 Fix your thoughts on what is true and admirable and pure. Don’t put up negative but positive pictures that feed your soul; things that build the truth of the word of God. Put up pictures that remind you of who you are and whose you are (Jesus Christ).
Internally, we desperately need the peace of God: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6,7).
The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26,27) ]

Always remember that even when your heart condemns you, God is still greater than your heart (1 John 3:20), and that’s why the Bible tells us to put on the braceplate of righteousness. He loves you as is and willing to walk us through and out of any situations that we find ourselves in.

I will be praying for you.