If there is anything I’ve learned on my walk with God, it’s that prayer is not enough. You can pray all you want, beg and plead, but God only answers when we surrender. Completely surrender. Give Him everything, not just our battles, but ourselves, our mind, our heart, our soul. Everything.

I don’t say this just to say this. I say it because I’ve lived it and I’ve experienced it many times. 

I’ve prayed for peace of mind since I became a mother, but the anxiety slowly consumed me over the years. It was all I could think about. I worried every time my husband left the house. He could just walk outside and I’d imagine the sky falling on him. I worried about the accidents that could happen while my children played. I worried about the “what-ifs” when it came to everyone in my life. Awful images would randomly flash in my mind when I was playing with my girls, or driving, or trying to rest. Anytime, anywhere, about anything. These thoughts would eat away at the goodness in my life and slowly grow an obsession, making me stress over things that I knew God had control over. I tried so hard to settle these thoughts, to “be still and know,” but they continued anyway. And last night, I had enough. I gave up, I gave it all to God, my heart, my mind, everything. He had all of me. I let it all out, holding nothing back. It was raw, and it was amazing.

Within a split second, waves of warmth washed through me. My body relaxed, and the thoughts were gone. GONE. Just like that. I found that peace I was searching for when I finally surrendered. Now, my mind won’t even let me go to that place of darkness when I try (to test myself). God didn’t just save me from it, He took it all away.

Satan knows our strengths and he turns them into weaknesses. Any micrometer of negativity that we allow to slip into our lives, he will thrive on it. He slips through the smallest crack in our hearts and will plant the smallest seed of doubt. And if we don’t seal that crack, that darkness will consume our hearts, unbeknownst to us.

Satan took the pure love of motherhood and turned it against me, making me stress about everything. And it took years, but it finally consumed me until God took it all away in the blink of an eye.