Fear & Anxiety
In the 2012 film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, based on a novel by Stephen Chbosky, a high school first-year student named Charlie grapples with the suffering of those around him [...]
The last few years have seen a global pandemic, civil unrest, and increased political division. These miasmas of polarization, alienation, and apathy have been accompanied by stranger trends […]
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother,” David remarks in that little and profoundly deep Psalm 131. Quietude, calm, collected, consistent—these are not buzzwords in our culture. And over the past couple of months they have faded from our language almost entirely. It is interesting that in Psalm 131 […]
Life is complex. In our fast-moving world, we gravitate toward simple answers, clear definitions, and well-defined categories. At first glance, sin seems to fall into this classification. It’s an offense against God, and through Christ it is confessed and forgiven. But when it comes to mental illness, we lose many of our bearings, whether we […]
We are drawn to extremes, because they help us categorize the world around us. We like things that are black and white, right or wrong, good or bad. Categorizing saves us the time and exhausting efforts of trying to understand what is beyond our comprehension. Mental illness, especially in its most serious forms, jolts us […]
Fear drives us more than we’d like to admit, and we’re drawn to it in a macabre sort of way—in horror stories, action movies, even news updates. Making up with hype what they lack in data and logic, pundits bully the public into agreeing with them through scare tactics and rhetoric. What would you list […]
Plane rides are my worst fear (though my husband tells me all my fears are my "worst fear"). What can I say? I blame my parents for making me feel relatively safe and secure for so many years. They were slow and sneaky, forcing me to grow up one shoe size at a time. The […]
There are quite a few things in the world today that cause Christians to worry. For example, anxiety levels grow when we think about problems concerning health, finances, political issues, and family hardships. In Mindscape, Timothy Witmer tackles the issue of worry with practical and comforting truths from Scripture. Witmer explains and applies core truths […]
Like the author Kevin DeYoung, I find that I take a sort of perverse pride in being "crazy busy," so I suppose a book like this is especially appropriate for people like me who need to be shaken out of such an unhealthy way of thinking. As I read through the book, however, two friends […]