I was a fearful child.

One of my earliest memories is from a night I spent at my grandmother’s house. I was awakened by crashing thunder and streaks of lightning just outside the guest bedroom window. The tornado sirens blared, and I could hear my grandmother’s television on in the living room. I reckoned that if we were in danger, she’d come get me and hustle me into the hallway bathroom to ride out the storm in the tub. Born and raised and West Tennessee, I knew the drill. A tornado could level a house in just a couple of seconds.

But my grandmother never came for me. And rather than suppose all was well as she kept watch, I figured she had forgotten I was there. Watching the rain pelt the window in the dark, I forced myself to stay awake until the storm passed. I imagined myself leaping from the bed and sprinting for the hallway. At barely five years old, I already needed to prepare for the worst.

My innate desire to be prepared for any possible catastrophe followed me through my childhood and teen years. I didn’t see other kids worry about what might happen the way I did. My siblings didn’t. My friends didn’t. I wrote in my journals about my fears, about what might happen, about how I could be prepared. I wasn’t a big risk taker. I was a quiet, internal processor, and I didn’t want to be caught out by surprising failures or tragedies. I was organized. Researched. Ready.

My desire to be in control of my life continued to shape the way I viewed the world when I went to college, got married, became a pastor’s wife, and especially—especially—when I had children. If my ability to plan for every possible catastrophe was strong before kids, there was no comparison after having kids. Every rash, fever, unexplained symptom, off-schedule milestone, or potential for illness or injury kept me awake at night. When my kids were small, I lost many nights of sleep trying to decide if we should go to the hospital or not. My fears of what could happen to my children made me fearful of the world. Personal health struggles only added to my frenzied catastrophizing. I googled everything all the time, trying to research my way out of a potential disaster. Knowledge was power, right? I decided that preparation was wisdom and wisdom was preparation.

I didn’t realize until many years later, but my desire to be prepared for any possible catastrophe wasn’t wisdom. It was fear.

During the fall of 2019, I began memorizing the book of James. Like everyone else, I had no idea the occasion for fear and anxiety that the events of 2020 would bring into our lives. It is God’s kindness to me that He had settled me into this short wisdom epistle months before life changed drastically for much of the world. You would think a global pandemic, school closures, and social distancing would send a person with my temperament into hysterics. But strangely, it didn’t. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t take big risks. But I wasn’t afraid.

I tried sorting it out on a walk one day during the summer of 2020. I’d been trying to make a decision about school and what would be best for my two children in the place where we live and serve as a ministry family during a pandemic school year.

I prayed, asking the Lord for wisdom. But I didn’t google anything because in those “unprecedented times” there just wasn’t anything reliable in the search engines. No one knew what was best. We really did just have to pray and trust the Lord. So we did. It struck me on that walk that I had finally learned what wisdom was. It wasn’t catastrophizing. It wasn’t hoarding food and toilet paper. It wasn’t stocking my basement for the apocalypse. Wisdom wasn’t trying to control the future with research and counteracting any possible “what if?” moment. Wisdom was walking in obedience to Scripture and trusting God with the fallout. You know where I learned it? James.

Some of the first verses I memorized were from the first chapter. “If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God who gives generously without reproach” (James 1:5). How do we get wisdom? Ask God. He gives it generously and without reproach. So, if you’re picturing God with his arms crossed and a scowl on His face, you’ve got it wrong. Picture instead a smile and a wide open hand. Generously. Without reproach.

But then James gives a caveat: “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8).

Those verses were a knife to my research-obsessed, doom scrolling heart when I first committed them to memory. If you ask God for wisdom and then constantly doubt that He will supply what He has promised to generously give, you’re as unstable as a tumultuous wave. Up and down, you’re tossed back and forth with nothing firm to stand on. That wind-tossed wave perfectly described my catastrophizing mode of operation. You either trust the Lord or you don’t. I said I did, but I didn’t. Not really. The hours of researching every childhood rash my kids contracted, tracking every single spring storm on the radar while paralyzed by fear, chewing my nails to the quick while I fretted about things that never came to fruition—these were the winds that knocked me about. I gave myself to them.

As I memorized those verses from James 1, the words of the Lord went deep into my heart. That’s the blessing of memorization—you’re forced to meditate on the words you’re committing to memory. Did I trust the Lord to give me the wisdom I needed to parent my kids? Did I trust Him if my deepest fears in life came to fruition? If my “what if” became a reality, would the Lord be strong enough to carry me?

If you go back a few verses in James 1, you’ll see why we can trust the Lord to provide what we need when we ask for wisdom. James tells us to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

God gives wisdom when we need it, and He uses our trials in life to teach us perseverance. So whether or not you’re mentally prepared for whatever potential trial might make its way into your life, God will give you wisdom to handle it, endurance to survive it, and joy to grow from it. He uses all kinds of things to shape our faith. Sometimes He uses trials. We don’t need to google our way around it. We need to trust Him with it.

I’m still an organized, Type-A, over-researcher. No one will have a better supplied suitcase or purse on a trip than I do. You need a band-aid or vertigo medication on a flight? I’m your girl. But, over the past five years, my anxiety has dissipated to nearly nothing. I don’t lose a lot of sleep over imagined fears. I have learned through God’s Word that He is trustworthy with what happens to my loved ones and to me. I have tested His promises to supply wisdom when we need it, and it has been enough for my endurance. It has spilled over into real, trial-tested joy.

While the Bible doesn’t say “Thou Shalt Not Catastrophize,” it does tell us repeatedly not to be afraid. Fear batters our trust in God. Fear is the wave that tosses us around with instability. Fear is the desire to manipulate the future with annotated research and pantry stockpiles.

Wisdom, however, trusts that Christ holds all things together. Wisdom believes that even if our fears come to life, the Lord will be with us in the middle of it all. Wisdom prepares with the view that God will accomplish His purposes no matter how much research we do.

God is in control. And He is good. So can trust Him with all our “what if’s.” There’s no need to catastrophize. You can be prepared, but your preparation will master you if you don’t first trust the Lord to be what you need. He is enough for your “what if.”

Wisdom trusts that Christ holds all things together. Wisdom believes that even if our fears come to life, the Lord will be with us in the middle of it all. Share on X

Photo by Nathana Rebouças on Unsplash