Real Women. Real Stories. Real Bravery. 

Happy Monday friends!! So thankful that you are are joining us on our Live Brave series!! I am overwhelmed & encouraged by the powerful stories of so many brave women. I truly believe that there is something for everyone. My prayer is that through these posts you will be encouraged, empowered & reminded that you are not alone. I also pray that we will all find the courage to own our stories & see the bravery that exists in all of us!

Today I am really excited to introduce you to another brave women, Kareena. I am thankful for her willingness to share her story! I believe her story will encourage many!

All over social media today we see the hash tag #thestruggleisreal. This is often a lighthearted way to share our day-to-day weaknesses and tough choices. However, I believe that each one of us will have a personal struggle that threatens to overwhelm us, take us down, and ultimately aims to leave us defeated and desperate. From person to person it comes with different titles and the cause may not be the same, but for all of us, the struggle is real.

What is my struggle you may ask? Its name is ANXIETY and it has left me full of fear and depleted of peace and joy.

Anxiety is something I have dealt with for as long as I can remember. It actually seemed pretty normal and manageable for a long time. Especially because my mom dealt with it while I was growing up and I knew her mom dealt with it as she was growing up as well. You could consider it a regular family trait! Then, one day, it wasn’t manageable anymore….

When I got married at the age of 23 life was better than I ever could have imagined. I truly got the fairy tale! My husband Vince and I were madly in love and in our first two years of marriage we traveled to all kinds of wonderful places, purchased our dream home, and became parents to our first son, Grafton. I would often think, “Can life really be this great forever?”

During this time the economy was booming and my husband and I got involved in purchasing land as an investment and opened up a couple of franchises as well. We wanted to create an even more secure future and inheritance for our family.

We loved the way life was going and wanted kids close together in age. So, two years and three months after becoming parents, we welcomed our second son, Deklan, into the world. Our family was now complete!

Shortly after Deklan was born I started to feel that the life we had known was beginning to shatter a little, piece by piece.

The once flourishing economy was starting to tank and we were stuck with the land we had expected to be a quick sale. We also were dealing with legal problems and fines from it that were incurred from the previous owners.

Our franchises were not doing well either.

Around the time our boys were one and three, we had to close both franchises but still owed on the loans we took out to open them. We were also being sued for breaking our lease agreements. To top it off, we had to come to terms with the fact that the land was a total loss as well.

I was feeling buried and that I had no control over my life. I could see that the easy, breezy way we had once lived had come to an end. My fairy tale was now over.

That realization sunk in and filled every crevice and pore of my body. I had trouble enjoying my kids because overwhelming thoughts consumed me. My usually hearty appetite was replaced with a knot in my stomach, and then one morning I was so filled with anxiety I was literally unable to get out of bed.

It scared my husband who was trying to go back and forth between taking care of our boys and looking after me. He was used to seeing me as the strong one who always had encouraging things to say, who stood on the Word of God relentlessly, and would never accept defeat. I had become a shell of the person I used to be.

I finally managed to get myself out of bed, but I now carried an overwhelming, dark cloud of anxiety over my head that felt anything other than “normal”.

I constantly felt fearful and stressed. I was a prisoner of my own anxious thoughts. I was dreary and depressed.

It was a good thing my boys were young and dependent on me because it forced me go through the motions of life even though I didn’t feel like I was living at all.

I used to be the girl who had it all together. Now I was the girl who PRETENDED to have it all together.

I had been blessed with such close relationships with family and friends, but I wouldn’t dare let any of them know what a mess I was. I even got so good at hiding it that Vince had no idea of the dark place I was still in.

I hated how I felt and hated the thoughts constantly running through my head. I was desperate to be FREE!

Galatians 5:1 tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free”. I knew that the Lord did not want me bound by anxiety and that Christ had paid the price for my freedom from it. I also knew that peace and joy are Fruits of the Spirit and not based on my circumstances, yet I was depleted of all peace and joy in my life.

I needed a breakthrough! There was no way I could possibly live like this forever.

So, I did all of the right things… I surrounded myself with worship music. I dug into the Word and held on for dear life. I constantly confessed God’s promises for my life. I was even a small group leader at a Bible study entitled “Breaking Free” and I helped coordinate a women’s conference at my church and the title was, “Freedom”. This was definitely not a coincidence, and yet I left those gatherings every bit as plagued by anxiety as I had entered them.

Now instead of getting better, I was at my lowest point. I was losing hope and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to overcome my crippling anxiety.

Now I am able to see it cleary… PRIDE was holding me back. I was still keeping up the pretense of having it all together and was trying to overcome something so much bigger than myself all by myself.

In my absolute desperation to be free, I finally found the courage and the bravery to share with my Bible Study small group that I was dealing with anxiety. They had no idea how bad it was, or that I had been dealing with it for eight long months at that point, but they laid hands on me and they prayed.

The Lord never wanted me to go through that by myself. He designed his church for us to need each other and depend on each other (just read Acts 2). That was the first step to my healing.

The second step came one night when I woke up at 2 a.m. from a terrible dream. My heart was pounding and my anxiety was screaming at me in full force. I knew there was no way I would get back to sleep so I got up, turned on the TV, and watched a message from Creflo Dollar on “Overcoming Depression”. He specifically taught out of John 14:27 when Jesus said, ” Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” He focused on Jesus’ words “Do not let your hearts be troubled” and if Jesus said, “Do not let”, then the condition of our heart is our responsibility.

That truth really struck something in me, and finally all of the “right” things I had been doing, (surrounding myself with worship, declaring the Word, etc.) penetrated my heart. Now I did not only KNOW in my mind that these things were true, I could FEEL it in my heart that they were.

I went back to bed that night and fell asleep. When I woke up that morning I still had anxiety, but it wasn’t as strong. Then, when those gripping feelings would start to overwhelm my mind and heart, I would put my hand over my heart and say out loud, “I will not let my heart be troubled.”

After about two weeks of this I finally walked out of that dark season and could honestly say I was FREE!

Now, I don’t know what your struggle is, but I do know that the Lord does not want you to walk through it alone. I also know that freedom is his will and available to you. Don’t give in and don’t give up. It may be the BRAVEst thing you ever do!

Kareena has been married to the love of her life, Vince, for eleven years and they raise their two boys, Grafton (9) and Deklan (6) in Gilbert, Arizona. Kareena is a 2nd/3rd teacher at Gilbert Christian School. During her occasional free-time she loves making memories with her family and friends or getting caught up in a really good book.