I don’t know about you, but certain things about motherhood terrify me. Fear, panic, worry, and anxiety are common to mankind, and females are particularly prone to give in to it. Perhaps you’ve noticed it in your little one?
Science tells us that when alarm triggers the human adrenal glands, we respond either by 1) fighting or 2) “flighting.” As Christians, there is a third option we have at our disposal, one clearly taught and modeled all over scripture. I consider this to be one of the most important things I can train my daughters in.
Let me illustrate….
When a trainer encounters a horse that demonstrates anxiety, the first thing she does is train him how to put his head down in order to relax. Doing this releases endorphins and helps combat the anxious behaviors. {Besides, the horse cannot “run wild” with its head down.}
I saw a trainer working with a horse once, teaching the horse how to lower his head. She applied gentle pressure through the reins. At that point, the horse threw his head back, demonstrating a fight/flight response. “He thinks he knows the right answer to the question,” the trainer said. “He thinks that by throwing his head up and inverting, he’s going to get a release in pressure and chances are, in the past, he has.”
She went on to say, “So he thinks he knows the answer to the problem, but the answer is wrong. What I want him to learn is that he will find release when he drops his head.”
Through applying gentle, consistent pressure to the horse, the trainer taught him that by lowering his head, he could gain the release he wanted.
Similarly, many of us need to be retrained in dealing with our fears and anxieties. Then we can effectively train our children.
Having to deal with deep embedded fears in my adopted daughter forced me to deal with unseen emotional fears of my own. I had been “trained” that by running, or avoiding, or controlling, or bucking, or by kicking hard enough, I could get the release I wanted.
My adopted daughter learned that fighting for control and isolating herself from others were essential for her survival. We both learned wrong the first time around. We both are relearning the Jesus way.
“For when He was reviled, He opened not His mouth…but entrusted Himself to Faithful Creator.”
The Bible teaches it is through lowering ourselves and submitting to the Lord’s reign on our lives that we find release from the pressure and the anxiety that so quickly mounts.
God has made a natural stress-reliever and it’s called submission.
If we learn to approach life’s moments with submission to whatever He brings our way, we are well on our way to disarming fear and disabling anxiety. When we teach our children to humbly submit to God and His plans, we teach them the biblical alternative of trust and unshakable confidence in God.
I am currently preparing a fun journey for my children for this summer in which together we discover the character of God (you are invited to follow along and join in by subscribing to my blog here.) When we understand God’s real character, we will trust Him and submit to Him.
In my study of Genesis 16, I discovered this concept of submission in a transformational way.
When God appeared to Hagar, the one used, afflicted, destitute, without rights, and all alone, He revealed a bit of the future to her. He told her about the baby in her womb and He let her know that He had a plan. He knew what He was doing and could be trusted. He also told her, “Go back and submit to Sarah’s authority.”
Hagar’s first response to the difficulty and pain in her life was to run away. But after she encountered God and saw Him accurately, she was able to override her own inborn instincts, lower her head, soften her body, and submit to Sarah.
God ~ revealed to Hagar as El Roi ~ effectively disarmed Hagar’s flight or fight response. Hagar returned to Sarah and Abram.
If we allow God to reveal His nature to us, He will teach us how to disarm our own wild mare responses… and help our daughters overcome theirs as well.
Because the state of our deep inner peace is a natural indicator of our submission. And gentle submission is something we can learn.
“Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, being submissive…” I Peter 3:4-5
Related Post: When You Feel Like Quitting
