Have you ever wondered if anxiety could actually be an invitation to draw closer to God?

Author and speaker Jennifer Tucker joins Willow for an honest conversation about anxiety, faith, and letting go of the shame that can come with mental health struggles. After walking alongside her daughter through severe panic attacks and confronting her own experiences with anxiety, Jennifer began to see anxiety not as evidence of failing faith, but as an invitation to turn toward God. Together, Jennifer and Willow talk about reframing Scripture around worry, releasing parenting guilt, seeking professional support without shame, and practical tools like breath prayer and Scripture meditation that can help calm our bodies and reconnect us with God’s presence. If anxiety has ever made you wonder whether you trust God enough, this conversation offers a freeing reminder: you can love Jesus deeply, experience anxiety, and meet Him right in the middle of it.

Meet Jennifer Tucker

Jennifer Tucker is an artist, author, and speaker passionate about helping people experience greater peace in the midst of anxiety. Her work grew out of her deeply personal experience walking alongside her daughter through severe anxiety and panic attacks while simultaneously confronting her own lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression.

Her bestselling book, Breath as Prayer, introduced Christian breath prayer as a powerful tool for calming the mind and soul. Her newest release, Present in Prayer, explores the transformative practice of Christian meditation, offering a framework to experience God’s presence and peace in everyday life. Her story is a powerful example of how God can meet us in our mess and transform our hearts through His Word.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• When anxiety makes you question your faith: Feeling anxious does not mean you aren't a good Christian. Jennifer encourages us to remove the shame and recognize anxiety as an opportunity to turn toward God rather than hide from Him.
• When “do not worry” feels condemning: Try changing the tone. Jennifer sees these words not as an angry command but as the reassurance of a loving Father saying, Come close. You're loved. I'm here.
• When you're carrying parenting guilt: Remember that there is no perfect equation for raising children. Jennifer has learned to acknowledge what she wishes she'd known while receiving God's grace and moving forward with what she knows now.
• When one coping strategy doesn't work: Try another. What calms one person's nervous system may make another person more anxious.
• When life is relatively calm: Build practices that anchor you now. Jennifer uses Scripture meditation as a regular rhythm so that when difficult seasons arrive, she's more deeply rooted in truth.

How This Episode Will Encourage You

Jesus wants to collide with every part of your story—even the anxious, fearful, and overwhelmed places—to bring healing, peace, and freedom. That kind of healing isn’t just possible for someone else; He wants it for you, too.

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Hey. So glad that you hopped on the podcast today. I don't know what you're doing or where you are.

Maybe you are carpooling the chitlins or you're at the gym or you're cleaning your house. I don't know, maybe your somewhere awesome like on a tropical beach. I'd like to be on a tropical beach right about now.

But hanging out with you is cool too. I just interviewed Jennifer Tucker and she is an artist. I just learned that. I didn't know that.

An author, She's a speaker and she has been creating these books that are helping people walk further into peace as a result of us all living these crazy lives full of anxiety. And she really shares where this passion came from. And it came from her watching her own daughter have some pretty severe anxiety.

And I don't know if you're a parent, but it is so hard to watch your kid struggle and also struggle with mom guilt that maybe you are a part of why they're having a hard time.

And Jennifer hops on here and really talks about what that was like to watch her kids struggle with anxiety, how she has anxiety and how she has reframed anxiety. It used to come with a lot of guilt and shame, and now she sees it completely differently. So check out this interview. I thought it was so great.

Jennifer, it's so good to have you on the podcast today. We've already laughed, we've cried. We've talked about the cute hearts on your shirt and what God is doing through your life.

And so thanks for making space in your day to hang out.

Oh, thank you so much. I'm honored to be here.

Well, I. I have so many things I want to ask you. I love that you have said yes to God to be used as a voice in the world speaking into all of this anxiety that all of us are living with.

And before we get into, you know, your wisdom on the topic and your advice and all of this, I just want to ask you what gave you a passion to start using your life to help other people with their anxiety?

Ah, well, that's an easy one to answer. It was my daughter when she. About six years ago or so. Gosh, it's been a while. She began having really severe panic attacks. She was in eighth grade.

Just entering eighth grade.

Right.

Just turned 13, so. Right. Entering her teenage years. And her anxiety was extreme to the point of really bad panic attacks that were terrifying to me and to her.

And so that plunged us headfirst into the world of mental health.

She was very quickly diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, which ended up being several other disorders down the line, other diagnoses, but it was just a world that I had never really had experience in, even though my whole life looking back, I struggled with anxiety and depression as well. But I ignored it, kind of pushed it aside, didn't want to deal with it, which, as you can imagine, did not help any situation at all.

But, you know, growing up in church, you know, anxiety was one of the, you should not be anxious, do not be anxious about any. Do not worry about anything, do not fear, don't be afraid. All. And that was pounded into me. And so for me, I kind of internalized that as well.

If I'm feeling this way, then I must not be a good enough Christian. I must not be reading my Bible enough or praying the right way or something. I'm not doing something right, or else I wouldn't be feeling this way.

Because I couldn't reconcile those verses that told me not to feel anxious with the very real feelings that I still had. Even though I read my Bible, even though I tried to pray, I tried to check off everything on my little list anyway.

So my anxiety manifested more as overworking, perfectionism, people pleasing, all of those things, trying to control my whole life so that I didn't have to experience these feelings. But then when my daughter began having panic attacks, now hers became. Was a very physical manifestation. Her anxiety was panic attacks.

Her anxiety was extreme physical symptoms. I couldn't ignore her anxiety, but to help her through it, I had to face my own struggles with anxiety.

And so through her process, through therapy, seeing psychiatrists, through trials and errors of medications and different types of strategies and things to help her, I was also on a journey for myself of, okay, how do I become healthier, too? How do I get really honest about my own struggles with my own mental health so that I can be a help to my daughter on her journey too?

It shifted a lot of my mindset about how we look at mental health.

It's primarily anxiety and depression because those are personal to me, because I've walked with my daughter through some pretty really dark, difficult days. And so that's where the root of it is. It's extremely personal. And that's where. Yeah, so any.

Any wisdom, which I don't know how wise I really am, but anything I know now is only through all the failures and all the hard days and all the. The struggles and the. The pleas to God to please just help us through this, because I didn't know how to Walk how to walk it.

And so, yeah, that's where that passion came from, because I don't. I don't want to see any other Christians suffer under the weight of shame. And.

And that I. I felt myself and that I unintentionally kind of put on my daughter, too. And so walking through that has really given me a really different perspective on it. And I just, you know, it's hard, and I just.

I felt so alone through it all, and I just don't want. If even just one person can feel not as alone in their struggle, then it's worth it to me. So, yeah, that's where it kind of all comes from.

Yeah. Well, I love that you're being so forthright and honest about your experience as a mom and also as a Christian.

It brings up kind of two questions for me right away, which is, I think for a lot of moms listening, they can really resonate.

When you see in your kid a struggle, you see them having anxiety, one of the first things you can do is start to blame yourself that somehow you've not been enough or you've done something, or your own anxiety might have created theirs. So how did you deal with that kind of mom guilt stuff that was coming up in you when you were seeing that your daughter was struggling?

Well, we are six and a half years into it, and I am still in therapy working on that, so that's hard. It's hard because I'm like, oh, if I had only known.

If I could have only seen the signs earlier, If I could only have been honest with myself and gotten help earlier, but I didn't know. And. And I have been able to kind of let go of a lot of that guilt and shame because, honestly, I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.

And God's grace fills in all those gaps, and he is so good. And, yeah, it was hard.

And yes, if I could go back and redo it, I don't know that I could have done it any different because I didn't know back then what I know now.

But I can move forward from here, and I can say, okay, now I'm equipped with knowledge and new information, and, you know, I. I can move forward from this with that new wisdom that I have and hopefully maybe help someone else a little sooner than. Than I did. But, yeah, it's hard. It's hard that mom guilt is real, and I battle it. It definitely is something that I still deal with.

It lingers and it sneaks in there. The. Those lies from the enemy. Like, oh, but if you had only done this, then maybe that your story would have been different.

Maybe her path would have been different. But no, we're all human, and none of us are perfect. And some of that's my own perfectionism, too.

Like, I wanted to be this perfect parent, and I tried so hard to do all the right things, but there's no such thing as that perfect equation. There's not this. If you do this plus this, then your kid's going to end up this way.

If you do this and this and this, then you're going to be this perfect Christian. There's no such equation. It is all grace. Like, that is all it is.

And so I, you know, and our kids are gonna make their own choices, and our kids are gonna do their own things, and they're their own little human beings with their own flaws and their own. You know, maybe my daughter struggles with mental health, but some other kids have, you know, kidney diseases or they have cancer, they have other.

Mental health is a health condition as much as any other health condition. Our brain is an organ like any other organ in our body. And so when your kid is sick in any way, it's hard.

But that's the unfortunate downfall of just being human. And we all struggle in different ways, but there's no shame.

If we can let go of that shame, then we can get the help that we need to help get better and get more healthy. And in the process of that, I have found, for me, it's actually drawn me closer to God through it all. And that alone helps deal with that mom guilt.

Because I'm fully and completely loved by God. My daughter's fully and completely loved by Him. We are safe and held and secure in Him.

And so all the other things and all the mistakes and all the failures we make, which we all inevitably will, God's grace can cover it all, and we can learn through it all, and we can be stronger as a result of it. And so, yeah, but that's a real thing. And it is hard and. But it's okay. I think it's okay to feel that way because that's just nor.

That's natural, that's human. But those are the things that we can carry to God. Okay, God, I'm feeling this way.

I'm really struggling with all the mistakes I made and how I could have been better and I could have done this and laying it at his feet and giving that burden to him and letting him share that. And there is a peace that comes with that.

And Letting that go and letting him have that and say, okay, from this point on, then I'll just keep taking one step of another. I'm still going to stumble, and I'm still going to make mistakes. I still do. I still.

There are things I wish I could handle differently, but that's just life. And that's. We all. I mean, that's just. We do the best we can with what we know at the time. So.

Yeah, one of the things you brought up was this sort of tendency we have to read some of the scriptures around anxiety and worry and shame and. And guilt ourselves. And I love the idea of really, like, reframing that anxiety. And you.

That's a lot of the work you're doing is inviting people to actually think differently about anxiety. You're not going against God's word, but you're actually inviting us to. To see that maybe our anxiety is an invit for people listening.

Can you reframe it for us?

Because some people are like, yeah, it must mean I don't trust God enough or I don't love Jesus enough or whatever, because I do have anxiety and I do worry. And, you know, people are just telling them, stop worrying and have faith.

So can you reframe for us what you think God is getting at when he says do not worry?

Right. You know, yeah, that was a major shift for me. Yeah. Because for so many years, I saw anxiety as my inner.

It was a roadblock to the abundant life that God promised me. Like, if I can't overcome or beat this anxiety, then I can never have this full, abundant life that God promised.

Because I'm supposed to be free of all this. Right. Like, as a Christian, these should be the things I'm free of. I shouldn't be burdened by these struggles.

Especially when the Bible tells us, do not be anxious about anything. Do not worry about anything. Do not fear. Do not fear. Do not fear. And yet I still was afraid.

And I think what shifted that for me was again, when my daughter was having panic attacks or when she'd wake up in the night terrified, I didn't come to her, like, with judgment and being like, how dare you feel this way? You shouldn't. You just need to stop and you need to feel better. I came to her and I said, come here. Come next to me. Let me hold you.

And I reminded her, you're safe. You are loved. I love you. You're not alone. You're gonna be okay. You don't have to be afraid.

And so I think all the times that God tells us not to be afraid or don't be anxious or don't worry about anything. He's not expecting us to. Then never feel anxious or never worry. He. That's part of the human. We are gonna feel anxiety sometimes. We are gonna worry.

We are gonna be afraid. There are situations where it's a legitimate reason for us to be afraid. Like there's. And God gave us this great nervous system to help us with that.

But that's a side thing. But anyway. But he doesn't come to us as a harsh judge ready to strike us down if we feel these things.

Those verses to me are written by a loving father who just says, listen, you're gonna worry and you're gonna be anxious and you're gonna be afraid. But here's what I want you to do. Come to me. Let me hold you. Let me remind you that I am with you always.

That you don't have to be afraid, you don't have to worry. Cause I'm here. And I think that's the core message, is that God is with us. We don't have to be afraid or worry. We're going to.

But if we can use that worry, that anxiety, that fear, when we. Those things. And there's physical symptoms that are related, especially for the anxiety. For me, it's like I start getting shaky.

My heart starts racing, I kind of get sweaty. So I know I'm starting to get really anxious. And when I feel those.

Either the physical symptoms or just the emotional symptoms of it, to me now, instead of it being an enemy, oh, I have to push this away. I have to fight it. I have to hide it. I don't want anybody to know I'm feeling this way.

I'm like, okay, that's just a signal to me that I need to slow down and I need to take a deep breath, let my body calm a bit, and then turn my mind to what is true. God's with me. I don't have to be afraid. Even in the hardest, most difficult, most terrifying situations.

I can take a deep breath and know that he's with me. And I might still feel afraid. I might still feel a bit anxious, but that.

The reframing has relieved the shame of that and allowed me to give those feelings to God and be honest with him about all of it. And to me, it's. It's. It's drawn me closer to him. It's now. Anxiety is now instead of an enemy.

It is that invitation to just turn your heart to God, turn to him, pray to him, connect to him. Rather than it being something I need to hide and shame and ignore, which doesn't help me physically, mentally, or spiritually at all.

It's an invitation to, okay, I'm feeling these feelings. God, here's what I'm feeling. Remind me of the truth in your word. Remind me that you're with me. Help, give me strength in this moment, whatever it is.

Can remember a very clear time that that happened for me was when my daughter was hospitalized. And I write about that in my first book. But she was in the hospital for different things. But I had brought her to the ER that night.

I had no idea she was going to be admitted. And what the doctors were telling me and what they were hooking her up to, all the things. And the heart monitor was going.

And we had a nurse in there 24 7. And I remember laying down on that vinyl couch beside her. This was during COVID so my husband couldn't even be in there.

Just one parent could be in the room at a time. You know, it was a wild time, but I was terrified. I had never felt that much anxiety in my life.

I did not know how to handle what the doctors were telling me. I didn't know how I was going to walk the next few days this path ahead. I was terrified. I had no words to pray. I had nothing else to say to God.

There had been years of me begging him for healing that never came. And so at that point, I didn't know what to do. And that's when that.

And I was starting to hyperventilate and I was shaking and crying, and I couldn't stop because I was so afraid of what would happen and what was going to happen in the next days, weeks ahead. But then the Holy Spirit reminded me of just a little verse in Psalms, Psalm 23, and a breath prayer that I had learned over a year before then.

The Lord is my shepherd. I have all that I need. And in that moment, I just. All I knew is I breathed, inhaled. The Lord is my shepherd. I exhaled. I have all that I need.

And now that's all I repeated over and over. And I could feel my body calming.

And I was able to fall asleep with a sense of peace like I cannot explain it, because I was able to turn from that fear and that anxiety to the truth of God's word, which was, the Lord is my shepherd. He's holding me. He loves my daughter, too. He's got us. And I have all that I need. I don't need to know the answers.

I Don't need to know how all this is going to go. I have him and he's with me.

So no matter what happens, even if the worst thing happens, he's still here and I'm still safe and I'm still loved and it's gonna be okay. Now. The next day, anxiety back up again. But as I continued, I used that as a cue. Okay, I'm just gonna breathe and pray and breathe and pray.

And I would walk circles around that hospital, just breathing and praying little tiny bits of scripture and continuously just turning my heart to God. And so through that time, even though I wasn't doing any deep Bible studies, I wasn't praying these long, elaborate prayers.

But I grew so much closer to God even in those hardest, hardest days, because I was turning to him and connecting to him through all of that. So it didn't cure my anxiety. It didn't take it away. I still feel anxious. I still have days that are really hard. But I shifted how I viewed it all.

And so instead of it being something that I just run from, I'm like, okay, here's anxiety. God, I'm turning to you. And so, and that just, you know, it shifted my thinking and it shifted my brain. They call it neuroplasticity.

Like you can change the pathways in your brain and those different connections in your brain. And it's amazing how God made us to do that. We literally can be transformed from the inside out as we keep turning, returning to him.

If that's my automatic response, rather than anxiety being a trigger to spiral into panic, it becomes a prompt just to pray. And then so it shifts the way I respond. And over time it becomes easier and easier to make that choice rather than just panic.

And so, but it takes practice and it takes doing it over and over, but I have found it to be super helpful. And, and it kind of just released me of the shame of anxiety. I'm like, yeah, I feel anxious sometimes. God doesn't hate me.

He's not disappointed in me. It's just a way that I can just get closer to him now. So, yeah, that's kind of how it's been reframed for me.

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It kind of just released me of the shame of anxiety. I'm like, yeah, I feel anxious sometimes. God doesn't hate me. He's not disappointed in me. It's just a way that I can just get closer to him now.

So, yeah, that's kind of how it's been reframed for me.

Yeah, I love that for multiple reasons. I mean, there's this tendency for us to say, what is wrong with me? That I'm actually worried about this.

Instead of, this is an opportunity for me to go to the one who I need in the midst of this worry, which is such a great perspective and I love that. I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, Jennifer, but I feel like you have this like, radio voice.

Like, I could just listen to you just like talk me to sleep. Like, your presence brings a peace. So it doesn't surprise me that God's using you to help bring peace into people's anxiety.

But when you talked about, with your soothing voice, when you talked about the idea that when your daughter was having panic attacks, you weren't like, what is wrong with you? Like, it's so interesting to me how we read scripture and if we actually go back to a word and read it with a different tone.

I just got this image when you were sharing, like that God just sort of like, I remember when my kids used to be upset about stuff when they were younger.

Now they're young adults, but, you know, I would just hop in bed with them and cuddle up and like rub their hair on their head and you know, put my arm like on their back and scratch their back and tell them just like you said, like, it's gonna be okay. I'm with you. I just feel like you're reframing the whole idea that God's not like, what's wrong with you?

You worrywort, like, stop having a panic attack. Just have faith. Like, that's kind of how we've been reading the Bible. But we have this good, good dad who's like, I'm right here. I love that so much.

I want to talk. You brought up breath, prayer and how you did it in the hospital. I've heard of breath prayer.

I've done a little bit of breath prayer work, but there might be people listening who are like, what is breath prayer? Can you teach us?

Yeah, breath prayer, super simple. It is not my own creation by any means. It has a very centuries old Christian practice dating way, way, way back.

And I just, in all my process of trying to help my daughter and my own anxiety, I, you know, I was researching like a million different things like how in the world can we help just bring calm and you know, for so long I separated the, the mental health and the medical side from spiritual and faith stuff. You know, we can keep that separate. But then I ran across the idea of breath prayer.

Just, I don't even remember, it was a couple of blog posts or something I had read.

And I thought that's brilliant because I had already learned about breathing exercises and how like my daughter's first psychiatrist, one of the first things he told us was breathing is the bridge between the brain and the body and how if you can calm your breathing, it'll help calm your whole body because that's how our nervous system is set up. It's actually incredible how God created us to help. He gave us this amazing gift of the breath to help calm us.

But then you tie that to prayer, which breath prayers are very, very short. They're usually based on a verse in scripture, just like the one I gave earlier. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need.

And what you do is you take a deep breath in through your nose. And as you breathe in, you say, of course you, it's in your head because you can't talk as you're inhaling, but the Lord is my shepherd.

And as you exhale, you repeat the last part. I have all that I need. And you just repeat that.

Now you might want to take a few just breaths at the beginning if you're really anxious and you can't really even think of words that'll help calm your body and help that the logical side of your brain take back over. Because when we're anxious, the amygdala, the emotional brain, really overrides any logic. And so we're not really thinking logically.

We're just in that survival mode, we're in that fight or flight. And so breath and breathing, calming our breathing, can actually calm our brain so that we can think more logically.

And that allows us then to repeat, turn our mind towards scripture. It's the perfect time to turn our hearts toward truth.

And so breath prayer is just inhale, the Lord is my shepherd, and exhale, I have all that I need. And it's just repeating that over and over, not repeating it like a mantra. Just some.

Some Eastern religions will repeat a mantra for the purpose until the words lose all meaning and your bind is emptied and you reach some kind of state of nirvana. This is not the type of meditation that I'm talking about at all. In fact, Christian meditation and breath prayer does the opposite.

The point is we're filling our mind, turning our hearts to the truth of God's word, turning our hearts to Christ and filling it and turning to him for our peace and not inside ourselves. And so we breathe and we repeat a short bit of scripture and then until as long as you want to.

And a lot of times, for me, that'll lead into a deeper time of prayer with God. Or you can just breathe, because you can breathe and pray anywhere, anytime.

And it's a quick, simple, easy way to kind of calm for that immediate calm of anxiety, especially when they're feeling welling up and feeling overwhelming. It's also a great practice to do. Like, I like to start my days with breath prayer.

It starts my day from a place of calm and peace and turning my heart toward a small bit of scripture that I can just meditate on and think on and pray to God about. And so that's what a breath prayer is. Super simple. I used a whole lot of words to explain something very, very easy.

But, yeah, can you give us a couple other examples with other scripture, just so people don't think it's just Psalm 23, although I love that. And I'm gonna start using Psalm 23, but can give us some other examples?

Absolutely.

Let's see.

All the Lord's promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

And so the breath prayer, we can pray with that based on that verse is, you inhale, your way is perfect, and exhale, all your promises prove true. And so we can meditate on that, especially, like, okay, maybe our life's going sideways, or things we don't.

You know, we need a promise of God to cling to in uncertain times. This is a great one to cling to. And this is a way we can memorize scripture and tuck it into our heart. But we Inhale, your way is perfect.

And exhale, all your promises prove true. Another one that is great.

A lot of these, a lot of the ones I like most come from Psalms just because Psalms cover such an array of human emotions and human experiences. But this one's from Psalm 56. 3. The verse says, but when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. And so for this breath prayer, we simply inhale.

When I am afraid, and we exhale, I put my trust in you, Inhale. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. And sometimes I'll even shift that to be God. I am so afraid, but I'm gonna trust in you.

And so I make it really personal. And I'm talking to God and I'm turning my heart to him. So these breath prayers can be from anywhere.

You know, there's first John 4:18 says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in. And so the breath prayer with that can be inhale, there is no fear, and exhale in your love.

And that one reminds me, listen, especially when I'm afraid, I tend to be afraid of what might happen in the future and how things are going to turn out. So I get really scared sometimes. But this breath prayer reminds me, listen, there is no fear in your love. God, I'm covered in your love.

I don't have to be afraid because there's no fear. When I'm loved by you, I don't have to be afraid of whatever may come because your love isn't going anywhere. And so that's another breath prayer.

So those are just a few. Is that enough?

I love that when you, I mean, because this is such a helpful tool that you're giving us for anxiety. Do you have other tools that you want to mention today that would help us or help us help our children?

There's so many and it's so individualized. Like everybody's experience with anxiety is different.

Like my daughter, for example, like breathing exercises do not help her, which they help the vast majority of people. They help me tremendously. Breath prayers help me so much.

But for her, if she focuses on her breathing, she tends to over focus on it to the point that it makes her even more anxious and she starts hyperventilating. And so for her, the breathing exercises, especially when she's in a time of panic, are not helpful to her.

And so in those moments, for her, one of the best tools we have and we've learned for her is just distraction. Just let's talk about some random topic. Trying to.

I have to keep myself calm because for a long time I would get so anxious when she was panicking and then we just fed off of each other. It's that co regulation there was not helping. And so for her to help calm her, I need to be a calming presence too.

And so that's where me working on my own anxiety and finding that state of calm was really, really. And so I think just give yourself patience to find the tools that work for you individually.

Do not be ashamed to get help, professional help from a trained and licensed therapist. Seek psychiatric help if necessary. I am all for if you need medication.

I have been on antidepressants to help regulate the chemicals in my body a little bit to help me then be able to then do the work of getting better. And so medication can be really helpful for some. But it's a multi.

Mental health is so multifaceted and there's multiple factors involved in everything. So you gotta come at it from multiple different directions sometimes. So there isn't a one thing fits all type of solution. And there's.

I like to think of it as a toolbox. Like you load your toolbox with different tools that you can pull.

Some might help today and they might not be helpful tomorrow, just depending on the severity of whatever you're dealing with. But if you have symptoms that are impairing your life in some way keeping you from living your daily life, that's the time to seek professional help.

And there's no shame in that.

Just like there's no shame in getting help if you're having a heart condition, if you have a kidney condition or you have a broken leg, like we go seek medical help for that. The same is true for our mental health. If you're struggling to the degree that it is impairing your life, you need to seek some help. And it's.

I am, I believe I am a strong believer in the power of prayer. But it is not just out you can just pray. Do I just pray more? Just trust God more?

I think that really does not take into account the complicated situation in our brain and how just complex it really is. But I do think there's pathways to healing and pathways to get help and to get better and have support.

Another practice that I have found very helpful for myself, which I write a lot about in my second book, is meditation, specifically scripture meditation, meditating on scripture, which breath, prayer is a form of that. But I found a framework for longer times of meditation in Lectio divina, which is another centuries old Christian practice.

An ancient practice that I have found to be so helpful for me is creating this regular daily rhythm of meditation on Scripture. It gives me a pattern to kind of as I meditate.

And that whereas breath prayer kind of was a lifeline to me, especially in times of crisis where I could just breathe and pray, a simple prayer meditation is kind of a longer form. Deeper practice takes a lot more time commitment.

But that's where I'm retraining how dealing with my thoughts and what I'm thinking and how to think about what is true and honorable and pure and right and all those things that Philippians 4. 8 Tells us to think about.

How do we really do that though, when our mind's racing and we've got so things going on, we're so busy how to really slow down and have a time of silence and stillness with God and how to really commune with him through scripture. And so meditation for me has been a super helpful tool. I wish I could do it more days in a row, like some days are easier than others.

But I found it to be extremely helpful as an anchor, not just a lifeline, but to really root myself deeper into God's Word. And I think that's because then we're when the hard days come and we're sideswiped again by some other crisis or conflict, I'm not as likely to.

I might bend in that wind, but I'm not going to break. I'm not going to completely be uprooted because I've been anchored deep into His Word.

And so meditation is another practice that's really been helpful to me too.

Well, I love that you brought that up because you or your team or someone sent me a copy of Present in Prayer and I've actually just this week been in the process of I'm writing a book and the publishing house asked me for examples of book covers that I loved. And your book was on my bookshelf and one of my staff people walked in and said, well I love that book cover.

Why don't you give them that is an example.

But it's a beautiful book that, you know, as I was thumbing through it just gives tools and a space where you can be guided into more peace in your life. So I love that you are creating tools for the toolbox that all of us need for this crazy life we live.

And I love that you're being real about like let's take the guilt and shame out of the toolbox because it's not serving us. And let's actually use tools that really help and let's help our kids, too.

So I know, Jennifer, there's going to be people who want more of this peace that you're inviting them into. How can they hear more from you? Sure.

Yeah. Well, you can find the [email protected] or presentinprayer.com and from there you can find all my stuff.

Awesome. I love it so much. Well, keep shining light. Keep rocking those hearts.

Thanks on that shirt.

And honestly, maybe you should start a podcast. I don't know if you have one. Do you have a podcast?

You should start a podcast where you're just speaking like lectio divina or breath prayer over people and they'll fall asleep.

Well, I did do the audiobook for President Prayer, so you can listen to the whole book on audio if you want.

I like it. Awesome. Well, thank you for hanging out today, Jennifer.

Thank you so much,.

Friend. I bet you're sad that you are no longer listening to Jennifer's voice. I don't know why.

I literally could have Jennifer just put me to bed every night, which sounds super weird, but you know what I mean. Her voice over and over again, just like such a peaceful presence.

I absolutely love that she's helping us reframe anxiety, that it's not something that we need to feel like, man, I don't have enough trust in God or I don't have enough faith or I suck because I keep having anxiety. But instead, every time we feel anxiety, anxious. What an invitation to turn to Jesus and count on him for the things that he promises us.

His presence, his goodness, his grace, his redemption, his forgiveness, his love. I don't know what you have going this week, but my big hope for you is that you'd say yes to that invitation.

Reframe anxiety this week and allow it to be an opportunity to collide with Jesus. If you need more resources on mental health struggles, we have them for you.

If you haven't hopped on and grabbed the counseling course that we have taught by, I think, I don't know, 10 to 12 different mental health therapists, it is absolutely amazing. It comes with a workbook and there's so much growth that has happened in lives who go through this course.

So make sure to check that out, go to our website at wecollide.net

We have more podcasts brought to you by mental health therapists and people doing work around trauma and depression and anxiety and relational brokenness and all the things friend, my hope is that you would keep saying yes to healing. And invite Jesus into the places that hurt. And experience him bringing more wholeness into your life.

We'll catch you next week.