Inviting Anxious Students to Find a Better Story

Anxiety.

Even typing the word makes my stomach clench just a little.

I’ve worked with teenagers in one capacity or another (coaching, mentoring, youth ministering, etc.) for about 20 years. And without a doubt, I’ve watched anxiety levels rise in recent years.

I was in my sixth year as a youth director in 2012 when I began to see smartphones infiltrate the flip phone multitude. Kids weren’t yet sharing their Instagram handles with new friends on retreats or showing one another videos from the week. Memes really weren’t a thing. My own temptation to Google the answer to a question or check email on my phone hadn’t escalated and I was still printing out Map Quest directions.

Anxiety: Finding the Better Story, by Liz Edrington,
is a 31-Day Devotional for Teenagers.

We all practiced engaging with one another in person, even while waiting in line for the bathroom or waiting for a table at a restaurant. We endured the discomfort of silence far more often than we do in 2023.

It’s too reductionistic to point our fingers solely at social media or the now-omnipresent smartphone when we see the concerning CDC stats on our teenagers. But we do want to consider how they’ve contributed to a larger story of disconnection, because disconnection often lurks in the soil of anxiety. In this way, anxiety alerts us to our need for something different. Something more.

I want to invite you to consider anxiety as an invitation to connection.

Anxiety may be an uncomfortable, distressing emotion. And it may inspire distracting behaviors and coping mechanisms of various sorts. But at its core, anxiety isn’t an enemy. It’s a natural response to stress. And it can even be adaptive (helpful, beneficial) in the ways it promotes growth.

For example, if we don’t stress our muscles when we exercise, we cannot get stronger. The same is true for learning a musical instrument and for growing in our ability to connect with different types of people. Our anxiety can be a sign of healthy risk, of readiness to try connecting, or of the importance of something we’re about to engage in.​

Other times it is pathological. This means it has ramped up to a pervasive level (think frequency and duration here) that is disruptive to everyday tasks like work or school or extracurricular events. This is when it’s time to seek professional support from a mental health counselor, physician, or psychologist.

Most of the time, anxiety is an indicator light on our dashboard (like any emotion) telling us something is going on under the hood of our lives. It’s often distracting from other emotions like a noisy swarm of bees. There’s a move in psychology to understand anxiety as an inhibitory emotion, meaning it serves to block other emotions which may be too overwhelming, distressing, or unacceptable (in your context) to feel.

Either way, it serves a purpose. It invites us to be curious about what we need. And most often, that is some form of acknowledgment, care, comfort, reassurance, or stability. It is usually some form of connection with God, someone else, or ourselves.

In Anxiety: Finding the Better Story, my dearest hope is to provide a distinct opportunity for whole-personed connection.

I pray that the honest, relatable stories and truth of God’s Word will prompt connections between members of the body of Christ (in small groups, classes, and homes) as they share what resonates (or what doesn’t).

I pray that the Holy Spirit will bring relief through the daily breathing exercises which invite connection to the glorious way God created our bodies to help settle themselves.

And I pray that the overarching structure (Made for Deep Connection > Connection Secured > Identity Secured > Connection Enjoyed) will continually reinforce the connection we have to the hope and comfort we have in God’s Bigger Story.

We truly are all in this together. Our anxiety finds a secure home in the story of God, which is not one we have to create, maintain, or feel, even. It is one that anchors us to Jesus, who meets us in every concern, worry, and fear. His life and death on our behalf mean that Love is coming for every anxious corner of our lives. He is rest for our anxious, embodied souls. And His story reveals hope and help for our anxiety.

*You can read an excerpt from Anxiety: Finding the Better Story here

note: this article includes affiliate links that provide a small financial benefit to YPT, which is used to develop resources that directly benefit our ministry to youth workers.