Why is God using my anxiety to make me stronger?

Six days into this week and you have sat with some hard things. The sleepless nights. The spinning thoughts. The fear that will not sit still. But here is what nobody tells you when anxiety has its hands around your throat: God is not watching this from a distance. He is working inside it. The restless mind that exhausts you is also the very place He is doing something specific and deliberate. He told us plainly what that something is.

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."

- Romans 8:29 (KJV)

Today, write one sentence on your phone or a piece of paper: 'God is shaping me, not punishing me.' Put it somewhere you will see it when the worry comes back, maybe your lock screen, the bathroom mirror, your wallet. Read it out loud once.

Father, I did not choose this anxiety but You are not wasting it. Shape me into someone who looks more like Jesus. I trust that what You are building in me is worth it. Amen.