2025 was a good year, but it was also a strange one.
I learned more about myself than I ever had. I lived in both extremes: the highest highs and the lowest lows. I felt gratitude like never before, and anxiety like never before, too.
This year, I wrestled deeply with the question: Why wouldn’t God just take my anxiety away? There were moments I genuinely believed I was dying. I became terrified of flying. I feared the future and all the unknowns that came with it. And as this year came to an end, I found myself reflecting on everything it held.
A few weeks ago, I heard a quote by Charles H. Spurgeon that perfectly captured my experience of 2025:
“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”
That sentence sums up this year more than anything else.
I used to be terrified of planes, until I realized that planes are where I have some of my deepest thoughts, my most honest conversations with God, and my clearest moments of awe as I look out at His beauty and splendor from above the clouds. Fear has a way of stripping everything else away. It forces me to rely on God like never before and reminds me of the fragility of life.
And strangely, I’ve become grateful for the fear that makes me cling to Jesus.
I am, and still am, a pretty anxious person. There have been countless times I’ve prayed for God to take my anxiety away. And yet, there have also been moments where I’ve found myself thanking Him for it. That feels contradictory, especially because anxiety has undeniably made my life harder. But it has also made my dependence on Jesus deeper.
My anxious thoughts push me to rely on Him in a new way, to ask Him to renew my mind, to be my daily bread, to meet me moment by moment. I’ve watched Him calm my heart, slow my racing thoughts, and speak to me in the middle of panic, on planes, in quiet rooms, and in moments where fear felt overwhelming.
This year, I learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.
I don’t always like it. I don’t always understand why God doesn’t just make me fearless. But when I look back, I see something beautiful: God is using my struggles to make me courageous. These trials have caused me to cling to Jesus, because He is the only one who can speak directly to my anxious, fearful soul.
I spent the first three days of 2026 at Passion, a Christian conference for college students. Louie Giglio preached a message about how God still uses us, even with our cracks, flaws, and weaknesses. During a moment of prayer and reflection, something shifted in my heart.
I didn’t ask God to take my anxiety away.
Instead, I prayed, “God, You can take it away if You want to. But if it stays, that’s okay too, because it makes me depend on You.”
I never want to walk too well. I’ve learned to love the limp, because it keeps me reliant on Jesus for help, something my prideful heart would so easily forget.
And if this year taught me anything, it’s this: sometimes the very thing we beg God to remove is the thing He’s using to draw us closer to Himself.
