I often feel anxious for no reason; this is clearly a genetic inheritance over which I have little or no control. It visits me as it will, not as I choose. And there is no remedy for it, none at all. At least when I am asleep at the wheel.

And yet I am on the path of awakening, so the words “There is no balm in Gilead” came to me as I sat in silence and I knew this note would happen.

As long as I am in my head, I am open to attacks of anxiety for which there is no remedy. And I am a disciple asleep to the Christ within. I have been dozing off and on for millennia, it would seem. I long to be free, but I am not. The prison bars are forged of thought and one cannot find a remedy for that. As long as one seeks a remedy in one’s own arsenal, none will be found.

So a leap must be made. It seems impossible. Yet with God all things are possible. So I begin to entreat my heart to accept the sins of my mind. I repeat the Jesus prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy.”

And I wait on Him and soon the door that I have opened myself sees the entrance of the divine silence. I rest.

Here there is only remedy,only solace, only balm. In Him we live and move and have our being.

The anxiety will recur; for our genetic inheritance is what it is. But the balm is ever present. It isn’t free. It is bought with the soul’s sincere desire to be healed by the hand of the Father.

I could confess my sins here but I don’t have to. Confession to the Christ within is quite enough. The wisdom of awakening is the surrender of the little self with its endless burdens. They may all be cast on Him, however heavy they may be.

May I learn the power of surrender so that I might spread the word of healing to one and all.

Vicki Woodyard