Inhaling the Breath of Peace
“I was sound asleep and I was – I woke up gasping for air,” says Martin. “I was just uh in a panic, like, you know, ‘Do I need to reach over and wake my wife up?’ or I wasn't sure what was going on.”
The late-night episodes had come without warning for Martin. But now, after a week, they were getting worse. Two were so intense that, for a brief moment, Martin feared he was having a heart attack.
“I started – tried to breathe and I'd slowly got better, but the, you know, the chest pains were there. It's scary– I don't wish that on anybody.”
A few weeks earlier, Martin had his heart tested and everything checked out fine. So, combing the web for answers, he realized his symptoms were caused by anxiety attacks.
“I've had anxiety before and it seemed like that's what it was. But I wanted to know the root cause of it, what was causing my anxiety.”
For days Martin searched his mind trying to pin-point the problem.
“I was thinking about my job, I have a great job as an aircraft mechanic, I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter and I have a great church I go to, my faith in God is strong. It was a mystery to me on what was causing my subconscious fear because uh it – I didn't know what I was worried about.”
Then, through prayer, he got his answer.
“I was a news junky. I was really fearful of my future, and the news was agitating that. I would come home, I would have the news on or on my phone, I'd be looking at the phone and I'd always be watching all that negative stuff that's on the news. It's always doom and gloom stuff about the country ‘this disaster's happening, that disaster's happening.’ And there was just a subconscious thing just kept, you know, percolating and percolating until it was just to the point to where it manifest's itself into panic attacks, anxiety attacks.”
Now, even though Martin knew what was causing the panic attacks, he couldn’t make them stop. Later that week, he was watching his favorite TV program, The 700 Club.
“I love The 700 Club for everything that they do. And when Terry started to go into their words of knowledge, and I sat there, I prayed with them.”
Terry said, “Martin, the thing that you have feared is not going to come upon you.”
Martin says, “And I’m like ‘Whoa…, she's saying my name, and she started talking about the anxiety I was having.’”
Terry said, “All anxiety be gone in Jesus’ name, all fear gone in Jesus’ name. The Lord is your defender and you don’t have to worry about any of the things that have been on your heart and mind. Give it to Jesus. Surrender and begin to rejoice… Praise—you have the victory. God is speaking that to you today. Walk it out.”
Martin says, “Well, I knew God was speaking to me cause he said my name, exactly what was going on with me. And out of the millions of people that could be watching the program, you know, Martin is not a common name. I threw my hands up, looked up and said, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ I just felt his overwhelming love come over me. I felt a peace from Him. And that uh immediately I started crying and it was – it was just so awesome. Uh, but I knew everything was going to be okay and that he had me and that he's healing me.”
Martin did start cutting back on his daily diet of news, but he knows it was God who gave him peace in his heart and his mind.
“It feels awesome to be anxiety free. I walk around in total peace and uh just to have a joyous day every morning you wake up. I enjoy my life more and I’m in super peace because The God of this universe is pointing to me to let me know that he's going to take care of me when I needed him the most."
