Running Scared (Non-Fiction) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Running Scared
Series: Non-Fiction
Author: Edward Welch
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Christian Counseling
Pages: 240
Words: 84K
Publish: 2007

This was the book that I should have read before diving into the little book “When I am Afraid”. Most of the same things apply to this book that applied to WIAA. Specifically, this was written TO anxious people, not being written ABOUT anxiety. More importantly, it is explicitly Christian in it’s world view, it’s solutions and its discussions. If you are not a Christian, but suffer from anxiety, I don’t see this helping you one bit.

And that actually plays into some of the points that Welch makes. One is that most anxiety is not some medical disorder that drugs can “cure”. He states that unless there has been injury that can be scanned, analyzed, etc, the issue of anxiety is purely a spiritual matter. He doesn’t say anxiety doesn’t exist or that the sufferers of it are making things up, but he states that while they can kick the can down the road with feel good, positive thoughts, or even taking medication, the best they can hope for is to contain the anxiety. That’s not what he’s going for when talking to Christians and I’m glad of that. Welch himself suffers from diagnosed anxiety and that made a lot of what he states much more believable to me, as a non-anxious layman.

Because this was not about Anxiety (and one of the traps Welch mentions is that anxious people think ‘information’ will help their anxiety), it wasn’t as helpful to me as I was hoping. But I pretty much knew that from reading WIAA the other week. Knowing that, I decided to see how it could help me, as a Christian. We all suffer anxiety of some sort and at differing levels during our lives, so why not get some help before I need it, right?

The biggest thing I took away from this book is that God gives us the grace we need, WHEN we need it. Welch is constantly referring back to the Israelites in the wilderness when they wandered for 40 years between leaving Egypt in the Exodus to when they entered the Promised Land, Canaan. The main thing he bangs on is the manna that God provided, each day. They couldn’t gather it and save it (God told them not to and some of them tried anyway. It went moldy and wormy overnight) but had to trust that God would provide more manna tomorrow. His point is that we worry about tomorrow when our needs are being taken care of today and that we need to trust that God will take care of us tomorrow too. He spends a whole chapter on differentiating what we think our needs are versus what God says our needs are. That is a good thing to remember.

His advice to most anxious Christians comes down to reading your Bible daily, praying daily and truly learning to seek and trust God. He goes into more detail that I’m sure would help anxious people, but that is the big picture take away. I’m glad I read this, but I’m not sure I’d read anything else by Welch unless it was an issue that I was directly dealing with. But if I was, I’d unhesitatingly read one of his other books.

★★★✬☆

When I am Afraid (Non-Fiction) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: When I am Afraid
Series: Non-Fiction
Author: Edward Welch
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Christian Counseling
Pages: 58
Words: 19K
Publish: 2008

I heard about this book from Michael W on a post he did about Mental Health and Christianity. In the comments he recommended this little book. So I added it to my tbr and while it took a bit longer to get around to than I was expecting, I still got to it before 2027, which is a win for ANY recently added book to my tbr :-)

I didn’t realize when I started this, but it is stated right on the first page, that this is a companion volume to Welch’s book Running Scared, a full book about anxiety, worry and fear. The proper thing for me to have done would be to have put this little companion booklet down, read the first book and then come back to this one. Well, nobody tells ME what order to read books, so I ignored that and plunged right into this.

First, this really is a companion booklet, with tons of questions for the reader to ponder. I should have read Running Scared first after all. However, what this booklet did for me showed me that I don’t suffer from anxiety, worry or fear. Now, everybody has to deal with those, but it isn’t debilitating like I know it is for others. My goal in reading this, and the next book, was to help me better understand people who DO suffer from anxiety and what they experience. This was not the booklet for that. This was directly addressing those who do suffer and what they can do and how they can change their thinking.

Second, this is explicitly Christian. It will be of no help at all to anyone who doesn’t believe in God and Jesus. The whole thrust of Welch’s thinking is that God is there to take care of us (as He sees fit, not becoming a vending machine god in the process). If you don’t believe in God, well, good luck believing He will take care of you.

I do have a feeling that Running Scared is going to be a book that is talking to the Anxious and not going to be about the symptoms of Anxiety or what to do to help support those who do. That’s not a bad thing at all, just means I’ll be adjusting my expectations going into it.

★★★✬☆