From Fear to Faith: How My Health Journey Became Worship

I am a hypochondriac.

Not was. Am.

I also struggle with general anxiety and overthinking. And if I’m being completely honest, I still battle these things daily.

But Christ has helped me tremendously. He’s mostly solved it for me, though not entirely. The reason it’s not 100%? That’s on me. I haven’t fully surrendered. I haven’t given myself completely to trusting Him. That’s part of my sanctification process-the lifelong work of becoming more like Christ. I’m still learning. Still growing. Still fighting that need for control.

So when I say I was a hypochondriac, I mean the version that let it completely control my life. The full-blown, constantly-Googling, convinced-I’m-dying-from-everything version.

And that version? That’s what started my entire health journey. Not inspiration. Not ambition. Fear.

Let me give you some examples of how bad it was:

The Creamistry Incident: I went to get liquid nitrogen ice cream. I breathed in some of the vapor and proceeded to have a full meltdown because I found ONE article about a guy who died from liquid nitrogen exposure. I was convinced I had minutes to live.

The Computer Fan Crisis: I was plugging a cable into a PC at my dad’s house and accidentally inhaled some air from the exhaust fan - literally just air with maybe a little bit of dust. I spent the next few hours Googling “can computer exhaust cause heart attack” until I found ONE article about a guy who had a silent heart attack after inhaling computer air. I was certain I was next.

The Gas Pain Spiral: Every time I had gas or indigestion, I’d be on WebMD typing “left side chest pain” and convincing myself I was having a heart attack. This happened constantly.

Yeah. That was me.

The Hypochondriac Years

From as far back as I can remember, I was terrified of dying.

Every weird sensation was cancer. Every chest pain was a heart attack. Every headache was a brain tumor. I wasn’t just health-conscious-I was trapped in a prison of constant medical anxiety.

The irony? This all started during my worst health phase. When I was 230 pounds, eating garbage, not exercising, actively destroying my body with my terrible diet-that’s when I was most terrified of health issues.

That’s crazy to think about looking back. I was so blind to what I was actually doing to my body - the real damage I was causing every single day. Instead, I was fixating on one-off crazy scenarios that had almost zero chance of happening. I was worried about breathing in liquid nitrogen vapor while actively destroying myself with food and inactivity. I was Googling obscure computer fan heart attacks while my real heart was struggling under the weight I was carrying.

Why?

Because doing something about my health required facing hard truths. It required discipline. It required change. It required admitting that I was messed up - that I was destroying myself - and that was really hard for me to face. But worrying about my health? That felt like I was doing something without actually having to change anything. The anxiety gave me a false sense of control-like if I could just worry enough, research enough, stress enough, I could somehow protect myself from the inevitable.

I know that now. But back then, I couldn’t see it.

The Control Trap

Looking back now, I can see what was really happening. The hypochondria wasn’t about health at all. It was about control.

I’ve always struggled with control. Still do, if I’m being honest.

I get really bad anxiety when I’m not in control of a situation. I need to know the plan. I need to understand the variables. I need to feel like I can predict and manage outcomes. When I can’t? The anxiety creeps in fast.

The health anxiety was just another manifestation of that. If I could obsessively monitor every symptom, research every potential diagnosis, check every vital sign-maybe, just maybe, I could control whether I lived or died.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned about control: it’s an illusion. I’m not actually in control of much at all. And the tighter I gripped, the more it slipped through my fingers.

God has the control. Not me. He knows everything - every outcome, every possibility, every day I have left. And me? I only know a tiny fraction of what He knows. I can see maybe 1% of the picture, if that. And yet I was trying to control outcomes based on that 1% of information, convinced that my limited understanding could somehow protect me.

That’s exhausting. And impossible.

When I finally started to understand that God knows everything I don’t - and that He’s good, and He loves me - it changed how I saw control. I could lean on Him instead of trying to carry all of it myself. I still struggle with this every single day. But at least now I know where to bring it.

(I’ll dive deeper into my control issues in a future post-there’s a lot more to unpack there. But for now, just know that this need for control was the soil where my health anxiety grew.)

When Health Optimization Becomes Another Anxiety

Eventually, I started my weight loss journey. 230 down to 172 pounds. I was training at Black Box 3-5 times a week, tracking my calories, eating clean.

On the outside, I was getting healthier. And I was healthier-objectively, measurably better.

But internally? The anxiety didn’t go away. It just found new outlets.

Now instead of Googling symptoms, I was obsessing over:

• Which brand of grass-fed beef had the optimal omega-3 to omega-6 ratio

• Whether my supplements should be taken with or without food, morning or evening, in what specific combinations

• If sleeping on my left side versus my right side affected my HRV scores

• Whether my water filter was removing enough contaminants or if I needed to upgrade to reverse osmosis

• If the EMF from my phone was destroying my mitochondria while I slept

The list goes on.

I’d spend hours researching the “perfect” version of every single thing. Not just grass-fed beef-it had to be grass-fed, grass-finished, from regeneratively raised cattle, ideally from a specific farm with soil testing. Not just filtered water-it needed to be the exact right pH, with the right mineral content, stored in glass, never plastic.

Every optimization was another attempt to control the uncontrollable: my mortality.

The Things That Didn’t Work

I tried everything to manage the anxiety:

• Journaling my worries

• Cognitive reframing techniques

• Breathing exercises (4-7-8, box breathing, you name it)

• Regular doctor checkups to “prove” I was fine

• Meditation apps

• Therapy

• Excessively planning and tracking all my health protocols, thinking if I could just control every variable perfectly, the anxiety would go away

Some of these helped a little. Most didn’t. The anxiety would quiet down temporarily, then roar back louder than before.

I was miserable. Objectively healthier than I’d ever been, but subjectively more anxious about health than when I was actively destroying my body.

Because the problem wasn’t my body. It was my heart.

Drawing Closer to the Lord

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

When I got baptized at Oasis City Church, something shifted. But if I’m honest, it wasn’t the baptism itself that changed everything.

It was what came after. The daily Scripture study. Showing up to Oasis City Bible study on Thursday nights with the young adults. Going to church consistently. All of that drawing me closer to the Lord, week after week, verse after verse.

This is something I’m actively struggling with, by the way. Sometimes it’s one step forward, two steps back. Some days I do great. Other days I spiral hard. But here’s what I’ve learned: it’s not my strength that gets me through this. It’s Jesus’s.

Through reading the Bible every day - really reading it, with handwritten notes, wrestling with the text, letting it challenge me - I began to understand who God actually is. Not the distant, judgmental figure I’d imagined, but a loving Father who knew me completely and loved me anyway.

And if God knew me completely - including every cell in my body, every potential health issue, every day I had left on earth - and He was sovereign over all of it... then what was I so afraid of?

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” - 1 Peter 5:7

That verse wrecked me. In the best way.

I realized I’d been trying to carry the weight of my own life, my own health, my own future - and it was crushing me. God was offering to carry it, and I kept refusing because accepting His help meant giving up control.

The Shift From Fear to Worship

I still take the same supplements. I still train 5-6 times a week at Black Box. I still eat grass-fed beef. I still try to optimize my routines for me and Maddy and the dogs and those I love.

But everything feels different now.

Before, every supplement was a desperate attempt to ward off disease. Now, it’s curiosity and stewardship. I’m fascinated by how God designed the human body, and I want to explore how to support it optimally-not from fear, but from wonder.

Before, every health optimization was about avoiding death. Now, it’s about maximizing life so I can show up better for my friends and family. There’s a massive difference.

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” - 1 Corinthians 10:31

This verse became my new framework. Not “do everything perfectly to avoid dying,” but “do everything-everything-as an act of worship.”

Taking my supplements in the morning? Worship. Training at Black Box? Worship. Choosing nutrient-dense food? Worship. Managing my sleep environment? Worship.

Because my body isn’t ultimately mine-it’s a temple of the Holy Spirit. And respecting that temple isn’t about fear or control. It’s about gratitude and stewardship.

What Actually Changed

The practical actions look similar. The internal posture is completely different.

Before: I needed the perfect supplement stack or something terrible would happen. Now: I’m experimenting with supplements as a form of curiosity, treating my body as a testing ground so I can learn and help others.

Before: Every new health protocol was driven by anxiety-what if I’m missing something crucial? Now: Every new protocol is driven by wonder-I wonder how this could help me serve God better, build Black Box better, love Maddy better, show up for my friends better.

Before: Health optimization was about me, my survival, my control. Now: Health optimization is about making myself the best vessel possible for the work God has for me.

The shift is from self-preservation to self-offering.

And honestly? I still struggle. A lot.

I’d be lying if I said the anxiety was completely gone. There are still moments when a weird pain triggers that old spiral. There are still nights when the what-ifs creep in.

But here’s the difference: Now I have somewhere to take it.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:6-7

Every time I feel that anxiety rising - and it still happens, probably more than I’d like to admit - I stop and pray. I give it to God. I do my best not to dwell on it, not to feed it with Google searches and catastrophic thinking.

Well, that’s what I’m supposed to do. Sometimes I spiral and don’t bring it to God at all. I just sit in the anxiety and let it consume me. But when I actually do bring it to Him? That’s what helps. That’s when the peace comes.

Does it work 100% of the time? No. Because I’m still learning. I’m still fighting that need for control. I’m still working through decades of conditioning that told me if I just worried enough, I could keep myself safe.

But it works about 75% of the time. And the only reason it’s not 100% is because of me - because I’m still learning to actually trust God instead of just saying I trust God.

Why I’m Sharing This

If you’re reading this and you recognize yourself in my story-if you’re optimizing your health from a place of fear, if you’re trapped in the anxiety spiral, if you’re constantly Googling symptoms-I want you to know something:

You’re not broken. You’re just carrying weight you were never meant to carry.

And there’s another way. I found one, at least.

I’m not saying you need to adopt my exact approach. I’m not even saying faith is easy or that it magically solves everything. What I am saying is that when I shifted from trying to control my health out of fear to stewarding my health out of gratitude, everything changed for me.

My supplements didn’t change. My training didn’t change. My food didn’t change.

But the peace? That changed. The joy? That changed. The ability to actually enjoy being healthy instead of being terrified of losing it? That changed everything for me.

The Invitation

If you’re struggling with anxiety - any kind of anxiety - you’re not alone. I’ve been there. I am there, some days.

This journey from fear to faith is ongoing. I’m still walking it every day. And if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for letting me be vulnerable with you.

Love you all.

• Raiden