a (non) quiet mind to suffer

where I am at

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

I sit in my bed, back against the wall and I wait as my nerves swirl into what feels like a tornado. After another day of strange physical anxiety…leg shaking, teeth sucking, rapid blinking, no ability to stay still… I am exhausted. I attempt to stay awake long enough to do something enjoyable, watch a show, browse tiktok or facetime a friend, but the meds make it nearly impossible to focus at the end of the day.

While depression and mania are familiar (and unwelcome) guests, anxiety has never been the norm. In fact, whenever I have felt it, it has always been the precursor to an incredibly hard season where staying alive becomes the main goal. The first time it was deeply unexpected, the second time, while not new, it was deeply overwhelming. But this time… it feels similar to an under-fueled, long run. I know the route, I know it will end, but I am hardly 20 minutes in and I am already going on fumes. My legs feel like lead.

“I know the route….I know it will end. I might have to do it again tomorrow, but reprieve will come” I repeat to myself over and over again as my pace slows.

So instead of doing something enjoyable at the end of the day, I weep.

I question.

I doubt.

I cuss.

I do all these things because it no longer is an isolated incident or feeling. I weep because it has become like the tide, while it always goes out, so also, it always comes back in. I question because living returning to the suffering over and over again feels unfair compared to those who either receive healing in remission or receiving healing by going home to Christ. I doubt that Christ’s character will remain…even when I have experienced it first hand. And I cuss as I find anger sitting level in my chest, becoming a companion in my daily activities.

Running as I Run

My habit has become running 4 days a week and what started sans headphones changed to the ravenous consumption of audio books in an attempt not to ditch the whole practice altogether. For several mornings I have ran down main street listening to Sproul and Perry and Nouwen. As cold morning air wisps through my hair, so wisp theological thoughts through my brain. But in this state, theology has never pierced me. I can hear and acknowledge and counter argue or agree but never am I moved or touched.

In the “surviving state” I often feel apathetic to these things and that has not changed. I know about God, I still believe, but I am miffed with lofty thoughts and theories. I desire the living, breathing Christ, scars and all, to let me place my hands in those nail struck hands, so I can know, really know that he has suffered too, far worse than me.

But, it hasnt happened. So I continue to play the tapes back that speak truth, maybe not in the form I want, but truth none the less. And as my legs lift beneath me I repeat “I know the route….I know it will end”.

In between runs I scan my phone for the next title I will start. This one is 11 hours long and a book I could care less about. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller.

The first few hours and days of running I hear much of what I already know. The different views of suffering, the theological arguments, the personal stories. At this point it feels more like receiving data points for my own line of work or references for others.

But Tuesday morning was divergent. As I finished my run with tears streaking down my cheeks I kept repeating the quote I heard just about an hour ago in an attempt not to forget it. But I dont think I could even if I tried because it was a truth I had never heard before that day.

Between the beams of sunlight crashing through the trees and the nearby traffic riling up extra wind, the words spilt out of Keller’s mouth straight into my aching heart.

“I spent my entire life looking for, and never finding, a recipe to go from despair to hope. It did not come from anything I did or didn't do.

Hope comes not in the solution to the problem, but in focusing on Christ, who facilitates the change." - TK, Life Story, “Hope in Christ” by Mary, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

And that is when I realized: I have been placing my hope in healing from Christ, not in Christ himself. I had been expecting hope to come through the form of relief, but even if I were to be relieved of my suffering, that would not give me true hope…it would just pacify my mind and body.

So I guess this becomes the second half of my Mary and Martha story. While I have come to know Christ with me in suffering, now realize I must learn to pray that I would come to know hope in Christ alone. That while my mental health diagnosis will likely stick with me for life…Christ lasts beyond this life.

Would you pray that with me? I am stubborn. I still desire healing relief. But now my eyes are slightly more uncovered. I pray that for you as well, that you would find hope in seeing Christ straight ahead of you, beside you and the Holy Spirit in you, not distracted by these present pains.

Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us”