There’s a song filling every corner of my brain lately. It’s soft and somber, yet Gravity swells with emotion.
It paints a picture of us individually, worried, and stressed out over the details of life. Whether frivolous or meaningful, beautiful, or devastatingly painful, together they create an enormous weight, distracting us from what really matters and wearing us out day to day.
But what really matters?
Hope.
Not in things or changing circumstances. But, hope in a promise. And a hope that promises are kept by those who make them. Really, one person in particular. But back to the song.
Seeing all of your stress and struggle, God says, “Come up here with me. I want to show you something.” And clasping your raised hand, pulls you upward, from the ground through the atmosphere and beyond space and time, to the peaceful spot at his side. Sitting high above it all with your creator, you see what God sees.
High above the joy and the pain, you see beauty and order and process. And you realize that there’s more to all of this than you can see from your small corner of your world.
There are whole galaxies and universes upon universes being formed from nothing, stretched, destroyed, and re-formed anew. There’s an unknowable number of creatures, big and small, traveling carefully plotted paths that still, somehow, include a million options for them each to consider.
Complicated, yet there is a distinct order to what looks like chaos from down below. And it’s managed by one person, the one holding your hand right now.
… Sovereign … you are …
This part of the song stays on replay in my quiet moments.
Sovereign is a word that I know but rarely use. So I had to hit the dictionary to refresh my memory on its meaning and, among its definitions, found that it means: to possess supreme or ultimate power.
As in, one who has ALL of the power.
As in, the buck stops here. ✋🏾
It’s something to remember when you turn your attention back to the details of life. It’s something God has demonstrated in all manner of ways: here on Earth, in the heavens, in the Bible, and likely, in your life too.
That power, that reason for hope, is in these simple promises, from the only one who can always keep them:
I got this. And I see you. I got this. And I’m with you. Believe. Don’t doubt me.
Maybe, as a child, you couldn’t contain your fascination at the flames dancing atop the stove, that is, until you got burned. I bet those flames lost their appeal real fast.
At the start, the thing, whatever it is, doesn’t seem dangerous, maybe even manageable. But eventually, we learn that what we see could only be the tip of the iceberg, and it usually is. There’s often a whole mountain beneath the surface. Unfortunately, the experience that comes with this discovery usually involves some broken bones, aka consequences.
In my journey with Jesus, I have sensed a guiding force that kind of taps me on the shoulder when I get too near dangerous terrain. It often signals me to “wait” or directs me to change course. Sometimes, it’s a gut instinct, other times it’s a still small voice that I don’t really hear with my ears, but sense somewhere within me. For years, I didn’t pay attention to either.
I thought I was wise enough to thoroughly assess every situation and make my own decisions. Most of the time, I thought those nudges were my fears trying to keep me from living. Just as often, I discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.
By ignoring my gut and what I now recognize as the Holy Spirit’s leading, I was headed straight into a disaster, something that could ruin my life.
Case in point, the day of this car accident, I knew that I needed to stay home. I had felt the nudge to get more rest. I had worked until the wee hours of the morning. But I still felt pressure to make it in, albeit around mid-day. I was extremely tired, too tired to be driving, especially in snowy and icy conditions. But I did it anyway.
In the end, I totaled my car and got a concussion. Thankfully, I was the only person impacted, and my insurance covered everything. God absolutely took care of me. Medical bills were covered, rental car paid for and eventually, even got a new (to me) car paid for in (mostly) cash. I was struggling through some intense migraines but was told it was temporary. I had reason to hope. I was enduring the consequences of my own stupid actions while witnessing God’s faithfulness all at the same time.
Now, almost 5 years later, I’m still struggling with debilitating migraines, and some serious cognitive issues that I wasn’t even aware of until a few months ago, but now seem plain as day when I look back over the years. It’s been tough… I can’t lie. Some days, I feel like I’m drowning.
I have often blamed myself. I mean, it is entirely my fault. But blaming doesn’t fix it. I beat myself up, too, but that doesn’t help either. I hold all my questions and complaints from God until I collapse, unable to stand up under it all. I think, “Why would God want to hear any of that anyway?” Though, I’m sure God already knows.
I can’t begin to know why God allowed things to go this way. And I have no idea what I might gain by this prolonged suffering from a God that makes all things work together for my good. But I have noticed something worth mentioning.
He hasn’t left.
That guiding presence, the admonition to wait, that still small voice hasn’t evaporated from my days. It’s still leading – sometimes to bed early, away from overexertion, to time with him – in his Word, to the right doctors and specialists. I didn’t expect it, but I’m learning a hard lesson about God’s faithfulness. I’m learning that it’s constant, even in the face of my own failure.
A few years ago, while walking down a hallway at work, I felt a sharp, gouging pain in my body that made me cry out. Instead of copying the documents in my hand, I was paralyzed by pain and leaning on the nearest wall for support. Out. Of. Nowhere. It was the same sharp pain I felt while laying in bed a few nights before. Both times, it took my breath away.
That pain was my introduction to a mysterious mass that had formed undetected within my body. It led me on a journey to the offices of more specialists than I can remember, an endless stream of blood tests, exams and scans, a $200 ambulance ride from an imaging center to the hospital across the street (don’t ask), and finally, a successful surgery 6 months later.
By then, so many people had seen me at least partially-naked that I wondered whether I should have been getting paid. Thankfully, in the end, the mass was completely removed and non-cancerous. And though it wasn’t the only source of pain, removing it took care of most of it. Now, nearly 8 years later, I am relieved to say that it hasn’t returned.
I don’t think about that time in my life too often these days. But it was the first thought to cross my mind when a friend randomly texted me a song a few weeks ago. It was Ty Tribbett’s – If he did it before … Same God.
It’s a hella hype, upbeat gospel song from the early 2000’s whose point is clear and simple. It’s this: if God took care of you before, well guess what? God will do it again. Why? Because he’s the same God today that he was back then.
I had heard it randomly a week or two before for what may have been the first time in years. As soon as I saw the link with the song title, the lyrics came to me in an instant and I had a burst of joy. It was an unexpected, but welcome infusion of hope into my day; a reminder that I desperately needed.
I got a concussion in a car accident a few years ago. I thought the symptoms were on their way out, albeit at a snails pace, but over the last year or so, they have come back with a vengeance. It’s had real impacts on my ability to work and just exist on a daily basis. And low key, it has been stressing a sistah out!
Debilitating migraines, cognitive fatigue and a host of other symptoms have been so much a part of my days that it’s been hard not to wonder if this is what the rest of my life will look like. In the haze of a stabbing, eye-watering migraine, I’ve wondered, is this my new normal?
The idea alone is terrifying.
But that song reminded me of something that God had been showing me little by little in my quiet time with him: the wind and the waves.
If you haven’t heard the story, Jesus had just finished feeding a huge crowd of people, well-over 5,000. He had taken a little boys lunch and multiplied it until it was enough to feed thousands, and leave a whole lot of leftovers. It was a huge miracle. His main crew, the disciples, had witnessed and been part of it all.
Immediately after this spectacle, they found themselves on a boat in the middle of a ferocious storm. With dark skies above them and heavy waves crashing against the boat, they were in a state of panic. And Jesus wasn’t there. He had gone to a private spot by himself to pray. He had promised to join them later, and true to his word, he did.
In sheer terror, they looked out across the waves and saw him walking toward them. Not on the beach, but on the waves themselves!
They thought they were losing it… or that it was a ghost… or both. But Jesus assured them that it was him, and with all kinds of chill, proceeded to stop the storm and calm the waves – another miracle. Astounded by their little faith after seeing him feed all of those people only hours before, he asked them, “Why did you doubt me?”
There’s more to the story, but being reminded of this moment between the disciples and Jesus brought me back to my own struggle and the song.
I’d been through a scary health situation before, hadn’t I? This was a new scenario, but no less serious. And really, the details are the only thing that’s different here. Jesus didn’t change. He’s just as capable, just as faithful, just as concerned and on top of things as he was back then. And even though I’m afraid, that doesn’t mean that he is.
Whether it’s on an operating table or in a storm-battered boat, he’s here and he’s got me. He’s faithful. I have my own experience to prove it, and the disciples’ too. If he did it before, then he’ll do it again. Because he doesn’t change.
I don’t know exactly how all of this will turn out. But I don’t have to follow my feelings or let fear beat me down. I have reason to hope. He’s the same God now as before. My problems haven’t stumped him before, and they won’t now. Neither will yours.
Someone I used to know is gone… actually two of them. A brother and sister whose mother is a longtime friend of my family. We spent a little time together as young kids and got to know each other better as teens in the new city we had all somehow migrated to. Both in their prime and with a family of their own, they left this place only a couple years apart, just like they came into it.
I hadn’t spoken to either of them in years. Yet, I am certain that running into each other would have been a joyous occasion for all of us. More than joyous.
What do you say to a mist, a vapor that was the presence of a person you once knew?
She was low key and quiet. He was a natural leader who was a whole vibe all on his own. Both were cool with everyone, a rarity.
I have vivid memories of who they were when we were young. And newer ones through the eyes of the people who have known them in the time since. She had become a nurse. He an accomplished activist. By all accounts, they had remained the same.
To say that I am sad about their departure doesn’t capture it at all. Truth be told, I am ashamed of the gap between now and then, though I know it goes both ways. Life happens. It gets in the way, and before you know it, there’s a bookend. No visible next chapter in which to run into them again. I am sorrowful for my own loss. And I’m heartbroken for the people closest to them, those who will miss them the most. But there’s more.
The day he passed, I imagined that his sister would be waiting on the other side, ready to embrace him the moment he crossed over. I saw the joy on their faces upon reuniting, but also the somber realization of all they were leaving behind. And that’s when it hit me.
Where would they be? Where will their souls, the part of them that I knew, live from now on?
They belonged to a different faith tradition. I don’t know how their beliefs may have changed or evolved over the years. In particular, I don’t know what they thought of Jesus. And that’s the part that troubles my already broken heart.
How can two people, both beautiful in so many ways and who did so much good, not end up in heaven?
My memory took me to a story Jesus told about people who won’t believe (Luke 16:19-31). He said that if they are not persuaded by Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded by someone who rises from the dead. He was talking about the religious leaders of the day and the prophecies that predicted his life and sacrifice. They were stubborn in their disbelief and he knew that even his own dying on the cross and rising again wouldn’t change that.
My belief in Jesus, his words, and his sacrifice tells me that it’s possible that we won’t all be together again in the same place. The hard truth of my faith tradition says that no matter what we do in life, where we end up is based on a single thing. It’s based on a choice to believe that Jesus is who he said he is despite all of our doubts, pain, and unanswered questions. It’s a choice to believe in an eternal life with him or an eternal agony without him, however that may look.
What adds to my grief is the fact that I don’t know what they believed, and now it’s too late for me to do anything about it. I’m ashamed of my own timidity, my lack of courage, and my propensity toward distraction. I’m sorry that I didn’t at least say, ‘I want to see you again. I want you to live. So please, believe.’
I can’t say it to them now. And I won’t know the outcome of their journey until its my turn to make the trek. But, on the off chance that no-one has ever said it to you… I want you to live. So please, please, believe.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe in the promises of God. That can be especially true for the ones that proclaim the good future that He has planned for you. Struggles like having a debilitating illness, navigating the ever-evolving face of trauma or even the nightly news can have any of us doubting that tomorrow could ever look any different than today. And it can get really real when you see the people around you getting what you desperately desire but are still waiting for.
I struggle with this a lot. Sometimes when I look at my present and at what’s behind me, all I see are the hard things and how so much of it looks the same, mainly the mistakes and the trials. They loom large in my vision and tend to block out my happier memories.
I have to remind myself daily of Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” And really, it’s the Holy Spirit doing the reminding, because there’s a negative thoughts playlist in heavy rotation in my mind that often tries to trip me up.
It’s the Holy Spirit who brings this verse to my mind and reminds me of the power of my words, which then leads me to speak it out of my mouth. It’s the Holy Spirit who leads me to write it and post it on my nightstand, so it’s one of the first things I see when I wake up and the last thing when I go to bed.
It’s the Holy Spirit who leads me to listen to the bible on my bible app. It’s the Holy Spirit who leads me to record bible verses in my own voice on my phone and then prompts me to play them on my commute or when I’m feeling anxious to help me renew my mind.
I don’t always believe that I have a good future ahead of me and that’s the truth. Doubt sometimes eats me for breakfast. But it’s the Holy Spirit that reminds me that my negative thoughts are not all there is. There’s something else and it’s better. The Holy Spirit guides me back to hopefulness.
So, as much as I am writing this for you, know that I’m writing it for me too.
You have a bright future ahead of you. You might not always be able to see it, feel it or even believe that it’s possible. But there are more blessings than you can imagine up ahead. So, don’t worry. You don’t have to figure it all out. But you can ask for and receive help. So, ask. And the Holy Spirit will show up in the silence, in the simple things, and in the practical to guide you back to hope.
To just keep going is the hardest thing there is in a depressive episode, in part, because there’s no indication of when it will end. It can be hard to believe that it ever will. And if you’ve weathered multiple episodes, there’s the added knowledge that this current ordeal probably won’t be the last. It’s exhausting and well, … depressing.
With that said, persevering is usually the last thing on my mind. Instead, escape, by any means necessary, seems like the only path forward. For different people that escape might be at the bottom of a bottle, a gummy-induced high, long periods of sleep, workaholism, meddling in other people’s problems or a million other distractions. I can admit that I’ve tried a few. Really, the possibilities are endless, but they don’t really end it. And to be completely honest, I’m not sure what does.
After years of working on my mental health in therapy, learning healthy coping skills, consistently taking anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and every kind of vitamin, moving my body to boost the feel-good chemicals in my brain and building a relationship with God, I still find myself in depressive episodes. It makes me wonder if it’s just my cross to bear in this life.
Yet, even still, I know that it could be worse, namely, because it has been. There was a time in my life when the pain of depression wasn’t an episode, but an everyday, all the time, thing.
When I remember how little it would take to send me back to those days, literally just a week without my medication, I have reason to be grateful. I’m reminded that although I’m not where I want to be, I can still thank God, because I’m definitely not where I used to be.
Depression is hard. But what’s crazy is that it’s one of the ways that I’m reminded that there is a God, especially one who cares about me. Because I’d fail if it was all on me. If I had to depend on my own smarts and resources to navigate depression, I would have left this place a long time ago. So, even though I still struggle with this really hard thing, the fact that I’m still here, that I continue to keep going without even really knowing how, is evidence of God’s fingerprints.
What about you? Is there something that you want to escape, but can’t? How do you get through it?
The last few weeks have been a lot. I’ve been under some stress that just kept building and building until, before I knew it, I was well into a depressive episode. For some reason, they usually take me by surprise.
I was having migraines every day, almost all day, for two weeks, not eating, doing the bare minimum at home and work, and withdrawing from everyone in my life before I recognized what had happened. I thought I was treading water. But in reality, the water was 100 feet above my head.
Have you ever had an experience where everything just seems to fall apart all at once?
Remember that workplace trauma I told you about? A really difficult relationship with a colleague and a reluctance to address it by leadership triggered the hell out of me. The details were different, but it felt all too familiar. And the more they dragged it out, month after month, the less safe I felt. It felt like I was being attacked, rejected, and abandoned all over again.
And I thought, “how could I be going through all of this again? Is it me? What am I doing wrong here?” And then, once I remembered that I’m not responsible for the way other people behave, including when I ask for help, I just felt alone, yet in the same place, again.
But I couldn’t just go forward like it didn’t matter. Something in my spirit wouldn’t let me. So, I set a boundary. I told leadership that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, interact with this person until they addressed the issue. Eventually, they at least had a conversation. But the sense that it wasn’t enough wouldn’t allow the burden to lift.
Around the same time, the new relationship I had developed with a tenderhearted man was beginning to shake. We were unequally yoked – two people who wanted to be together, but were walking at two entirely different paces and not always in the same direction faith-wise. I had known from the very the beginning that this was a possibility, a certainty really, but I went forward anyway. And as the relationship crumbled around us, the painful rejection I felt was compounded by my own lack of wisdom in the first place.
A week or two later, I would find myself in the middle of another break-up. It was the end of my time with my out-of-state EMDR therapist, a person whose work with me had been truly transformational. There was no blow up, no drama, the rules just wouldn’t allow it anymore. So, though we knew the end was coming, it didn’t make saying goodbye any easier. Up to that point I had been filled with dread, but it turned to grief when everything was said and done.
And finally, a dinner with an old colleague and his wife that I had hoped would have been an enjoyable experience, ended up being the exact opposite. Instead of laughing and cracking jokes with the man who regularly checked-in with me, I found myself constantly dodging questions about why I wasn’t married or had a boyfriend from his wife. And in the wake of my recent breakup, I wasn’t ready for any of it. The dinner had only been an hour and a half, but when we parted, I felt like I had spent hours being judged and had come up short.
It was A LOT to endure all at once. I thought I was maintaining – treading water. But the pain of each scenario pushed me further and further below the water’s surface. And when I finally opened my eyes and looked around, I saw that I was in a familiar place. I was failing at life – again – and that made it worse. More tired than anything else, I just wanted to give up on everything, including life itself.
Before I decided to follow Jesus, I thought that being a believer would take those negative feelings away forever. I thought I would never experience pain, make mistakes, or feel alone ever again. But in the years since, I’ve learned that isn’t true. I wish I could say that I pushed my way through the despair that I felt or that Jesus suddenly washed it all away. But neither would be true.
What I did was cry a lot, get angry with myself and God, repent and do it all over again. But there’s one thing that made the difference. When I accepted Jesus, I also accepted his spirit, the Holy Spirit, and invited them into my heart and my life. The Holy Spirit leads us in ways that we can’t always see at the time. Moment by moment the Holy Spirit directs us to the things that will comfort and restore us, even as we struggle.
It can start with something as simple as a glass of water. That bit of hydration can give us the clarity to take a shower, then lotion our bodies, have a little food, or take a nap. Bit by bit, he leads us to just keep going, one thing, one step at a time. And slowly, over time, you notice the despair lifting. It’s not a “suddenly” kind of thing, at least, it hasn’t been for me.
Boundaries is a brave new world I’ve decided to enter. It’s a journey that started years ago. Back then, I danced around the edge of this territory, letting circumstances push me across the border only when people-pleasing became entirely too much to bear. But now, sensing, acknowledging and standing ten toes down in my boundaries is an intentional choice. Why?
Because what I thought was honoring my faith and being selfless, gracious, and considerate was actually making me look and feel like a doormat – in Jesus’ name. And Jesus didn’t die for me to become a doormat.
I’ve had to make a choice about whether maintaining the comfort of others is more important than preserving my own peace. And finally, that answer is no.
Like the email that I sent to my supervisor a few weeks ago, I had another boundary-setting experience around the same time.
A colleague from the toxic workplace noted in my last post will be in a nearby city for a conference soon. He is exactly one person out of one that I still talk to from that job. He is one of very few people from that era that I’ve spoken to with any honesty or vulnerability, simply because he’s one of the even fewer people that showed that they cared through any of it. So, while it can be hard to engage with him at times because of the memories it stirs up, I value him, if for nothing else, because of his compassion towards me.
So, knowing that he’d be nearby, but that I wouldn’t be at the conference, I suggested that we have dinner at some point during his trip. But I had one condition – that it just be him and his wife. I have no interest in a reunion with anyone else and I said so. And I meant it.
It was a simple sentence ending with a period. But if that little period could have conveyed the intensity in my heart, it would have blown 5G to bits. Because I meant it with the intensity of a bomb.
I meant it with so much force, such ferocity, that I wouldn’t hesitate to say it to their faces and walk right out of the restaurant, if I arrived to a surprise gathering of old ghosts. No thank you.
It’s a level of authenticity that I wasn’t able to achieve back when everything was going down.
I used to think it made me more of a professional to not let other people’s actions and reactions deter me from the task at hand. I thought that sidestepping insults and staying on task was a skill. And by the time I made it home every day, I thought I could shake the day off like dropping my clothes in the hamper. And it’s possible that on most days, I did.
But in the aftermath of that fiasco, I was so concerned with whether I would ever find another job and not looking bitter or like an “angry black woman”, that I pushed those feelings of betrayal and abandonment down within me. I wouldn’t acknowledge them publicly, though I cried and mourned privately.
I quit, but gave a month’s notice. When the boss decided to throw me a going away party, I played it like it was too much of a fuss, instead of outright saying the “Hell No” that was thrashing around in my chest. I humored those who asked about my next steps, knowing that they only wanted to gossip about me. And on my last day, stayed late to make sure I left things in decent order for the next person.
I wasn’t being authentic. I was cool and calm on the outside, but I was raging on the inside.
I was sacrificing my mental health and well-being in the name of professionalism. But it wasn’t worth it – the PTSD nightmares, depressive episodes, and mind-bending anxiety that followed have proven that. Now, after all of the work I’ve done in therapy, I’m ready to abandon that way of living.
My unwillingness to endure extreme discomfort, just so that others are comfortable, might seem unchristian. But in this case, it’s actually progress. It’s wisdom that has been hard earned. It’s actually evidence of healing.
A couple of weeks ago, if you asked me how I was, I would have told you, joyfully, that I am in the middle of a transformation – into what, I wasn’t sure. But in the end, I knew I would be altogether different, a truly new thing.
Around the same time, I told my new supervisor, who is sharp, thoughtful, and fairly self-aware, in a carefully worded email, that, in fact, I would not be attending a webinar as I had previously agreed. This webinar featured a panel of professionals in an adjacent field who would be discussing how they – as white people – can advance racial justice and “disrupt” white held spaces and power in the industry. Specifically, I was asked to attend and report back any key takeaways for the rest of our – all white (except for me) – team.
Why? I have no idea, except that I am one of very few employees that can be tasked with anything, since consultants make up nearly half of our very small staff.
What’s the problem? It’s not an issue of pay grade, title, or status. It’s not pride. In my retraction, I said that I wasn’t comfortable following through. But it’s not really even about comfort, not entirely. It’s more than that.
In a society built to serve whiteness in every way possible, it feels … wrong to also expect marginalized people to educate or spoon-feed anything related to their experience, even steps others are taking to dismantle an oppressive system, to those who still dominate that society. It reeks of subservience and plain laziness.
To those that expect this, I offer: Why not educate yourself for yourself? Do the work of investigating, exposure, and immersion that everyone else has to do in-order to navigate this society. Share the burden. Shoot, consider it a hobby (🙄).
That subtle sense of entitlement can show up in so many different ways. But I bristle against it in all of them because, to me, it feels wrong… And by wrong, I mean, unfair and insulting.
So why did I say yes in the first place?
And this is what I haven’t told you…
I’ve had my integrity, character, professionalism, and expertise attacked in the workplace. I’m not talking about dealing with ugly rumors, office politics or the juvenile antics of middle-aged mean girls, although that’s part of the package too.
I mean the kind of attack where someone tells a lie about you to the police that, if proven to be true, could land you in jail, not just ruining your career, but revoking your freedom. And while that’s bad enough, it isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that those who were in a position to tell the truth and defend me publicly stood by and did nothing.
I could list a million reasons why the person lied about me and tried to ruin my life – bitterness, fear, jealousy, racist hatred. At least, that’s what I have been told. As for the abandonment of my supervisors, my only guess is that they feared being attacked themselves.
But in all honesty, I don’t know why anyone did what they did. I never asked. I was too busy trying not to commit murder (or assault). I was too busy trying not to be a walking stereotype. I was too busy trying not to make Jesus look bad because of his association with me. Because, while I don’t get preachy at work, I don’t hide that I rep’ Jesus either.
It took ALL of my energy to seek Jesus and do what I believe I was supposed to do in that moment, which was let him handle it. Ultimately, my name was cleared. But the whole thing was extremely hard and hurt like hell.
When I look back, I see the ease that I moved in, but didn’t feel in the moment. I see the instances where I could have easily made a different choice in one of a thousand critical moments and made things so much worse. I am sure that Jesus kept me, shielded me, even when it felt like I was taking all the blows. But years later, the pain of that experience still haunts me.
So when I am in a situation where I have to navigate white fragility, I find myself struggling to discern whether the fear, uneasiness and sometimes anger I’m feeling is a trauma response stirred up by my memories or because of a real and present danger.
So, I said yes because I was afraid to trust myself. I said yes because I hoped the pain of compliance would be easier to endure than the pain of rejection, abandonment, or being hated. I said yes because, after all I’ve seen Jesus do for me, I was still afraid to trust him to take care of me regardless of whatever happened next. But my body wouldn’t let me rest.
I couldn’t shake the sense that I had betrayed myself. So, I revoked my yes.
Via email, I said that I had changed my mind and pointed to the fact that the webinar would be recorded for anyone who was interested to review at their convenience. Period. End of sentence. No question mark. No smiley face pleading for understanding. No invitation to discuss (and possibly debate) it further.
I didn’t get a response, despite receiving a flurry of responses to other unrelated emails from the same person.
The next day, realizing that it may not have been clear why I wasn’t comfortable, I sent another email, clarifying that my retraction was due to the webinar’s subject matter. This time, I offered to discuss it.
Still, it’s been crickets over the roughly two weeks since. And I’m not sure what that means, aside from the realization that my supervisor is conflict avoidant.
Have I been ignored or accepted, if only grudgingly? I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of experience with this. Setting boundaries is new territory.
Anxiety has been knocking at my door a lot lately. Whether it’s been about the migraines, a troublesome lack of focus, the challenges of a new relationship, or really anything at all, anxiety found a way to slide in. Thankfully, I “stumbled” across an ad for an event that Joyce Meyer was livestreaming on anxiety and remembered to sign up.
Now people have different takes on Joyce Meyer and her bible teaching. But for me, she has been a God-send. She’s taught me and millions of other men and women how to know and honor God in practical ways. And her vulnerability about so much of her life, including the abuses and challenges she’s faced, have, I believe, helped save my life. So, whatever – I love her.
The event, called a Girls Night In, included worship, teaching from Joyce and a discussion panel all on the topic of anxiety. I soaked up every minute of the experience like a plant in dry, brittle soil.
The worship brought me to my knees. Snotting and crying on the floor, I was reminded of how good God is. The discussion reminded me that I am not alone in this struggle. Women all across the country who love Jesus, were also struggling with anxiety, and many, like me, were receiving help from God through prayer, therapy, and medication. But Joyce’s teaching made me realize why I had been struggling so much more lately. To my amazement, I realized that I hadn’t been doing two things: (1) avoiding worry like the plague, and (2) actively reminding myself of the times that God has taken care of me before.
Instead of running from worry, I was letting it run me ragged. I needed to cut those worried thoughts off at the knees by either focusing on what God’s word had to say about whatever I was worried about (or about “worry” itself) or focus on his faithfulness. And I had plenty of experiences with God taking care of me in matters both big and small. How could I have forgotten to do this? I was tempted to beat myself up about it. But I knew that wouldn’t help. So, this time, I skipped it and quickly, got to remembering God’s faithfulness in my life.
What about you? Do you have any memories of God taking care of you that could run what’s been bugging you off?
Creatorskind 