Gentle Reader,
I missed the chat last night due to the ongoing love/hate relationship I have with my computer and technology. There are days when the very thought of opening my laptop makes me tense. This wars with my very real need to keep a writing schedule. And the fact that I thoroughly enjoy Five Minute Friday and the authors I’ve met.
Anyway.
Kate asks us to contemplate: when.
Go.
It’s not an “if.”
It’s a “when.”
Unless the Lord sees fit to release me, I will go through periods of intense anxiety. I can’t necessarily predict when they will come (I was blindsided this week), but I know they will. I know that I will wake up some morning in a cold sweat, heart pounding. I don’t know how long it will last. Sometimes a day, sometimes a month.
Oddly, they do not come when I’m actually in the middle of something that should produce anxiety.
Funny how the mind works.
What becomes of the unmedicated? How can we who are forced to ride the chemical brain waves unaided cope?
It’s a whole lot of, “Help me, Jesus.” It’s a lot of, “Let me find something mindless I can plug into so I don’t over-analyze anything” (hence the fact that I’ve now watched 33 episodes of The Blacklist in 11 days; don’t judge me). It’s a lot of talking to yourself – “Okay, I need to get up. Make the bed. Take a shower. Good, I accomplished all that. Now I can eat breakfast…”
But mostly it’s a whole lot of, “Help me, Jesus,” even if you don’t say it out loud. Even if your mind is too rattled to focus on in-depth prayer or Scripture reading. You are very consistently aware that it is Christ who carries you through.
So before those without this struggle judge the worriers of the world, before casting a superior glance toward the hand-wringers, remember this: We know to take it to Jesus.
We’re doing it every second of the day.
Stop.
