And I wonder why I am so weary. Why I feel so anxious. Why I can't sleep at night. Why life feels like it's against me. Why won't God take away the hard things? The suffering? The problems that are obstacles to the life of joy and peace that I so long for? I have prayed for peace and joy for so many years of my life. Sought after it like holding water in a hand...watching it trickle out the bottom, gone. It has felt like an elusive pursuit. One that perhaps is just not my lot in this life.
And yet...I am told that he has come to give us life. To give joy and peace! We are told that he does not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, and love, and a sound mind.
I know most of the verses that talk about peace. I have prayed them, cried over them, shaken my fist at God because they just aren't happening in my life...
And he says that anyone who has the spirit of God living in them does not have fear living in them. The two cannot exist in the same place. And yet fear is lingering in me. I have asked over and over for this fear to leave. Asked God to come and fill me. Why is it still there? And the possible answers fill me with more fear. Perhaps I'm not praying the right way. Perhaps I've missed something. Perhaps I don't have enough faith. Perhaps...
"Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest."
I have cried out for this rest. Longed for it. Wondered what it would feel like to feel at rest. To me that means the opposite of anxiety. The opposite of banging my head against the wall. Perhaps it looks like surrender.
But how does one actually surrender? I have thought about war and how when the side that is losing finally faces the fact that they don't have what it takes to win, they surrender. I've wondered if there is a sense of peace when they lay down their weapons and stop fighting? Perhaps they are terrified and at peace all in the same moment.
"Surrender don't come natural to me..."
I've wondered what surrender looks like. How does one surrender? How do I let go and let God? How do I stop fighting and trying and fixing?
I'm a pro at trying to figure things out in my head. And internet has really helped a person like me to feel like all it takes is typing in the question and finding the answer, and then trying it. I've tried lots of supplements, I've bought lots of products that tell me they're the thing I'm missing. I've believed that if I just eat this way I'm going to get better, and I'm going to sleep well tonight, and my son's eczema is going to get better...
BUT the problem is, there is always the next website that tells me why this won't work, or why this other supplement will work instead, or maybe I need to worry that there's something wrong with me that isn't wrong with anyone else in the whole world...so there's not a solution for me (even though there's a solution for everyone else).
Half empty supplements standing in my closet remind me daily of all my attempts to find answers for my anxiety, insomnia, and eczema, etc.
And yet I keep trying to figure it out. Trying to fix the problems that stand between me and that abundant joy-filled life.
I have struggled with this tendency for most of my adulthood, though it's looked different in different seasons. But I can look back and see the thread of fear, and my response to it by looking for answers, trying to control the situation...and how sometimes this will temporarily hush the fear. Temporarily problems will seem fixed. Sometimes the problems go away, only to be replaced by another...darn it.
So what's a girl supposed to do?
Nothing. Stop. Cease striving. Quit. Surrender.
Oh my, oh my, oh my...I feel like I'm being stripped of my weapons, laid bare. How do I stop doing when that's all I have practiced? My weapon in the face of fear is to fight it. To figure out how to overcome it. But I'm discovering in this past year that no matter how much I try, this mountain is too tall for me to climb. All the self-help books, all the counseling, all the doing...it's just not getting me up the mountain. Because I'm trying to walk up the mountain on my own path. On the path of my own strength, my own doing.
I look around hopelessly. Straining to see if there are any other paths that will enable me to get to the top of my fear mountain, to overcome it (and not be overcome by it). I feel like the rock climber who has scaled a great cliff, but have 10 feet above me that I just can't get up and over. It's the hardest part. The rock is lose, crumbling, and I'm not able to get my footing. Weary, shaking, and very aware of the long fall below.
And this is where the story shifts. I hear a voice say "Lori, you can't. Now it's time for you to sit back in the harness and trust me. Surrender. Stop looking at the mountain above you and relying on your strength. You and I both know that you don't have what it takes..."
And I'm left on the side of the cliff knowing that I don't have the strength, but not sure that I can let go of the side of the mountain and trust the rope and the harness. But the invitation sounds nice...sounds restful even.
In the last few days I've had this realization...I don't have the strength to summit the mountain that is my fear. I don't have what it takes. My hope lies in an invitation to let go. It feels strange to "do nothing". But it also feels freeing. If it's not up to me to overcome my fear and anxiety, then I can rest in this place of listening and waiting. It's a different kind of doing...it takes intentionality. Because each time I begin to attempt to fix or do something, I have to stop myself and say "nope, not going to play that game anymore. Lay down your weapons, sit back and trust." So it's a new way of moving forward. With no guarantees of what the road ahead looks like. But instead of asking Google to figure out what is going to work for me, I'm asking God...who knows me and understands me. He gets me. I'm not his guinea pig. I'm not even the exception...the one that can't be helped. Nope, there are no exceptions with God. And that is why there's hope, even for me. (and you)
Hold Me Jesus--Rich Mullins
Well, sometimes my life
Just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small
CHORUS:
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace
And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart
CHORUS
Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees
And this Salvation Army band
Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin
CHORUS
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace
