Several months back, I experienced a cloud of despair. It was short-lived, but during that week I documented what I was feeling. I share now, as one chronicle in the complex life of a Christ-following Christian. The following was my Day 2.
There is a heaviness on my chest that I can’t lick. It feels a little bit like anger. I don’t know why now.
I listened to I Peter 5 this morning before walking into the office. The warning was pretty clear. I am to walk in holiness, to be sober minded. Clear minded…preparing my mind for action, obedience…so that I am more like the One who has called me.
Today, I don’t know how to suppress this feeling inside, so that I can do that. I want to be clear-minded.
Do you know that yesterday, twenty Israeli hostages were finally – after two full years – released from Hamas captivity? Two years, to the week – October 7, 2023 to October 13, 2025. Imagine that for a moment, as I am trying to simultaneously.
What right have I to have any issue within me? Anger inside? Really?
I do know that grievances and wrongs in the world do not negate other grievances and wrongs in the world, just because both are happening at the same time. Else, we would never have reason to grieve a weaker wrong when there is always something far worse going on in the world (and in the mind and heart of another human).
Our feelings and emotions don’t magically turn the channel from stricken in despair to extroverted-ly happy, even when we know that others have things so much worse than we do. I wish there was a knob I could turn to change my station.
Knowing the hurts, harms and hangups that others are facing does help to give perspective though. My small problems – minuscule really – are so shadowed beneath the weight of what so many other humans are actually walking through right now, today.
I know my God cares about all of our anxieties, all of our cares – all of mine. I don’t have confidence due to the guilt swirling around them though to bring them before him right now. I can’t find many words to speak out into the quiet place.
I can say, “Lord, I don’t know why this is here, but please help.”
I do wonder now though. I’ve had increasing fatigue over the past couple of months. I’ve been more sluggish and ready for bed earlier in the evening. All could be contributed to my age, of course. Lack of exercise? Equally – yes. Is it my hormones? Likely. Or is it something else?
My physical body could have set the stage for a mental unraveling. Is it emotional and mental also or all of the above?! Now that I think about it, it could all be related.
Either way, I need my God to help. I need a mindset shift – a renewal, a spiritual restoration.
Let me be transformed by the renewing of my mind, dear Lord. Walk with me through this. Those are my words for now, but you can see deeper and hear my heart.
Our bodies were created by the Creator with our aging in mind. It’s all purposeful – the dips in hormone levels, the dreaded M that every woman must face. This season in my forties, I know my body has changed, especially over the last year. Even in that, I know God calls us to press into prayer and dependence on him. Physiological changes that also change our brains are inevitable in our humanity. We live in bodies that aren’t yet perfect after all. So we shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t function perfectly, right?
In this walk with Jesus, we have to remember that we are flesh. As much as we may want to always be in control of everything, walking out perfect self-control, and functioning at optimal emotional wellness and intelligence, we just aren’t capable. We are broken. We are sinful. We also have a soul, a spirit that learns dependence on and builds intimacy with our Creator if we lean into him more tightly in our seasons of instability. When we feel foreign even to ourselves, he is still a very present help in times of trouble.
Friend, don’t beat yourself up too badly! If you need to ask for forgiveness for behaviors that have come out of your messy season or dark night of the soul, do it for sure. We are called to be repentant and sorrowful over sin. But we aren’t condemned to stay in shame for it. Reconcile genuinely, talk it out and then move forward.
Pick that spiritual bike back up. Just because you don’t ride well for a moment, doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten how and the path is still there and open for the peddling! Get back on it and keep going. Everyone’s body needs a rest and a break from exhaustion and wear sometimes!
The following passages helped inform some of my thoughts as I journaled out my Day 2. I’m sharing them with you here as a help, as an anchor, if you are wrestling through anything now, like I was then.
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
1 Peter 1:13 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/1pe.1.13.ESV
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
1 Peter 5:6-10 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/1pe.5.6-10.ESV
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:2 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/rom.12.2.ESV
“In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”
Psalm 18:6 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.18.6.ESV
“Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
Psalm 19:12-14 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.19.12-14.ESV
““I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:1-5 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/jhn.15.1-5.ESV
Mining Beneath the Ordinary 