"His arrows surround me. Without mercy He splits my kidneys open; He pours out my gall on the ground" (Job 16:13, NASB).I am not a huge coffee drinker, but I do love me some French Vanilla every once in a while. I'll tap that a few times a week. I do need to be careful because my body reacts easily to caffeine. After a cup, I'll sometimes notice my muscles are a little more jittery and I even start to get anxious about nothing. I get wrestless.
It will often trigger memories. It's like an arrow will hit me at my side, bringing with it a memory of a hurtful time of life, a time when anxiety was my master. A time when I couldn't help but scream out loud in the shower, a scream of utmost agony. Nothing is worth that much anxiety. But during that time in life, it started to feel familiar to me, like a twisted sense of comfort and safety. I began to know what that felt like, and it was my outlet. All clear signs of sinking into despair.
I wish I knew what steps I took to get out of that, but I don't. I know God must have had something to do with bringing me out of it, but I don't think I can say to myself, given I fall into another phase of that, "ok, this sucks but, I can just apply what I learned last time and bam - I'm out of this."
And the memories stick, like arrows do. Whoever invented arrows was a smart, morbid person. They are designed to enter the body and stick. You can't really pull them out without shredding the innards along with them.
It reminds me of Braveheart, where one of the fathers was shot by an arrow. In order to continue to fight, he snapped off the end of the arrow, leaving the tip lodged in his body. That's all he could do to get up and move.
So now what? Are these arrows permanently lodged in my body with blood dripping down, making up the person that I am? Or will they just somehow go away? Or better yet, will God completely heal those wounds with his healing touch, while leaving those memories there as part of my story? I hope the latter, because I need those memories to relate to people. When I see someone struggling with anxiety, my heart absolutely breaks for them. And I can't say, "chin up." I can only say, "this sucks that you're in this spot, and I don't know what God's doing with it, and I know how much you hurt right now," and just sit there with them.
I am glad that I have these arrows with me. I just hope that another will see them and say, "hey, those look a lot like mine. Would you sit with me for a minute?"
4 comments:
Yo bro -
Sometimes you read the right thing, at the right time, said just the right way. Today, this was it. What a beautiful picture of despair, hope, tension, honesty, and tenderness. Rock on man!
I'm hoping that someone will invent a machine like the one on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Really, really honest words here Ian.
I hope the latter for you as well, but I'm sure the process of the wounds healing will involve some painful re-opening along the way...and that reality will speak to people just as powerfully as moving completely beyond a struggle like this.
We're all broken people, and once we get honest about this, we should come to the place where we're much more grace-filled in our relationships and walk beside one another in the midst of the pain. I don't like it, but this brokenness is a consistent part of our existence; so we strive and we get frustrated and we feel like giving up sometimes, but we need folks to do what you're suggesting, I think. Saying "chin up" is often naive and almost never helps...being with each other in the midst of the suckiness may not solve things right away, but it sure helps to have someone around. At least that's my experience.
And the last section;
"I am glad that I have these arrows with me. I just hope that another will see them and say, 'hey, those look a lot like mine. Would you sit with me for a minute?'"
This is three sentences to live into for a lifetime.
I just hope I don't get shot in the throat with an arrow. A real one.
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