Truths I Return to When I Feel Like God’s Little Failure
Coping with Generalized Anxiety as a Christian
Today, the anxiety was rough.
So, tonight I am taking a break from my regular programming to bring you… a piece of Truth that helps me on hard days. It doesn’t matter if you have some mental disorder or not — we all beat ourselves up for wasting time, making “wrong” decisions, failing to be enough… the list goes on and on.
So tonight, I’m going to share one of many Truths that help me on days when anxiety eats up minutes and hours and emotional energy and social committments and the ability to do much of anything. And then I feel guilty about it, which makes for a gnarly catch-22.
Power in Weakness
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” (Mt. 5:3) According to this, I’m blessed. This is a hard Truth to swallow. Is He saying that because I have an anxiety disorder that keeps me weak, that I am blessed?
That’s certainly not an American Truth. We celebrate the strong. We tell ourselves we are strong. Many of us even listen to recordings of strangers telling us we’re strong. It’s a helpful thing to believe, I guess. Until you realize you’re not.
Until something like Corona shows up and shakes your foundations and reminds you that, actually, a miniscule particle-thing can take you down — and bring your world crashing down with it.
Even if this pandemic never hit, our frailty would still be a fact. Like it or not, the reality is that you and I might die any minute. Or to be maybe a smidge less dramatic, you could develop a mental disorder. Or lose your job (I’m in that club too). We aren’t as undefeatable as we like to think we are.
And while it may feel scary at first, accepting that fact, my friends, is a blessing, because no one can suck the marrow out of life unless they embrace reality with integrity. Knowing I’m weak keeps me humble. It keeps me coming back to Jesus, and that is the place I am most alive — where any person is most alive.
Mental disorders are thorns, not sins.
Anxiety is a thorn, like the one Paul writes about in his second letter to the church in Corinth:
“to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:7–10 ESV)
I tried those verses on, and they fit the life I’ve been given:
Because of the fact that I grew up in the church, have been in relationship with Jesus since 7th grade or so, have been on mission trips in five countries, been a Young Life leader for 15 years, have a MA degree and a profession in education, and bc He’s blessed me with this enduring intimacy with him, because I’ve been blessed with financial security and ease, FOR THIS REASON, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in my flesh called Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a messenger of Satan to torment me — to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord 28459084 times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with my anxiety disorder, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
C.S. Lewis on Mental Illness
The “god” in my anxious episodes tells me I’m a little failure. He is disappointed in me. But these words of C.S. Lewis help defeat the anxious lies:
“If you are a poor creature [like myself], poisoned by a wretched up-bringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels — saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion [or mental illness] — nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends — do not despair…
…He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that), He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all — not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school.”
“Poisoned, saddled, and nagged.” Sounds a lot like mental illness to me. My disorder poisons the truth, saddles me with physical exhaustion, and nags and nags at me with its lies and physiological annoyances.
“Saddled” acknowledges the truth that we didn’t bring this anxiety upon ourselves. It has been placed on us. And like a saddle and its accompanying bridle and dressings, it controls me.
Like Paul’s thorn, anxiety feels like “a messenger of Satan sent to torment me.” The real me is a wild, free horse. GAD hoists a saddle on my back, and attempts to control me. I have no interest in being saddled — I did not ask for it. And regardless of what some of my naive bros and sis’s believe, it is not within my power remove — or trust me — it would be gone.
“Do what you can.” I hope that makes you feel free. That’s all God asks of us anyways. He knows exactly what you’re dealing with.
Understood and Embraced
He knows the darkness. He’s lived through it Himself, both on the cross, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and throughout His time on Earth. He gets it. He put His own skin the in game to rescue us — to bring us peace with our Creator.
Psalm 103:14 says, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.”
He knows that our bodies, which revolve around the physiology of our brains, are not perfect. He might not cure it right now, but He is with you in it.
This post is a bit disjointed, but I’m trying to losen my grip on perfection so that Truth can do its work in the world. Much love to you. ❤
