It was mid-December, and once again, I found myself on the floor of our kitchen, my back pressed hard against the sink cabinet. I was hyperventilating, crying uncontrollably, frantically trying to make it all stop. But my brain was stuck in a fear loop, and with each shallow pant, terror and anxiety squeezed my lungs and heart a little more.
Elyas, my three year old with autism, was off on his daily screaming and crying routine somewhere in the house, as he’d been for the past few hours. We’d been dealing with these epic behavioral and emotional meltdowns multiple times a day. That lasted hours. And it’d been going on for weeks.
Henry, my two year old with Down syndrome, had crawled and cried his way right into my lap, as he usually does when Elyas is dysregulated. I held him as best I could until I could feel the vise loosening. I looked at the clock; I’d been on the floor 20-some minutes, which meant I’d spent about 3 hours of my day so far in panic attacks.
The last few months (and years) had dealt our family some unforeseen blows and startling twists that changed the landscape of our life as we knew it. And apparently today I had found my breaking point.
A few days later both our family therapist and my personal counselor officially diagnosed me with chronic PTSD.
Merry Christmas to me.
*
In the last six months I’ve been on an intense learning curve on how to truly renew my mind. To take every thought captive. To keep an eternal perspective.
It’s a three-steps-forward-two-steps-back kinda journey. Sometimes four steps back.
I’m learning to ask if my fear, if what I worry about, matters in light of eternity. Whose kingdom am I building—whose table am I feasting at?
This is not to disregard the anxiety or grief or pain of the moment—those are real emotions that need to be acknowledged. We were never called to be automatons; our emotions are part of the divine nature breathed into us at the creation of the world. But like all things in our nature, they, too, need the Redeemer’s touch.
And so we learn to right-size, to stop being impressed with the size of our problems. It’s like moving the telescope away from your eye. That treacherous looking tsunami ahead? It’s just a rolling wave. Yes, it will rock your boat a little, but it won’t crush you or wash you away.
And we learn to break trauma cycles and fear loops. We renew our minds in the words and the presence of the One who makes all things new. Then we can actually create new neural pathways so our brains will stop automatically dragging ours past hurts and fears into the present and projecting them into our future.
And we learn to see the blessings and the beauty around us. We hold tight to the promise that because of all God has done, we can have a new perspective (2 Cor. 5:16).
*
Around the same time as my diagnosis, the boys and I were having a dance party in the kitchen. I was on my knees with Henry as he sat and waved his arms and spun in circles on his bottom. Elyas was “doing his moves” around us. We’d been laughing and being goofy and making up silly moves.
Then an unexpected song started playing. It was a song I had listened to so many times in the early years of my struggle with infertility. In the beginning years of therapy when healing from past hurts seemed an impossible task. It became an anthem of sorts for me—of pain and unrealized dreams, but also of worship and Hope:
Hey now, this my desire
Consume me like a fire, ‘cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I’m in reach
‘Cause I am down on my knees, I’m waiting for something beautiful
As I sang along, I wanted to crystallize this moment. Some of my deepest heart’s desires were literally dancing around me. Nothing about my life looked like expected. But this moment was pure delight, pure love.
The years of longing and pain crumbled under the weight of the joy set before me.
*
A few years ago, when we had things like disposable income and no children, Brian and I were in Iceland and did one of the scariest hikes I’ve ever done. Before the real hike even started, you had to walk over a mile or two of rocky terrain, climb through a few caves, and ford a rushing river with nothing but a steel cable and a series of logs and rocks that were all underwater.
Then you had the pleasure of scrambling and scaling mountainous cliff faces with no ropes or safety holds until you reached the top.
Also it was pouring rain, so everything was super slick.
Also I didn’t even want to cross the river.
It took us a few hours to make it to the top. We kept meeting people turning around, muttering it wasn’t worth it—and I not-so-silently agreed with them. I couldn’t look at what was ahead nor could I look at the dizzying trail behind. I had to conquer my fear one slippery step at a time.
But oh. The beauty that awaited us was like nothing I had ever seen.
There was a lush, green gorge that cut its way through the mountains, fed by three gorgeous waterfalls, hundreds of feet high. We caught glimpses of the sight as we ascended, but to see it open wide before us was memorizing. We spent almost as much time lounging at the top, taking it all in, as we did the rest of the hike.
In the face of such splendor I could almost forget the crazy, treacherous, fear-filled path I had just taken. And the beauty was that much more majestic, that much more breathtaking, that much more sweetly victorious, given all I had just undergone.
*
We all have seasons where everything feels completely out of control. Or anxiety hits us like a rockslide. Or we’re drowning in heartache or loneliness or desperation. Our problems and pain loom large, we lose sight of our way forward, we mutter this isn’t worth it. And when things don’t get better after a few weeks, a few months, a few years, fear creeps in and tells us that we will never leave this place. That we will always feel this way. That God has forgotten us or is punishing us.
But God is making all things new. Our job is to believe that, to trust Him, and to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Because each new step—no matter how small—brings you to a new place. You are not where you were, and that brings new perspective to the landscape around you. And when you look back, you will see how far you’ve come. How small your problems are. How much you’ve conquered. How much beauty surrounds you.
Yes, there was sorrow and hardship and loneliness. But there was also Goodness and Love and Hope—so much more than you could even perceive at the time.
And when you can see this, when you can let this truth seep into the broken places of your heart, the heartache and the weariness and the loneliness will melt away at the joy set before you.
***
