I find myself in this Advent season, today in particular, fighting to keep my head above emotional waters. Depression and rage are weights around my ankles, and my anxious mind is hopelessly fighting against the current with a futile determination to fix situations that are completely outside of my control. I resolved going into the Advent season this year learning how to wait and hope for God. Hell, I even got a book and everything. And already, three days in, I’m losing patience. I’m grasping wildly for a sense of control. I’m having a hard time believing that hope, joy, and peace are things that are available to me. It’s certainly available to others, but not to me. Ugh, I know that last sentence is particularly self-pitying… but I can’t deny these very real feelings.
Have you been in this place before too? I know I can’t be alone in this. I have dear friends who have literally and figuratively sat with me in my emotional and spiritual mess and have acknowledged that they too have felt this, are feeling this. If you’re feeling this way too, just know you’re not alone.
One of the toughest parts of the holiday season for me is the charge to be joyful, merry, bright, jolly, full of wonder. As someone who struggles constantly with anxiety, those emotional dimensions can be difficult for me to access, especially on command. The trees and sparkle and songs taunt me and are a stark contrast to how I feel inside, rather than an inspiration for joy, which makes me further aware of the distance between the “thrill of hope” I so desperately crave and my more-familiar agony of *wanting* to be hopeful.
Geez, what a bummer. Sidebar: You wouldn’t know it, but my intent with this blog was to actually feature more fun writing, but it’s turned into spiritual musings (though, to me that’s fun) and has also become a platform to give description/color/understanding about my own battle with anxiety and depression. As I’m sure is the case for many others, the emotional and spiritual parts of me are very tightly intertwined, so I can never write about one thing without mentioning the other. And honestly these things have been taking up a lot of my own brain space so it’s nice to have an outlet. Best case scenario, someone else on the other side of the internet who may struggle with similar mental health issues will read this and feel like they have a buddy who gets what they’re going through.
Anyway, back to this. Since yesterday, I’ve had part of a verse from a church song stuck in my head. Both very conveniently and inconveniently, the line is: “Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord.”
Convenient: Hey, it’s Advent. I’m so ready for Advent this year. I bought a book for it and everything! And now this song about waiting on the Lord is stuck in my head, which is great because Advent is about waiting. How timely! And I’m so ready to welcome this season of waiting this year. It shouldn’t be too hard to wait. Did I mention that I even got a book for it? I’m, clearly, so serious about embracing the process of waiting.
Inconvenient: No, actually, waiting fucking sucks. I hate being passive. I hate the lack of control. I want to skip past this month, this whole MONTH in which I should just apparently be absorbing and secreting joy the whole time and I just can’t. Also, I want this song out of my head. Waiting doesn’t strengthen me. It makes me on-edge, anxious. Being anxious depletes me. My strength doesn’t rise. It falls with a crash and bursts into flames. What’s wrong with me.
As people cooler than myself might say, “the struggle is real”. It’s a very palpable tension for me each year, but this year in particular, the tension has been nothing short of unmerciful. It’s testing that very strength that should be rising while I wait for an agent outside of myself to put things in motion.
Worship pastors out there, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the song I’m referencing is inspired by Isaiah 40. It’s a chapter to which thoughtful NIV Bible translators assigned the subtitle “Comfort for God’s People”. The chapter is indeed one of comfort, wonder, magnificence, and reconciliation. Verses 28-31 go:
“Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.”
When I wrestle with not feeling joy in the Christmas season and when I encase my heart in cynicism when I perceive superficial merriness, perhaps part of struggle is that I’m missing something, skipping a step. Yes, Christmas is meant to be celebrated as a time of joy and hope; but it’s also meant to be a season of comfort, even renewed strength. Even in the accounts of Jesus’ birth and events surrounding it, there are angels comforting troubled and terrified people with the words, “Do not be afraid”, before they deliver their joy-filled messages. To receive a message of joy, a troubled heart first needs to be comforted. To see the glory of the God who is at work in our time and space, and then to be filled with joy as a result, our weak and scared spirits need to be strengthened. It’s really hard to have the capacity to hear and respond to something appropriately when you’re petrified by fear. At best, fear clouds the message; at worst, fear makes us miss the message entirely.
And I need to remind myself that having “renewed strength” does not imply that I’m going to solve or fix problems as a result (or that doing these thing will bring me comfort/joy). Instead, I can be comforted not by anything that I can do, but instead merely by the very fact that the God of Creation, who does not grow tired or weary, tells me to not be afraid. He’s the one who brought good news, who is the great reconciler, who is the great problem solver, the compassionate healer. I must allow myself to be comforted and not fight back in the way I want to fight back, which is usually a stubborn “No! I *need* to be afraid, and here’s why…” Only after taking in the comfort, only after letting go of the fear, can I see and understand the goodness and power of God this season and respond in joy.
I don’t have this all figured out by any stretch of the imagination. The anger and fear that sit inside me are still there. By the grace of God though, the awareness of my state of being and my need for comfort and my desire for joy are also there, alongside those tougher feelings. Similar to waiting being a process, receiving comfort and being strengthened by it is also a process. It’s a painful letting go. Burdened by anxiety, letting go is the last thing I’d want to do, so much so that even after I have let go of something, oftentimes I grasp it immediately all over again, and hold even more tightly than the last go-around. It’s a process. It’s all a process. And so far, I can at least assure myself that I still have hope in the process and trust that it will indeed strengthen me and eventually be a way to experience true joy. In this way, Advent is a blessing. It teaches us and provides space to wait, to struggle, and to receive comfort and strength.
If your struggle is similar, my prayer for you is that you grow through the process (the waiting, the comfort, the strengthening) and come out the other side experiencing joy this season as well.
let's hang out, won't you?