God will sustain you

The last couple weeks have been a doozy. On Sunday, May 16th, my sweet sister brought my adorable nephew into the world – but nothing about his arrival has been what we expected. He shot out in less than 15 minutes of pushing (as opposed to the 6 hours it took to welcome my niece), landing himself in the doctor’s hands, my sister’s arms, and then much to everyone’s surprise the NICU.  

There’s more to be told about this story (stay tuned for that) and I covet your prayers for baby Leo who will hopefully be home soon – but right now the words that the Lord keeps writing on my heart, ones I feel led to share with you, are “I will sustain you.” 

There have been a few moments where I thought I might literally fall over from exhaustion. I’m doing everything I possibly can to help out my sister and brother-in-law – and honestly some moments I’ve thought, “whoa, Lord I don’t have the capacity for all of this. This is heavy – emotionally and physically.” And as quickly as the thought floated through my mind the Lord responded with a resounding – “You may not have the capacity, but I do.” 

God will sustain me.
God will sustain me. 
God will sustain me. 

As I sat on their couch one night, holding down the fort as my niece slept and my sister and brother-in-law headed off to the NICU to be with Leo, I did a deep dive into the word sustain. 

I’m a definition-loving kind of gal so that’s where I started. 

Sustain means: 

• to strengthen, support, or maintain

• to give relief to

• to supply with sustenance

Then I opened the concordance in my Bible to see where I could find this word in scripture. I had the Holy Spirit’s words, and the physical evidence that God was in fact sustaining me throughout this week, but I wanted to see what the Bible had to say about it. 

Friends, if you’re feeling drained – these scriptures are bound to boost you up. So I have to share them with you. (Each one comes from NIV translation. The emphasis added is my own). 

You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; You stoop down to make me great. Psalm 18:35

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall. Psalm 55:22

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. Hebrews 1:3

This last one, doesn’t specifically contain the word sustain, but I am so glad that the concordance included it in the list because I think it’s my favorite one. Psalm 18:28 says, “You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; My God turns my darkness into light.”

That is exactly what the Lord has been doing for me, and for my family this week. He has kept our lamp burning, He has turned a heavy situation – the unknown, unexpected, uncomfortable waiting period before Leo comes home – into light because of how He cares for us.  

How are You feeling this week? 

Are these words like salve for your exhausted soul? 

My prayer for you today is that you would find the encouragement you need in the truth that God will sustain you. If you’re feeling weak and tired or like you might tip over from the weight you feel, pick one of these scriptures, write it on a piece of paper and tape it somewhere you can see it. 

You are not alone in the struggle that you feel this week – our MIGHTY God is sustaining you and He will not let you fall.

How to Embrace Unknowns

At 4:45 in the morning, I launched myself out of bed in a fit of rage. “Seriously, Finn?” I shouted at my cat as I pounded my feet towards the stairway. Realizing my head had yet to catch up to its violent awakening and that I didn’t really want to start my morning pummeling head first down the stairs, I paused, closed my eyes, and took an angry inhale.

For the past 6 months we have been dealing with health issues with our cat. What started as random bouts of itching turned into aggressive scratching, missing patches of fur, and open cuts on his face, ears, and chin. After numerous trips to the vet, visits with a holistic pet nutritionist, a complete diet overhaul, and various medications, our question remains; why won’t he stop itching?

Sometimes he gets better and we think we’ve turned a corner, and then other days it’s as if he’s attempting to scratch his whiskers off. This maniacal behavior combined with perpetual repetition – enough to wake one up in the wee hours of the morning – is what transforms an innocent unknown into an exasperated conniption.  

“Go downstairs, Finn!” I yelled as I stomped to the first floor where I could close a few doors to lock him out of our bedroom and prevent myself from hearing him itch. In my sleepy stupor, I tripped over his water bowl, sent a wave of water onto the wood floor, and drenched my foot in the puddle I created. My fury erupted in a passionate “UGHHHH!!”

Seriously, Lord? I thought. I can’t do this anymore.  

As I climbed back into bed, despite the looming cloud of madness, I knew deep down that the root of my anger wasn’t my cat. It wasn’t the fact that he was itching or even that he woke me up for the 26th time way before the sun came up. The problem was, as soon as I heard Finn itching, my mind immediately jumped on the anxious hamster wheel of unknowns. Could it be food related even though we’ve already switched him several times? What’s wrong with our house? Is there some unidentified allergen? What if it’s bad for my health too? What if we never figure out what causes the issue? What if he never stops itching? What if he dies because of it?

Each of these questions, anxiety producing in their own rite, is strung together with one common denominator – how do I deal with the unknown? 

Embracing the unknown as a child of God

Sitting on the cold, brown leather couch in my counselor’s office one month, I recounted how one of the stressors impacting my anxiety recently was a barrage of unknowns, one of them being this unrelenting struggle to understand my cat’s itchiness. I told her that my biggest struggles with unknowns are fear of worst case scenarios, fear of failure, and the troubling lack of control; and I vocalized my understanding that the surplus of hours spent trying to manipulate a situation that is simply out of my control was a very slippery slope launching me into a sticky pit of anxiety.

After listening to me share and affirming the validity of my frustration she said, “Embracing the unknown is an important part of being a child of God.”

Processing that truth for a moment, I took a deep resigning breath and agreed – she is 1000% correct. We have an awesome God who reveals who He is through His word, but we cannot and will not know everything about how He operates or how everything in our lives will take shape. There’s both beauty and conviction in this truth.

Before Jesus went to the cross, He talked to the disciples about when He would return to earth for a second time and said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.” (Mark 13:32-33 NIV) Jesus was fully human and fully God, and yet He too lived in the tension of unknowns.  

If we want to follow Jesus and truly surrender our lives to Him, we must recognize that an important aspect of trusting God is embracing the truth that there will always be an element of unknown in our lives.

Shifting our perspective

A month ago, I pursued yet another attempt to minimize my cat’s itchiness – I bought an air purifier. I spent several days researching options and landed on one with glowing reviews regarding allergies. Maybe this will be it! Maybe this will finally banish the itch! I thought.

Amazon dropped the package on my front porch a few days later and I frantically opened the box and got the unit up and running. I had no idea if this would actually work, but I was extremely hopeful and truthfully, quite a bit desperate at this point.

“Please, Lord. Let this be it! Let this be the solution,” I prayed over and over again.

In the quiet of my bedroom as I listened to the whir of the machine at work, I heard the Lord convict me – Mindy, yet again you are putting your hope in something unpredictable, something you do not know, when you could be placing your hope in ME.

We may not know what God has in mind, but we do know WHO He is. We know that He is an almighty God. He is a Healer. He is our protector. He advocates for us. He sympathizes with our pain. He loves us SO much that He sent His son to save us from the separation created by sin. And He does not leave us to fend for ourselves in the unknowns.

When we fix our eyes on who God is, we shift our perspective and suddenly the things unknown seem much more manageable.  

Relinquishing control

I’m still tempted to entertain thoughts about worst scenarios; I don’t love the lack of control; and I’m afraid that this most recent attempt at fixing Finn’s itchiness will fail. BUT, I’ve learned that by putting my trust in God, I no longer need to live under the weight of those what ifs. I can free myself of their doom and gloom by speaking truths about who God is and knowing that I am under his loving care.

I don’t know if Finn’s itchiness will be healed on this side of heaven, but I know that God is with me and will love me, guide me, and give me strength to endure whatever comes my way.

Friends, if you are living in the midst of an unknown and wrestling with the weight of its existence, let me proclaim this truth; living with unknowns is not a punishment – it’s an opportunity to relinquish control and place our trust in the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

We are living in the tension of unknowns together; You are not alone in this. If you need an ear to listen, and a voice to remind you of the goodness of our Father, please reach out. I’m here for you.

Together, let’s walk humbly in the direction God leads us and know that He will give us strength as we navigate this world full of unknowns.

One sure-fire way to quiet anxiety

The other day, I was staring in the mirror, straightening my hair when I noticed something alarming.  I strained my body over the bathroom counter, pressed my face a breath away from the mirror and instantly started sweating; one of my pupils was bigger than the other!  Rapidly zooming my glare from one eye to the other I noticed, my left eye looked normal but my right eye appeared as if it alone had taken a trip to the eye doctor for dilation.  Taking a deep breath, I tried not to panic – but that effort was too little, too late.  Anxiety dug in it’s heels and overwhelmed me. 

I have what I like to call a “special” body.  Sometimes I say that lightheartedly with a chuckle and an eye roll, and other times I say it through gritted teeth.  Through the past 7 years, I’ve struggled with the results of a hypermobile body.  I’ve had painful issues with both clavicles, my right hip, ribs and forearms; but I’ve come to terms with it.  I’ve chosen to accept my body for the oddness that it is, and learn how to care for it better.  In this moment, with one owl-eye, the resigned acceptance of my “special” body disappeared.  I was frustrated, confused, and rudely greeted by the all-too familiar symptoms of anxiety – instant sweat (in a heavy bout), shallow breathing, and panicked, unrealistic, thinking. 

Someone without anxious tendencies might look at uneven pupils and think “hmm.. that’s weird.  I wonder if my eyeballs have always been like that.”  Or, quite honestly, they might not even notice.  And then there’s me – hyper aware of my body, sometimes to a fault, rattled and thinking “I probably have a brain tumor.”

The combination of anxiety and a tricky body can easily be a recipe for disaster.  But through years of experience, I’ve learned one sure-fire way to quiet anxiety. 

The most distinguishable characteristic about anxious thinking is that it is not rational.  It’s like all of a sudden all of your logical, mental warriors take a nap, and in rush the crazy ones – the ones that say senseless things like “Something is definitely wrong with you.” “It’s probably life-threatening.” “Remember that one terrifying thing you googled – yup, that’s what you have…”  “This is serious… definitely serious.”

When I’m struggling with these absurd thoughts, the last thing I want to do is admit them to someone else.  To bring a “normal” thinking human into my unreasonable cloud of thoughts feels humiliating.  But here’s the thing – speaking anxious lies out loud is one sure-fire to take away anxiety’s power.   Instead of giving in to the temptation to shut myself in with my irrational, panicked thinking, I’ve learned that the first thing I need to do is reach out.

Frozen in front of my mirror, freaked by my huge pupil I took a deep breath, exhaled loudly and rushed downstairs to find my husband.  With wide eyes, I showed him my pupils and exclaimed, “What’s wrong with me?”  Tenderly, Chris talked me off the ledge.  He assured me I wasn’t going to die instantly, and spoke truth over me reminding me my enlarged pupil was most likely related to the tightness in my neck and headache I had been battling that week.

The only way to combat the lies of anxious thinking is with truth.  And when we can’t speak truth to ourselves, we have to invite others in to do so. 

After inviting my husband to speak truth over me, I decided to take it one step further.  I called my eye doctor.  Another one of the lies that anxiety likes to sell to health anxiety sufferers like myself is “Don’t call your doctor – he’ll only affirm you of the impending doom that you are fearing!” Let me go ahead and say a whopping, “FALSE!” to that one. 

I’ve realized that staying better in touch with my health professionals through yearly checkups, or asking questions when I’m concerned has helped me keep my anxiety at bay.  Case in point – my eye doctor graciously encouraged me not to panic and made space in his schedule to see me the next day.  At my appointment I found out that my uneven pupils are simply another anomaly in my body.  He affirmed me that it was most likely a consequence of my headache and encouraged me to just keep an eye on it - no pun intended ;) 

Leaving the eye doctor, I felt 100 lbs lighter not just because I was assured that I was okay, but because I had taken a pro-active step to take away anxiety’s power.  You know what I did next?  Went home and popped a bottle of champagne because moments of victory over anxiety deserve to be celebrated.

If you’re a health anxiety sufferer like me, my prayer is that you would be encouraged by these 3 things:

1. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  Need to be convinced?  Shoot me an email – I’d be happy to give you plenty of examples of the crazy things I’ve had anxiety over.
2. Speak your anxiety out loud – We can combat anxiety's lies with truth - admit your anxious thoughts to a friend or a family member and invite them to speak truth over your mind.
3. Your doctor is not your enemy – Throughout the years I’ve built a team of medical professionals (physical therapist, chiropractor, masseuse, eye doctor and dentist) who know that I have a “special” body and they understand my struggle with it.  They don’t roll their eyes at me when I admit a weird question, they kindly explain what they see and assure me that my “special” body is not a weakness.  Have a doctor who doesn’t make you feel comfortable? Find a new one.  They should be there to support you. 

Anxiety is a real jerk - but we don’t have to be willing victims.  Stand your ground and invite others to help you take away its power.