Have you ever been so stressed or worried that you could actually feel it inside of your body?
The kind of anxiety that keeps you awake at night, long after your body has surrendered – the kind that presses down on you like a heavy hand, taking your breath away in waves? The kind that makes your heart beat erratically, makes your stomach lurch like going over the edge of a rickety wooden roller coaster, and manifests itself by settling into your neck and lower back?
Even typing this now, I’m aware of the casual distance that these things are lingering at. They sit in the corner of my room, waiting for the right thought to flash across my mind, so that they can climb onto my shoulders and into my stomach, causing me to ache from the inside out.
Worry. Dread. Uncertainty. Fear.
Two weeks ago at 6:45 am, I was kicked back in the passenger seat daydreaming about a Starbucks coffee with my mom, excitedly on our way to catch our flight to California.
At 7:15 am, I was being put in handcuffs and escorted out of the Detroit airport, under arrest. All because I made the foolish, foolish mistake of not checking all the pockets of my carry-on bags.
In my excitement for our trip, I had selected and packed a purse that I failed to completely clean out. So as I watched my luggage roll through the security checkpoint, stop, and immediately be pulled aside, I was momentarily confused as to why five security guards immediately started gathering around me. “Did you know that this is illegal to carry onto a plane, miss?” they asked as they dumped my bag out onto the aluminum counter, the single forgotten item tumbling out with a clatter. I stared at it, speechless.
Within minutes, I was on my way to the airport police station, questioned, and locked in a holding cell. I looked around at the security cameras, white walls, and slowly sat down onto the single mattress pad in the corner of the room.
I’m a good person! I wanted to scream. I would never try to hurt someone! I made a mistake!
Why is this happening!?
When I was a teenager, I once tried to see what length of time I could go without crying. The longest stretch was just over a year – 13 months, to be exact. And when I finally cried, my chest felt like it broke. The tears came like swollen rivers, spilling over the curves of my face, streaking my flushed cheeks with salt and mascara. I cried until my head pounded and my nose started bleeding – even then, unsure of how to stop.
But there in that holding cell, I wasn’t about to cry. Forget that I’ve had a long history of contempt for my emotions – for most of my life, emotions have seemed like subconscious puppeteers, and I their puppet. But I sat there in that cell and realised that I didn’t feel afraid, or angry, or even sad.
I felt that I was waiting for something.
All I wanted to do was get alone so that I could ask God why I was here.
And in the muffled stillness of my cell, I closed my eyes and titled my head back, waiting for the Holy Spirit to speak.
“I want to give you a spirit of compassion.”
I opened my eyes, ready for more. But after that, the line went dead. (Metaphorically speaking.) I continued to sit there like a disgruntled telephone operator, urgently trying to reconnect the disconnected line (Are you there, God? It’s me, Kayla. Sitting here, missing my flight. Alone. In a cell.) But all I could hear were the distant voices of the police and sounds of paperwork being shuffled around.
Two weeks have now passed, and I didn’t think about it again until today, when my misdemeanor court date came for me in the mail.
As much as I want to say that I was a rock throughout this entire process, from being charged and eventually released to the moment my court date arrived, I have been as emotionally unstable as an IKEA table. I’ve had more nightmares in the last 14 days than I have in the last year, and the possibility of not having money to pay the undetermined fine has been hovering over me like a wall cloud, blocking out any excitement or joy about the fact that training camp is four days away and launch is only 60.
But as I clutched my postcard in two shaking hands, I was reminded that up until now, my prayers had been answered down to the last detail.
I wasn’t required to post $500 in bond to be released. I wasn’t charged with a felony. I wasn’t held overnight. We were able to rebook our flights. We made all of our connections, the especially tight ones being delayed by bad weather or late arrivals. I was able to deliver my graduation speech with grace and clarity.
And my court date does not fall when I will be gone for training camp.
Driving home from a friend’s tonight, I turned all this over and over in my head as anxiety found me traveling 75 miles an hour down the interstate. I was pragmatically reminding myself of Bible verses that speak of provision, and why not to be afraid; at the same time, I mentally reviewed all of the appointments and bills I need to take care of before leaving in September (Do I have a budget for a going-away party? Typhoid shots? Underwear?)
And God must have looked down from His perspective in heaven at me, traveling along with tunnel vision through this big huge life picture He already has mapped out, because He cut right through the fog to say, “Did you think this was going to be easy?”
And I just started laughing.
I said that I was willing to do this World Race thing eight months ago, and eight months ago, I never could have dreamed I would be here. $10,323 by July. God has consistently blown away my expectations and burned down my bridges of pride and self-sufficiency.
And yet here I am, asking God every five minutes if He’s still actually got this, like a little girl tugging on the hem of her mom’s skirt. Can you check under the bed one more time? Am I still safe? Do you still love me? Do you still see me, here?
Do I still believe that He will provide when I am too close to the heat to be comfortable anymore? When I am feeling the blisters of uncertainty and the unknown, is He still there at the helm?
My answer to myself and to my shaking hands is that, yes, He is. And somehow, some way, it has already been taken care of.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be in fear or dread because of them, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. He will never leave you or forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6.
