A few weeks ago, I got to see one of my favorite artists of all time, Mat Kearney, live once again. I heard a song that night I haven’t been able to get out of my head since, and it wasn’t even from the artist I came for. Before the show, I was familiar with the opener, Andrew Belle, but had never really gotten into his music. After seeing him live and diving deep (bad joke, sorry) into his music I can definitely call myself a fan.
The song is called “Sister,” and I highly recommend you give it a listen if you haven’t before. (Also, highly recommend the whole Black Bear album.)
The lyrics that grab me the most are:
“So tell me what happens
When the waves break
And you’re surrounded
He tries to kill you,
And you allow it
And you allow it”
These words take me back to a time when fear and anxiety dictated my life, and even more, my relationship with the Lord.
Most people categorize their lives in very distinct periods of change. You think about the event or age where you felt a sense of growing up for the first time, losing your childlike innocence, becoming a teenager, growing into a young adult; the list goes on. For me, I hardly experienced any real life change growing up. I was very lucky to live in the same small town, with the same family, going to the same church, with even virtually the exact same friend group all the way from elementary through high school. I’m lucky because it made for a wonderful childhood. But it also made change a foreign concept to me, and a recurring point of struggle later in my life.
My first actual life change I can pinpoint was losing my grandma, my mom’s mother, quickly and completely unexpectedly. Experiencing death or the loss of a loved one is an important part of growing up for anyone. But for me, it’s still something that’s hard for me to talk about. As a very naive twelve year old, I didn’t understand what a relationship with Jesus was or even looked like. I grew up in church and knowing God, but when I lost someone so close to me at such a young age, it broke something in me. You don’t ever forget the kind of pain that causes everything in your world to no longer make sense.
It wasn’t just a sadness, or grief that I felt. Suddenly, the word “depression” was being used, and I didn’t even fully know what that meant. I have wonderful family and friends in my life who have always been there for me. But I was scared of what I was feeling, and built up my own stigma around it telling myself I had to suffer in silence. So I didn’t talk about it. For years, I carried a heaviness with me everywhere I went. I couldn’t process my thoughts or emotions normally when trying to be an awkward, happy-go-lucky middle schooler like everyone else, while simultaneously feeling an unbelievable weight that made me see and experience everything around me through two different lenses. I could go to school and be around my friends, go to church every week even, and smile and pretend to be happy and normal. But at the same time I felt detached in everything I did. Like I was watching my life in real time from a distance. I could always step back from every situation and remember that my feelings were fake. That terrified me, and I soon began living everyday like there was something wrong with me because of it.
When I was about 14 I went to my first Christ in Youth conference with my church, which is a weeklong event much like a Christian summer camp hosted by a small college. On the very first night, the worship band played a song I can’t even remember, but something immediately came over me and I felt the Holy Spirit for the first time in my life, and about fell face-first on the floor I began sobbing so hard. My friends definitely thought there was something wrong with me. I of course didn’t know that was Jesus entering my heart at the time, all I knew is that the heaviness I had felt for every second of every day for years, for a single moment, that heaviness didn’t exist. And whatever it was I felt in my heart, in my bones, I knew I wanted more.
I have been chasing it ever since. Though I had already been baptized and had an existing relationship with the Lord at that point in my life, I attribute that night as my first encounter with Jesus. After high school, that relationship grew to a dependency, and now at nearly twenty-one years old about to embark on the World Race, it’s an intimacy with my Jesus. It’s behind everything I do, every thought in my brain, every word out of my mouth, every breath in my lungs. But what I’ve only very recently learned is that I am at this point in my walk of faith solely because I have finally understood my depression and anxiety. Because I have finally begun to win the mental health battle.
Please understand, I’m not writing this to say that I have “cured” depression or anxiety. I can only speak to my own self and my own experiences, but I am more than aware that they are mental disorders for which there is no cure or magical fix. In fact, for so much of my life I believed there was no connection between my biological mental health and Jesus at all. I couldn’t understand how accepting Jesus in my heart and beginning a relationship with Him didn’t rid anxiety and depression from my life. But, the unfortunate truth is that odds are nothing ever will in my time on earth. However, having Jesus in my life has sure made it easier and provided both a greater outlet and understanding for what’s happening in my brain. Depression and anxiety will more than likely forever be a part of my story. But, I now know that I can combat it. I can learn more and I can improve how I deal with it. The Lord didn’t leave me or anyone in this world who struggles with their mental health defenseless. For me, winning the mental battle means no longer falling victim to the things of this world. It means I realized I have an option when dealt the cards I have been dealt as a result of our sinful and broken world, and I’m choosing to no longer take it lying down. It means I’m choosing to look to the God of the universe, of all things good, perfect, and light in this world, the God of love, who is far bigger than the mere footholds the enemy has in me.
“So tell me what happens
When the waves break
And you’re surrounded
He tries to kill you,
And you allow it
And you allow it,”
These words represent my young and immature heart, both in age and in my faith. For so long I allowed my demons that present in the form of depression and anxiety to dictate my life, to try to kill me. I sat by and let them rob me of my joy, my happiness, my innocence, my youth, my smile, my ability to love, my ability to be loved, my self confidence, my dreams, my relationships, my everything. The key words here are I allowed it.
But the good news is that’s not how Andrew Belle’s song ends. The even better news is that’s not how my song ends either.
“Over and over He says
I surround you
I surround you
I never leave my beloved
I’ve found you”
Jesus met me at a time in my life when I believed I was never going to be able to feel anything ever again. Change used to be the scariest thing in the world. Now, more often than not it’s what I crave. I am so endlessly thankful to rest, delight, and burst with joy, wonder, and praise in His arms as He surrounds me everyday, and even more so as His arms are leading me across the world on the World Race.
I would love to just take a moment to acknowledge that every word I have just written above has been locked inside my heart behind trap doors, force fields, and an army of thousands since I lost my Mam-Mam nine years ago. I can count on one hand the number of people I have talked to these things about in my life. Even when I feel like I’ve made a million leaps and bounds in progressing and maturing in my faith and mental health, the very fact that my mental health is a point of struggle for me and a part of my story is something that I have never, ever wanted anyone to know. But I took my commitment to transparency on the Race seriously, and here I am only a few months later literally bearing the deepest part of my soul on the Internet for all to see. Jesus has been telling me to write this post for some time and I kept answering “not yet, Lord, not just yet.” I am so thankful He persisted and literally would not allow me to sleep until I finally put words to it all the other night. I feel a freedom I cannot even describe. Thank you so much for reading and following along as the Lord continues to add to my story.
