This was easy to accept as I heard it from my pastor. However, with the end of spring break and the return to school and student teaching, the truths I had heard on Sunday quickly took a backseat to the stress of every day life. By Friday afternoon, I arrived home with my brain spinning- I had an overwhelming amount of grading and planning to complete over the weekend, a job fair to prepare for, and my teacher's portfolio to complete. I was heart-heavy for some dear friends who were facing trials of their own. Looking past this one hectic weekend didn't offer much comfort- major tests and projects, the job search, setting up new living arrangements, and being a new teacher all loomed ahead of me. On top of everything, a migraine was quickly clamping down on my head.
I really wanted to climb into bed, but it was the first Friday of the month, which meant it was Graduate Christian Fellowship large group night- I only have two more months of grad school, so I didn't want to miss one of my possible last times with my friends. I decided to try and tough it out- in lieu of our normal Bible reading/prayer time, we had made plans to go out for fish fry and then to a local church that was hosting a night of worship (one of the guys in our group was on the worship team). I managed to enjoy dinner and the surrounding conversations despite the physical pain I was experiencing, and hoped that the time of worship would refocus my mind and heart.
We arrived at the church and the worship service started. The service was beautifully done- it was clear that a lot of preparation and prayer had gone into the evening. However, I soon realized that, even as I sang along with my hands lifted and my eyes closed, my heart was still spinning. Ugh, no- FOCUS!! This is a time of worship; stop thinking about other things!!! I tried to silence my brain and really feel the meaning behind the words of the songs, but my swirling thoughts- in combination with the intensifying migraine- were overpowering me. Now, I was beginning to feel angry with myself. Here I was, in the midst of a time of worship, and all I could think about were my own problems. Surely, God must be displeased with me right now. Great, just what I needed, to have God angry with me in the thick of graduate school...gaugh, graduate school. The edTPA is due in two weeks and I don't know when I'm going to have time to work on it, or how I'm going to find time to get my resume together and start filling out job applications- NO! This is worship time!! Focus on worship! Sheesh, God must not want anything to do with me at this point...and so the cycle wore on (on top of the migraine- by this point it was accompanied by nausea and becoming excruciating- I probably would have left if I hadn't carpooled to the church).
Partway through the night we divided into small groups for prayer. Our GCF group huddled together and a few of us shared things we wanted to pray about. As our staff leader prayed, he petitioned God to remind us that we are "His sons and daughters."
Suddenly, I was hit with an image in my mind of myself as a child, waking up in the middle of the night screaming after a nightmare or terrified by a thunderstorm. My dad was often the one to respond to my cries- and he never said, "You're afraid? You doubt that I can protect this house? You don't believe me when I said thunder can't hurt you? Chill out and come talk to me when you're ready to trust me!" No, my dad would, without hesitation, come sit with me on my bed and pray with me, grab a pillow and sleep on my bedroom floor so I could feel safer, or make me laugh by diving under my bed and beating up the monsters that I was convinced where hiding there.
"As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:13-14) Just as my earthly father had compassion on me when I was overcome with fear and anxiety, my Heavenly Father would do the same. I didn't need to work through my fears on my own- I just needed to hand them over to Him. In that moment, emotionally and mentally, I felt relief like I hadn't felt in months...and, in the exact same moment, I felt something "click" in the back of my neck, and the migraine was instantly gone.
Give me all the scientific explanations you want, but I know in that moment, God was using the physical to demonstrate the spiritual. Just as He could remove a pounding headache, He could remove my burdens. Just as He can heal physical ailments, He could heal my anxiety.
I still don't know what the future holds...but I know Who holds it. When doubts start to creep in, I do not need to fight them alone- God is waiting for me to hand them over to Him. In the words of one of the final songs we sang that night:
What could I say,
What could I do?
But offer this heart, O God,
Completely to You.
What could I do?
But offer this heart, O God,
Completely to You.
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