Comfort In the Wake of Crisis: Our Personal God

I just want my husband back, I thought as I stomped up the road and tried to make sense of the journey we had been walking. It was day two of EMDR therapy for my husband’s PTSD and anxiety. I wasn’t seeing many improvements despite the fact that we felt like God opened every door for this counselor to work with Jared in this time.

I was fuming. I was exhausted from the roller coaster of emotion. I was weary of carrying the load for our family for the past eight weeks. I was done with the fear over whether my husband might be up all night again, have another panic attack, and leave me to provide for myself and our six sons while he was on medical sabbatical from work. To top it all off, in the midst of his crisis, our family had downsized and moved into a smaller house. Stress was eating me. Anger rose in my soul. It was all so unfair.

Sanctuary

Four blocks down the road, I saw a steeple. Making a beeline for that church, I ached for a sense of closeness to God; my heart felt so abandoned. I looked up at that cross with tears in my eyes. “Do you even see me? Do you even care?” I slowly circled through the path in the courtyard and around the front of the building. Feeling lost in the shadows, I stepped back to the brick wall up front and sat down.

This Crisis

This crisis wasn’t something I asked for. I never expected this would happen to us. My husband was the strong one. Sure, he had experienced and seen hard things in his career as a morgue assistant and now as a paramedic firefighter, but he handled it well. Or so I thought. Until one day, the life stress of our move, our overcommitment, the unexpected death of his grandfather, and a tough call at work all piled up and sent him into a crisis of adrenaline overdrive, insomnia, panic, and anxiety.

Eight weeks had passed—weeks of chaos, unknowns, kids being shipped to caregivers and back home because of daddy’s instability, not knowing when the next wave of panic might hit or how hard. Would he be present? Or would he get that distant look in his eyes, turn inward, and need me to help him through the struggle?

Finding him curled up in the corner shaking in fear terrified me. Hearing him wrestle with dark thoughts, hopelessness, and brief thoughts of suicidal escape had me near panic, but I knew I couldn’t be weak. I had to hold it all together. Would we get through this? Would he be able to return to work? Would I ever feel safe or protected or able to be vulnerable again?

Strange Juxtaposition

I sat on that brick wall, gazing at the ornately carved church doors. The building rang of history, being near one hundred twenty years old. I imagined the people coming to seek God, to draw close. The strange juxtaposition of my heart surprised me. I was angry at God for forcing my hand, as it seemed to me, down this path of mental illness. I wanted to yell at God. I wanted to scream out how I felt so abandoned, so alone. And at the same moment, I wanted to collapse weeping into His loving arms. I needed Him to hold me. I needed to feel His nearness like I never have before. I needed to know it was all going to be okay.

Lead me to the Cross

I felt a nudge in my heart and a tune float through my head. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, and quickly looked up Hillsong UNITED “Lead me to the Cross”.

Savior I come. Yes, I was ready to come. I couldn’t do this on my own anymore.

Quiet my soul, remember. I felt a hush grow over my heart as I focused my eyes on that cross high above my head. Yes, I needed to remember.

Getting Personal

Throughout my husband’s crisis, I had been forced to run to Jesus like I never had before. Growing up in a Christian home, I could recite verses about so many truths on God’s character, his consistency, his comfort. But even though I knew these verses intellectually, I hadn’t personalized them.

Woven in and out of the Epistles, a special word is used numerous times - “knowledge.” This word is “gnosis” in Greek and means personal and experiential knowledge (See Ephesians 3:19, Colossians 1:10, 2 Peter 1:3). This form of knowing was not simply passed down information from one person to another. It wasn’t simply understanding or even believing. It went even deeper than that. This knowing was where the rubber met the road, where the truths in God’s word went from words on a page that I chose to believe to words that the Holy Spirit made personal to me. 

In the darkest of moments, when my husband would cycle his thoughts, pacing through the house in a panic, I would find myself curled up in my chair with tears streaming down my face crying out to Jesus. Hold me, Papa. My husband can’t right now. I am so scared. I feel so alone. I would just sit. I would be still. I would be held. And the Holy Spirit would whisper to my heart. 

You are never alone! You are never alone! You are never alone!

And when my husband would feel threatened and be afraid of personal threat, I would feel frightened too. Again, I would curl up asking Jesus to hold me. Papa, I’m scared. My husband is scared. I don’t feel safe. And Jesus would comfort me.

You are always safe! You are always safe! You are always safe!

When the journey continued over the course of days and weeks with no end in sight, I cried out to Jesus and asked how long I must endure. Will this never end? Is there even hope? And Jesus whispered tenderly.

There is always hope. There is always hope. There is always hope! 

Those three statements became what I clung to in the following weeks leading up to the EMDR therapy. God had gotten personal with me, reminding me that he was a personal God and that his truths were true for me too! I am never alone! I am always safe! There is always hope!

New Truth

In this moment, I heard His gentle whisper once again. Remember, Hannah. You are never alone! You are always safe! There is hope! Yet I felt like there was more God wanted to make personal in this moment.

He pointed his finger at my heart. I valued justice, and in my anger, I wanted my husband to know how deeply he had wounded me. Jesus gently reminded me that He is the one who judges justly, and that all would give an account one day – my husband for the mistakes he made and myself for the ways I chose to hold onto anger and bitterness. But there was another option. Hannah, entrust your journey to me. Justice will be done!

All of the pain, all of the tears and sorrow, all of the fears, all of the ways I had given (and many of the ways I had not), they were not forgotten. God had been present each moment of this crisis, each moment of my life. And I could rest in the fact that in eternity, all would come to light. Each will be rewarded according to what he has done. My efforts were not in vain. Even if my husband didn’t see what I had done, even if he never said thank you, even if I felt taken for granted for the rest of my life, God knew. When I felt the certainty of the unfairness of it all, I could rest in the fact that God greatly valued the suffering I was experiencing, and one day if I remained faithful and trusted my just judge, all would be made right!

Justice will be done! There is hope! You are always safe! You are never alone!

My friends, I pray that God will make himself known (gnosis) personally to you, wherever you are, whatever your struggle. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may He be gracious to you and turn his face toward you, and may He give you peace. Amen and Amen!

Communicating in Quarantine: The False Fuel of Assumption

Has anyone noticed that being in close quarters with another person for long periods of time is a recipe for miscommunication? Or trying to carry on important conversations during social distancing can cause great misunderstanding? Relational conflict is at an all time high with these added stressors of a global pandemic and unprecedented circumstances resulting in prolonged periods of close contact with some people and excessive distance from others.

Easter Sunday 2020 was unlike any Easter I have ever experienced before. I’d love to say we nailed it – that we had a beautiful day with fantastic family memories, a delicious celebratory dinner, and a spirit of rejoicing in our freedom through the Resurrection of our Savior. But that would be a lie. This year, Easter was hard in more ways than one.

The truth is our Easter looked more like my husband and I missing each other in communication, arguing about perspective, and talking at each other more than communication with each other – off and on for six hours! We didn’t’ participate together in our streamed Sunday service. We never sat down to a meal as a whole family, and we tossed some eggs in the living room for an egg hunt at the last minute. We wound up hurt and emotionally distant from one another.

The main reason for this? Assumption.

Assumption Makes us look Foolish

Some of you may have heard the saying, “When we assume, it makes the first three letters out of U and ME (ASSUME)” That’s not too far from reality. I watch my sons interact with each other. I see how quickly they can get fired up, yelling, and getting aggressive with each other. Ironically, most of the time, their reactions are based on an assumption that their brother intended them harm. They feel threatened (physically or emotionally) and their fight or flight kicks in. A rocket blasts off in their souls, and its fuel is lies.

How could they be so foolish? And yet I find myself doing the same thing!

The fuel of assumption is an artificial fuel that can only send our rocket in one direction – destruction of relationship. We must fuel our emotions and reactions on the truth!

Assumption Signals our Fight or Flight

Have you ever felt this before? The internal burn, increasing heart rate, and sense of a need to find protection or escape from the situation? Our person or our identity feels threatened, and we snap back with “Well I . . .” or offer the silent treatment and retreat. We go on the defensive, buffering ourselves up or tearing the other person down in order to feel better. Or we feel the need to protect ourselves from further harm, so we go into emotional or physical hiding – sometimes both.

More often than not, when I assume and react, my husband is left wondering what he did wrong. His intention was not to wound, but to communicate. Sometimes, his words come out clumsy, no doubt, but when I allow the fuel of assumption to blast off my emotional rocket, I am submitting to chemical processes in my brain that are not based in logic.

The brain always wants to protect itself and the body. If there is a perceived threat, our sympathetic nervous system gears up for the challenge. It shoots us into one of three responses. We fight. We flight. Or we freeze.

Assumption is Framed in Past Experience

When we make assumptions and respond out of the most base urges of our human nature, we are allowing our previous experiences to define our present moment. As humans, our brains remember when we’ve been hurt in the past, and they have loaded weapons just waiting for that trigger to be pulled. We hear a specific word or phrase, and we frame it with the memories of how we felt when we heard that before.

A wound from a friend when I was thirteen can come up out of “nowhere” when my husband uses the same words that cut so deep. A look I see on his face may resemble one my dad had when he was disappointed in me. A phrase that hurt me years ago may be spoken in a completely different context now, yet it creates the same reaction. The image of the past arises, and I use that same frame to place around my husband and his intentions now.

The reality is that my husband is not my childhood friend. The look he gave me was one of confusion not disappointment. And the phrase is common use language that had been spoken once in harshness and now carries that connotation every time.

Assumption Creates a Win-Lose Mentality

With these ill-fitting frames, our conversations can easily morph from a discussion of differences to a competition of who is right and who is wrong – or even more likely, who is better and who is worse. This adds to the fuel of the emotional rocket as it continues a cycle of comparison, feeling threatened and a need to defend or protect one’s self.

When I find myself stuck in these cycles of communication, sometimes I lose track of where we were or where we are headed. What was the intended purpose of this conversation in the first place? I get the feeling that in order to find resolution, one of us will win and the other with lose. One will be deemed the victorious. One will be shamed.

Sure, in any relationship there is give and take, but it should never be victor and victim! We are all humans created in the image of God. He has called us to love Him first and foremost. Then he has called us to love one another.

Just because my husband and I may not completely agree on our perspective doesn’t mean that there has to be a winner and a loser. If we are able to stop this cycle of assumption, we can more easily understand where the other person is coming from and decide how to come to the best resolution of our differences.

Stopping the Assumption Fuel

One simple step in avoiding the relentless cycle of assumption, is to notice. Notice when the emotions start to rise and the rocket wants to blast off.

Stop and think about what that feels like right now. What happens inside your chest when your spouse or close friend says that one thing? What feelings does it evoke when you see that look? What does your heart do in your chest? Do you feel warm or flushed? Does your breathing increase? Do you feel muscles contract? Does your mind go blank? Do you long for escape? Do you shut down?
 
Take a moment and put yourself there. Imagine a tough conversation. Feel the feelings, and imagine putting a BIG RED STOP SIGN on that feeling.

The next time you start to feel that way, see the stop sign. Pause. Breathe and ask yourself what it is you are feeling and thinking in that moment. Hear the words you are telling yourself. What do you feel they are saying to you? Take another deep breath. And then ask a clarifying question.

Here’s how it looked for us a couple weeks ago. We were chatting when my husband said something to the effect of how he felt threatened when I didn’t recognize something he had done. I immediately wanted to respond in anger, “What?!? You don’t feel like I appreciate you? Well I don’t feel like you appreciate me!”

 But I didn’t. I stopped when I recognized the feeling, and I asked, “Can I clarify? Are you saying that you don’t ever feel appreciated by me?” I was able to determine what was fueling my emotional reaction: the feeling of an always statement, that I never showed him appreciation. And I asked him to clarify in a nonthreatening way.

This gave him an opportunity to say, no, that he just meant that one instance. Immediately, the boil in my chest subsided, and we were able to conclude our conversation without my emotional rocket causing chaos, destruction, and distance in our relationship.

If You’re Going to Assume, Assume the Best

Assumptions are going to happen. They are going to come up without our permission or awareness. They are going to surprise us. They are going to throw us off kilter and begin to fuel reactions that we don’t anticipate. We have to realize that whether we like it or not, this is the way we are wired.

Being in a relationship with my husband, I have to remember that we love each other. We are committed. When we find ourselves in communication that is leading toward assumption, I have to choose to frame his comments in the truth. He is not intending to wound me. He loves me. He is trying to communicate with me, and we are still growing in our ability to speak each other’s languages.
 

I am in process. My husband is in process. We are continually being formed into the image of our Creator. We are learning to communicate (and getting much more practice due to this time of quarantine).

Learning to notice the fuel of assumption and the initial blast off of my emotional rocket has been so powerful in stopping what could be some messy relational explosions.

Redeeming our Assumptions

Our Easter this year was hard, but it was redeemed. We salvaged what we could as we engaged in the Sight and Sound Jesus production as a family. We spoke truth to our boys about the freedom we have received from Christ – the freedom from the penalty of death as well as the freedom from the power on sin. And my husband and I made the decision to try another way. That evening we worked through our differences, we opened our eyes to the other’s perspective, we clarified assumptions, and we communicated our love to one another.

The power of the Resurrection of Jesus frees us from the power of assumption. We don’t have to continue the cycle of chaos and destruction in our relationships. We have His power to assume the best, to notice the feelings, to stop and clarify. We can fuel our emotions on truth and stop the false fuel of assumptions! We can learn a new way to communicate while in quarantine!