I've told you before how I use to be an avid pray-er. I had been taught by the Lord that an intentional grateful heart was the key to happiness. Pastor Bob says "Happiness has to do with happenings. Joy has to do with Jesus." So I think what I mean by happiness is actually joy, but it felt like happiness too when pairing my life situations with gratitude.
I was living in a single-bedroom home with two kids under two and a husband who worked in another town seeing him only twice a month but practicing prayer and gratitude like crazy. So, I was happy! It was during these circumstances and time in my life that I got cancer.
Laying in bed became terrifying with my mind constantly fabricating images of chemo not working, cancer scans showing metastasis, and little girls growing up not remembering their mom. I would pray and ask the Lord to assuage these thoughts and fill them with hope and His joy. I could pray and pray, but my distressing visions were too much to bare. The doctor prescribed medication so my mom got me on Prozac and Rivotril. These definitely helped me sleep and rest, and I was able to wean from them quickly because the effects of chemo were doing their part in putting me to sleep. After treatment, surgery, recovery, and three years in remission, I had not learned to stop fearing my mind. I had developed PTSD. But what hurt me the most was my inability to pray and talk to God as I used to. You see, you need quiet time to talk to God. How was I going to have quiet time when that terrified me?
My husband would scold me for taking my phone into the shower. "You´re going to ruin it with the humidity," he would try to reason with me. I would play YouTube videos or sitcom episodes to have noise while I shower. I couldn't bare the thought of being on my own with my mind even in the shower. I would stay awake long past my bedtime watching anything until I was tired enough that I knew I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. My husband would also scold me about this. "You´ll be cranky in the morning from lack of sleep. You´ll get headaches." This fear was ruining my stuff and my life. I finally confessed to him why I was doing these things. It pained him that he didn't know how to help, so he stopped scolding or moving me to the bed when I would fall asleep in the couch.
I told a friend about this, and she suggested to practice mindfulness.
I googled "mindfulness" and read the first definition I found.
"What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness can be described as the practice of paying attention in the present moment, and doing it intentionally and with non-judgment. Mindfulness meditation practices refer to the deliberate acts of regulating attention through the observation of thoughts, emotions and body states. Typical mindfulness activities include:
- Mindful non-judgmental awareness of breath, body, feelings, emotions and/or thoughts (in sitting meditation practice or throughout the day)
- Mindful eating
- Mindful body scan in a sitting or lying down position
- Listening with non-judgment"
I had tried mindfulness and meditation during my cancer recovery with no results, so I had given up on the idea. I kept studying and researching the whole "mind-over-body" to see how strengthening my mind would help me heal my broken body. It was all for naught! I was left with zero resilience. My mind was more shattered than before. I would break down, have panic attacks, or have fits of depression at the simplest opposition or struggle.
I feel sorry for anyone facing their own mind without the shelter of faith that God is working through you and a for you. I asked Pastor Steve how to achieve my praying eagerness again and he recommended "fake it until you make it." The friend that suggested mindfulness counseled that avoiding being alone with my thoughts would only make it worse and give the thoughts more power. I decided to start trying it out, if it only meant not bringing my phone with me to the shower. I found that being able to quiet down my voice instead of drowning it with the nonsense of random sitcom voices was making me more willing to start praying. I had dreaded spending alone time praying. It took me a few "alone sessions" to realize that I had spent so much time in prayer during my cancer treatment that now it would spark a little of my PTSD. Anything that sparks your PTSD takes you right back to the emotional state you felt when the trauma was created. I had no idea trauma could hurt something so precious to me as prayer. I thought it was only a fight with my own faith.
I have written less and less in the past years not because I don't want to. I like writing about the things God teaches me. I write about how He changes my life or how He shows Himself. The reason I don't write so often anymore is because I don't feel I have much to say to help someone in this situation for I feel I'm struggling just as much. BUT! I have other reasons to write than just recording His work in my life. When I put my mind in written form, the Spirit has a way of revealing lies I'm believing and truths I need to remember. One of these truths: "I have nothing to offer to anyone! Anything I have to offer comes from Him!"
So, I don't have any answers, but let's see what the Bible says. While I don't prescribe to Bible studies that take verses from here and there, I wanted to see what results would show when I googled "Bible verses with the word 'Mind'."
1 Peter 13
"13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;"
Isaiah 26:3
3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You."
2 Corinthians 10
"3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,"
Colossians 3
"2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.""37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
Psalm 19
"14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."
The intentional gratitude I had been practicing before my cancer days was a form a mindfulness. It was a mindfulness not of myself but of God. I was able to practice gratitude through any circumstance because I was trusting God and trusting His control over my life. I was aware that whatever was happening was His sovereign will and I could rest in that truth. I was mindful of His love and His power.
Mindfulness means being present in the moment. I find some Biblical support for that statement, because we are told that we only have today. But I don't want to be present in the moment thinking of myself. There is no hope there! My only hope is Christ. The more I read these google results, the more I read about "the mind of Christ." What is this mind of Christ? It says I have it. How do I access it and let go of my own?
I feel every day I'm "making it" more than "faking it." In a recent Bible study we were looking at Colossians 4 and verse 3 really popped out to me.
"2 Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart."
This is my heart's desire. I need more prayer in my life and more gratitude in my heart. I'm sorry He has to teach me these truths over and over again, but I'm grateful He is a loving and patient God Who has steadfast love for His lambs like me. And so I'm off to take a quiet shower, where I will once again enjoy taking every small opportunity of "loneliness" during the day to spend it with my Hope and Refuge. And I will seek more "quiet time" to fill my mind with things to come, things from above, the mind of Christ, and be mindful of HIM in every moment.
