To Stand in the Shock Waves and Shine
By: White Dove Photo Source
“I’m grooming you to grin in the face of disaster,” I heard Papa God say as I was listening in prayer one day. You see, part of my family legacy is to worry. I tend to worry about things as tenaciously as a cat pouncing on a ball of yarn, rolling that worrisome thing from one end to the other, mentally tossing it up and down, and all around until it’s a mass of knotted, frayed threads.
My hypervigilance is a lifelong habit, and it physically manifests just about any moment of the day as “flinching”. A loud noise on television, a sudden move, even a light touch by someone will cause me to nearly jump out of my skin. It feels like my whole life I’ve been bracing myself for tragedy.
The shock absorbor
If I could use one word to describe my past life, it would be shock-absorbor. I think I’ve spent my whole life trying to absorb the shocks of family life, to try to make peace. Those “shock waves” are recorded in my body, manifesting as fibromyalgia.
Shock and Trauma, over time, produce chemical reactions that cause you to be re-traumatized if / when something similar to the original event happens.
Some call it PTSD. Hypervigilance is a self-protective mechanism to protect the gaping wounds in our hearts. It’s exhausting. Chronic Fatigue is a physical manifestation of inner fatigue. I just stopped talking. I rarely raised my hand. I learned to be invisible. I had porcupine quills that I used with precision if anyone wanted to get to know me. I lived the life of a ghost, haunting the shadowlands of depression.
I learned to play small. My light blinked out.
You can describe it in chemical terms, with words like low serotonin and dopamine. You can link it to hormonal imbalance. And all those things make logical sense. You can take a prescription for pills if you are fortunate to have medical care, insurance to pay for it. But the underlying anxiety, if not uprooted, is still there. You can usually detect the root by what makes you angry.
I have a new shock absorber.
“I am leaving you with a gift–peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” — Jesus, in John 14:27
Christ, the shock absorber
If there is one word to describe me today, it is “peaceful”. Wherever I am, people – even strangers – remark at how peaceful they feel around me. Instead of being a shock absorber, I have become a light house – one who stands in the shock waves and shines.
How? One stressful event after another, like shock waves, over a 2-year period of my life… my time of homelessness, disease, and being exploited. Two years of facing my fears, one-by-one, and choosing to trust. Failing, and getting back up again. Over and over. Relentless, ruthless, reckless Trust was formed and is still forming in my heart.
I can’t rescue the shipwrecked. That’s God’s job. But I can stand in the midst of the waves. I can let His Light shine. I can simply be His beloved child. I have been groomed to grin in the face of disaster.
The best advice I can offer is to cut the anxiety off at the roots. Use medical support, if you are able. Get counseling, if you can. But ultimately, it boils down to a challenge – a choice – a different perspective:
Grin in the face of disaster!
Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing.
At first he’s amused at their presumption;
Then he gets good and angry.
Furiously, he shuts them up:
“Don’t you know there’s a King in Zion? A coronation banquet
Is spread for him on the holy summit.”
7-9 Let me tell you what God said next.
He said, “You’re my son,
And today is your birthday.
What do you want? Name it:
Nations as a present? continents as a prize?
You can command them all to dance for you,
Or throw them out with tomorrow’s trash.” – Psalm 2
Either God is God or He is not. The only way to find out is to trust – ruthlessly trust. And that’s the subject of my next mini-memoir story… “What Scares You?“
My Full Story What I Believe Contact Me
With all my love,
White Dove
White Dove knows how it feels to lose everything: marriage and family, church and reputation, finances and businesses, and more. Susan’s upcoming, interactive memoir, “On the Way Home,” tells the story of how she came to be known as “the most abused woman” her counselors had yet met and how she learned to navigate to freedom and fullness.
Today Susan helps people write their life stories, unearthing the treasures of their past and sowing them into their future, creating new family legacies.
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Tagged as:
Create Your World,
Deborah White Dove,
Getting Your Life Back,
Life Story Writing,
PTSD - post-traumatic stress disorder,
Writing a Life Story
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"Above all, when He holds me silently against His heart, I can even accept the terror of abandonment." – Brennan Manning
SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by MARSHA BURNS:
Many of you, My people, have been through a time of severe testing. Your experiences and trials have left you feeling shaky and unstable. Now is the time to lean on Me. I am your place of stability and strength. Come. Trust Me to make you strong as you build your life on the firm foundation of faith and truth, says the Lord.
Psalm 107:25-29 For He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm, so that its waves are still.
"You will never have authority over a storm you cannot sleep through" – James Jordan
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