Mountains & Canyons

I'm running down mountainsides, plunging into canyons so quickly lately that my head is spinning. Sunday was a mountaintop day. I was high on the Spirit, just loving life and everything in it. Then comes Monday. Bam...dropped down to canyon level, my eyes tracking the indomitable heights and wondering how the heck I get out of this mess. See, "valley" is such a weak, peaceful, restful word for the low points of the walk of faith. It denotes rippling grass, a gentle breeze, pretty little fuzzy sheep grazing, and a still water brook rambling through the center. A valley is a place that one walks with her lover, preferably barefoot, and revels in the beauty of isolation. Valleys are beautiful. Canyons suck. Canyons are deep, dark, depression. They are deserted and smell of fear and old bones. They are a place of death and desolation. They're dry, dusty. Canyons are places that one creeps through on silent feet, putting one foot in front of the other and praying she makes it out alive. A canyon is solitude, loneliness, abandonment. Canyons are impossible to climb out of and deadly to fall into. These pits of the walk of faith are canyons, my friend. Not pretty little valleys. Sunday on the way home from worship at my church, I was having my own personal jam session in my truck. Man, I was rocking it out to Big Daddy Weave, Newsboys, Fee, Kutless. We were worshipping, my friends. Hands were raised, voices raised, and my spirit soared. There are a couple of songs that will always do it for me. They connect to my spirit and soul alike, giving me an instantaneous conduit to true worship. Four of my "instant worship just add Faith" songs are "The Day That You Found Me," "Like A Lion," "Everything Falls," and "What Faith Can Do." The first two are just GOOD songs...the kind that sports teams play to get pumped up before a big game. The "look how big my God is!" songs. The last two hit an emotional chord in me deeper than my canyons, that raises me up and makes me see how far I've come from my lowest low. So how'd I get from a true worship experience yesterday afternoon to anxiety attacks, shortness of breath, and general extreme stress today? Well, it started with a dream. Now, if you know me, really know me, you know that I dream often, vividly, and emotionally. My dreams are usually steeped in reality enough that they feel incredibly real, and I often wake up angry, frustrated, hurt, afraid, laughing, crying, or feeling great, based on the dream. Last night's was my standard "Don't wanna work on Monday" dream. If you don't know, I have an incredibly stressful, emotionally demanding job. I interview children who have made allegations of child abuse, often who are violently abused and deeply traumatized. This job lends itself to burnout and secondary traumatization, things that we prefer not to talk about. When I'm feeling pressured and feel that my job is inescapable, I dream that I'm working. Double whammy, because not only does the dream suck, but then you wake up and have to go do that for real! It's double the work with half the rest. That was last night. Last night I sat in a room with broken, traumatized children all night, having all of their pain poured on me in my dreams, and then got up, went to work, and did the same thing for real, with real children. Needless to say, I woke up out of sorts this morning, leading an already stressful day to be monumentally more trying. So is this my fault? Can I help what I dream? My conclusion, after much deliberation, is this. No. You can't help what your subconscious throws at you when you're vulnerable and open during sleep. You can prepare for battle, meditate on scripture before sleep, pray for peace, but ultimately, you're putting yourself at the mercy of your psyche. And that little jerk can do a number on you. But I do have control over my waking thoughts. I am instructed to "take every thought captive." Is that literal? Under the power of the Spirit, yes! When I woke up, with my dream still haunting me, my first reaction should have been attack. I should have appealed to the Spirit for strenth, for power, for a sound mind and a pure heart. Instead, I wallowed. I allowed my feet to slip slide down the canyon walls, scrambling for purchase, desperate for a foothold, only to land firmly on my butt on the canyon floor. Instaed of taking my thoughts captive and soaring on God's power to the mountaintop to survey my day's stresses in safety, I found myself underneath my stress, trudging painfully up steep paths to work my way back up. So today was a canyon day. Fortunately for me and my physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, tomorrow is another day. While I do have to enter the world of victimization again tomorrow, I can choose to enter with my armor up, my shield of faith engaged, my sword of the spirit swinging, and fight for the ground I've been given. How will you start your day tomorrow? Will you soar on wings like eagles, or will you trudge the canyons with the snakes and lizards. Your choice. Choose wisely.