Through the Quagmire: Escape Through Sanity ~ 7-14 entry that couldn't be posted yesterday

Blaise Pascal said, “Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room.” I agree. I don’t believe that being unable to sit still is evil, but there is no doubt in my mind that my discomfort in my own skin, my inability to be still and quiet had much to do with the destructive thoughts and perspectives that more times than not ruled my life in the past. During the moments I would find myself in the peaceful eye of the storm I would move toward the chaotic wall of wind tearing around me. Chaos somehow felt safe. I knew deep down that I was powerless and had no control. The insanity was I felt better about that when nothing around me had any sense of control either.

Today I feel differently. After a few days of pure chaos around me I realize that for perhaps the first time in my life I truly despise the destructiveness of that state. For years I would have joined in the storm, fed it while feeding off it. There is a rush to a good storm. There is a sense of power that comes with the adrenaline that is produced by staying constantly in a state of fight or flight. When I felt so powerless, so unable to control anything in my life, my mind would create scenarios where I needed to flee or fight so that I had that illusion of power and control. When that didn’t work, I would find real danger, real violence, and outside chemicals to produce the same effect. Either I found a false sense of power and control or I made it so it seemed that no one had any more of those two things than I. I would tear apart the universe to deprive those I resented having control over me of power. I came so close to destroying myself in the process.

Today I know a better way. Today I know that my strength is not in chaos. My power does not have to be illusion or found in destroying the structure around me. I don’t have to find freedom from the control of others in my life by destroying all possibility of control. My power comes as a gift from God. It is His, from Him, and to be used to help calm the storms of life rather than fuel the winds that blow through it. My peace is not in the absence of the storm but in the surety that God will bring me safely through it. But it is still such a relief when the storm has passed and I am anchored safely in the peaceful cove, listening to the birds, watching the calm settle back into place and finding the time to get still and quiet with God and say thank you. There is little I can think of that is more refreshing and restful than that.