Crisis Averted

You know that time when all the shit hits the fan at the same time; times when a light summer shower erupts into end-of-the-world thunderstorms?

That’s where I’ve been lately. I’ve been here before, many times than I can count and I feel tired.

In my body, sluggishness has been creeping into my bones such that it hurts to perform the normally simple tasks of living. Walking is a massive effort, I would rather sink into my knees and have them fold onto the floor, the couch, oh yes, the bed is first prize. 

Wake me up when it’s all over and I am on that beautiful shore where everything is not so fucking hard. 

It’s been another one of those seasons when several clients regretfully give notice of discontinuation with our services, throwing an awful wrench in the cog of our meticulous, faith declaring plans.

Building a business can be the pits when trying to get a move on and catch up with the Smiths. 

For the longest time, I’ve loathed these kinds of seasons and how they ground us or set us back, but my loathing is most at the memory and angst of the couple of times these blizzard winters have hurled us to the verge of destitution. 

And here we are again. Down by two of our regular clients – one being our major cash cow. My knees feel weak from the whiplash of the sudden halting from the jolly pace I was enjoying, and my courage threatens to fail as I comprehend the snail pace we now have to exert. 

One step forward two steps back. How does anyone still deserve to breath when going nowhere slowly is the story of their life?

Plagued with this lamentation, a gentle probe slips through to inquire: “why are you so downcast and discontent when slow is the pace of life and love?”

I know, I am afflicted by haste. I hate waiting, wasting away as time marches on relentlessly. Like a runaway train, days rumble along, not waiting for even a moment that I may catch my breath from my frantic pursuit to make it by thirty. O dear God please let it be no later than forty! 

The word on the street is that a life is worthless if it has nothing of accomplishments and possessions to show for it by x and y age. I’m under pressure. I must hurry. 

But I cannot seem to keep up, and this is what’s driving me mad. I’m a slow coach. A late bloomer. I am the tortoise, the journey seems infinite, while the end of my allotted years draws neigh with every tick on the clock

I’ve spent the days past agonizing about the futility my life appears to be. I would have said is, but personal development experts sternly warn that things are the way I choose to see them. Glass half-empty-half-full blah blah — I know, I know there is much wisdom in the advice but fudge, I’ve been looking about and within me and it’s so fucking bleak….again (this is important)

Relationships, money, work, communication, even my sex life is under siege. 

All because of The Mammoth, the eternal fiend of existential crisis that always rises on a wave of financial storms and casts me on this exile island to grieve the finitude of lives: my own, my loved ones, and humanity. 

Dear God, why was I made this way, to consider such morose matters?

I look at people about me and they’re carefreely living their best lives out loud while I am quietly agonizing whether I should give any more of myself to myself, my husband, my mother, my siblings or my friends in light of our fleeting existence.

I’ve hated this contemplation for as long as I can remember. Deep down I know I could be, do, and have so much more of the things my soul thirsts for, and may have by generous divine decree, but this thing weakens me so!

Like kryptonite, my proclivity of ruminating about existential crises has been my nemesis ever since that fateful time an age ago in the land of a thousand hills. 

I was a preschooler when war in my birth country erupted, bringing everything built over many moons to rubble and lives to wayside litter, and life conspired that I should learn ahead of my time that all is meaningless, a vapour, and chasing after the wind. 

The problem however is that I survived the carnage and every waking morning demanded I continue the tasks of existence in the knowledge that in a twinkling of an eye it should all count for nothing, but suffering and misery. WTF.

For a time, I rebelled against the cruelty of existing and decided to spend my meaningless, miserable continuance sleeping as much of the days as I could, cowering and hiding under the safety of heavy blankets from anything that could be taken. 

Sadly that included the abundant life.

Then I endeavoured to live it up to the full, sampling every pleasure my flesh desired. 

At first, I found great relief in alcohol, narcotics, and relentless wanton sensual carousing. I believed I had found heaven on earth. Until these too turned to misery, then to the hell of bondage and finally to futility.

Most days I’d wake up and go about life thinking and praying it could be my last. But day after day, I continued to exist and when the years proved I may yet have life stored up, I became weary of the dreadful burden of gloom.

Fed up with my miserable existence, I sought help from personal development gurus who punted positivity. The teachings triggered my soul to imagine that there could be more to life than bubbling toil and trouble. I went to conferences where we learned about believing in ourselves and manifesting and visualizing the ideal life we want. And I did. I manifested a high salary job that afforded me more pleasures of the flesh and prides of life.

But this too, could not blot out the fact that in the end, all comes to nought. As good as their prescriptions were, they were merely temporary salves sold by speculative peddlers.

I needed a cure. I simply could not continue living in the dread of annihilation. Every day could not be an omen for the approaching end.

I hoped, oh yes, I prayed that dawns could also be the beginnings of glorious things.

My pleas were heard, and first the eyes of my heart were opened to see how year after year there was a preeminent Faithfulness that provisioned for and sustained all life such that despite the many threats, we are not consumed.

Since then, a part of me knows there is marvelous glory in daily life from several past encounters. Therefore, I should be well initiated to the passing clouds, though they may bring wild winds and storms.

So why am I here again? Am I not even of little faith that my heart should be so downcast within me and my mind under siege with worry?

This latest tussle with th existential reality however has been quite profound. Our livelihood in the balance, with two large incomes forfeit I should be inconsolablely despondent but something feels different. 

This time I can see that I am not who I used to be. I can see that I am becoming alive. 

What ever could I mean? It’s hard to articulate but it’s something like the shackles of anxiety falling off to reveal faith, forging.

It’s taken a long while and I confess that I never thought this would happen for me. 

Jolted into a rude awareness of the instability of this place I’d come to, from whence only God knows, my soul craved a sure thing. A certain guide to navigate such treacherous terrain. And that’s who I got when I chose faith in Jesus, the Christ.

Believing Jesus Christ is proving to be my salvation from the terror of existential tyranny that I’ve walked with for far too long. 

Oh, how do I explain the quiet wonderful changes happening to me now that I have the antidote to that bone decaying poison?

It is something like this: where once upon many a times I’d be paralyzed into depression, then moved to self destruction and sabotage when any one of the countless little and big upheavals and losses in life occurred, I am finding that the happenings – the inevitable trials and tribulations of the traverse in this world – do not essentially matter because in and with Christ Jesus there is more to life than what meets and beats up the flesh.

Through my new eyes of faith, I am seeing and learning who I am and who I’m not. 

I now firmly know that I am a spiritual being having a physical experience. 

I’ve known full well that physical things do not last and inevitably come to an end. Therefore if I am eternal, surely not even the perishing of my physical form can remove me from existence. 

Well, this just does the trick for me. And possibly you, if like me you lament at the notion that we come here, go through this crazy business of living, and then we die and it’s all over. What a waste that should be, but for Christ – our hope of glory!

In this most recent episode of existential crisis, I was very aware of how remembering who I am now swiftly stabilized me from spiraling into the abyss of depression that this existential thing can suck a soul. 

Having an eternal perspective, which comes by faith in receiving the scandalous offer Christ affords makes the temporary sufferings more bearable, and ultimately refining.

All that said, I still have a long way to go toward Christlike tranquility amidst crises.

Yes, I still hate being cross at my husband and immediately panicking that our love and marriage are doomed. I’m still initially a wreck when shit hits the fan financially. I still get despondent when my efforts or work feel insignificant. And I still hate that I and the people I love will go through all kinds of pain and suffering.

Indeed my soul should hope to live forever in a place with inexhaustible abundance and in harmony with everyone I love but it is true that nothing under the sun lasts forever.

Yet it is also true that whoever has the Son, not only has life in abundance on this earth, but also gains access to life, eternal, in a place with inexhaustible resources, perfect harmony and where love lasts forever.

Therefore my prayer is for you, my loves, to know Christ, the Hope of Glory unto life evermore.

So I say to myself, and all my friends, take heart. We are going somewhere, slowly. 

Even though we cannot always see it, and at times it can feel like we’re going backwards, and yes, it is very very slowly, but because we are eternal there is no haste, whether now, and then

And this world is not the end. The best is yet to come.

xoxo

Nimi

PS: You are welcome to subscribe and follow for notifications for your dose of weekly Scribbles and Discourses delivered every Saturday.