In the heat of battle

I just got out of a battle. It’s so fresh, I’m having that post-victory denial. We all know it: the feeling that warns you against rejoicing too early. “Maybe it’s just a trick, a ruse, a false hope!” I often tell myself. Sometimes I feel like letting my guard down is going to lead to another attack from a blind spot. It’s almost like I’m afraid to lie down, because the minute I close my eyes, a clever serpent will seize his opportunity to strike. But it has been a good fight, and I had a particular moment that I am thinking about. Let me start over and tell this story from the beginning. 

At the beginning of this month, I officially gave up the keys to my old apartment. I said my goodbyes and left the property for the last time. The week before I left, I took a few hours to clean the place up. I even put in the effort to put in work orders for any problems I could find. I used to flip apartments for a living, so I had a good eye for anything that might need to be looked at. By the time it was ready to go, I had that place looking spotless. You could have moved someone in the next day, it was so clean! But four years is enough time to get to know a place, so I knew these guys were going to try to do something crooked to get one last buck out of me. As such, I made sure to take plenty of pictures on top of everything else. Sure enough, a week later I got slapped with a nice fat bill. 

“CHARGES?!?” I thought to myself. “I left that place spotless! Oh boy, whoever has to answer my phone call better look out!” I was angry, and in a fit of rage, I went on the offensive. I emailed the property manager, the leasing office and the billing department. On top of that, I must have called all of the above at least a dozen times, and all that very next day! It was not pretty. For about a week, no one got back to me, so I started to relax a bit. But just as I did, I got another email. The balance had officially been posted to my account. The landlord was pushing back! But I wasn’t about to give up because of a little counter-shove, no siree, not me! I started firing back with even more emails and calls. It was like war: bullets flying through the air, my heart pounding almost as loudly as the mortar blasts going off around me. But there was no chance in this world anyone was going to take what was mine! My money was my home, and I had to defend it! 

Once again, I had enough silence to help me cool off just a little, the day finally arrived: I got a response! Turns out there was an “error” in the system and just like that, my bill was slashed in half! It was a day of great victory, but the battle had not yet been won. I doubled down on the opportunity while I was ahead and started asking questions about the other half of the bill. “What is this charge? Why do I have to pay for that? Isn’t this part your responsibility?” I’m grateful for even the little bit of restraint I had developed up to this point, because I still wasn’t in the greatest of moods. And, once again, I was met with silence. Complete and utter silence. 

I took some of this time to rest and wait for their response. Often, in life, I play a very strong offense and little-to-no defense. I started developing my defensive tactics. I started defending my energy levels by limiting my phone time. I was only allowed to check it on the top of the hour. No more, no less. I started a few new habits and some more journaling to help get my act together. I started praying a little more and worked out some of the kinks in my morning ritual. I learned a lot during the eye of this storm. I’m excited by how enlightening it turned out to be. 

But then, I got to last night. Around 7:00 PM, I got an email with my second warning for unpaid balances to my old landlord. As usual, I snapped back, emptying my entire verbal magazine between the billing team and the property manager. But as I lay in my bed that night, entering the early stages of round 2, I began to ponder this question: how should I be reacting to things like this in light of the King’s presence? How should I be responding to hardships like these in light of my beliefs? 

My first reaction would be to tell myself something corny like “I don’t need to worry, I have Jesus on my side!” Well, that’s nice, but it doesn’t help the thumping in my chest that refuses to calm itself. What do you do when you pray your heart out, and it’s still raining? The storm bellows on and the waves keep crashing down. Could this be that we have found proof that God doesn’t care, or worse: doesn’t exist? Is this the sucker punch the atheist can throw to dethrone the delusional Christian? Well, I’m inclined to say no. 

You see, I believe storms are opportunities for God to draw us in closer. C.S. Lewis once said “if pleasure is God’s whisper, then pain is His megaphone.” How true it is! Pain is the time we decide if we are really in or not. We talk about pain as something that hinders us, but we can backslide just as hard during the good times, we just don’t see it because life is too good for us to notice. 

So, what does a proper response to a bad time look like? First of all, I want to say this: I don’t think the pain is supposed to simply go away. Under any other circumstances, we would call that delusion. I think it’s something deeper than the pain: the power to overcome it. I think the right response to the battle is to be able to accept that pain has arrived at our door, but not to let it dictate our path. I like to put it like this:When faced with a decision, I will often tell myself “I can feel any sort of way I want, but my feet are going to move that way!” 

In other words, it’s OK to feel the hurt, to acknowledge the stress, and to sit in the grief. Those things are there, you may as well acknowledge them. But it’s unacceptable to let the stress take you off the deep end into something like alcoholism or drug abuse. I think the best response to the stress of life is to lean into the long-term solutions. I think oftentimes we decide we need something shallow to get this excess stress off our backs. Sure, a beer might take the edge off of a bad day, but there’s something to looking the stress in the eye and firing back with “oh, you think you can stop me? Watch this!” Then proceed to carry on with your life, catering to the things that matter most. 

I find this especially true with my disciplines. Although I still have days when I don’t want to turn the shower down to cold, I always beam with pride when I bite the bullet and do it anyway. Likewise, I may be feeling too cozy in my saturday-morning jammies to go to the gym, but the sense of focus that arrives when I get back does not compare to anything else in my life! When life gets difficult, these disciplines are what keep me grounded. They’re healthy habits that are always there to keep me from flying off the tracks of life. I know I’m someone that loves routine, but it has also been shown to be great for the brain. One of my favorite ones is dinner with YouTube. I always have something going while I eat dinner and if I ever get out of this routine for any reason, you can always hear a sigh of relief ring out when I finally come back to it. 

But my biggest takeaway from this battle is to lean into the King. People like to compare coming to God to walking in the light, and I think this is a great analogy. The thing about the dark is that it’s comfortable, it’s cozy. It’s naturally very soothing. We picture a nice book by a cozy fireplace. Not a lot of light, but just enough to be able to see the pages as we turn them. Light, on the other hand, is bright. It’s almost blinding. I always have this memory of staying over at my friend’s house in high school. His dad was known for being a little rough around the edges. It was usually good fun, but it definitely helped toughen us up a little. One thing he liked to do was to wake us up on a saturday by kicking open the door, flipping on the lights and marching out. I can still feel the sting of those bright bulbs on a Saturday morning. The light was blinding, but it never failed to get us out of bed 

And yet, once we got over that initial sting, we came to the truth: that light is pretty great. Sunlight is the stuff that keeps our bodies running well and happy (just get to know someone who has only worked night shifts. What it does to the body is anything but pretty.) Light blinds, light hurts, but light is our life force. Night comforts, but it’s more of a break from the good stuff than a long-term norm. We need to learn to hurdle past that initial brightness and drink in what will truly get us through the hard times. We need to realize that although many of these things might not “take the edge off” the pains of living, it will get us through the day in a far healthier place than ever before. 

I found this especially true with God in this fight. I doubled down on my bible-reading and really got a good playlist going for most of the day. I had one night where I had to get a good album going to be able to calm myself down to sleep. Although it was still a battle, there’s no other place I would have rather been. Escapism and coping mechanisms can help for a second, but they’re masters that don’t let go. Once you’re done with them, they refuse to be done with you. They’ll cling to you like a booger that’s stuck to your finger (we’ve all picked our noses at least once. It’s ok, this is a safe place.) 

All in all, it’s good to lean into the right habits. When life gets you down, pay close attention to what you are leaning into. Take note of what thoughts come up. The darkest hours plant the deepest seeds and grow the strongest roots. If this hour is a dark one for you, know you’re not the first one to experience hardship. I want to encourage you to lean into the light and hurdle over its first sting. Ultimately, you can create a firmer foundation for yourself as you grow and nurture your love of life. 

Until next time

May Peace be your guide.