FRIDAY
By Mindy Hirst
Resiliency brings to mind an image of Pike’s Peak reaching into the sky outside my kitchen window in Colorado Springs. I liked to call Pike’s Peak “Old Grandfather Mountain” because it seemed so strong and stood tall among the mounded foothills overlooking the city with a protective presence.
Over 16 years I watched many weather systems form and descend, leaving the mountainside seemingly unchanged. Rain, snow, hail. Didn’t matter. The echoing thunder never budged a boulder from my vantage point.
In many ways, my faith grew up in Colorado, although I was 32 when we moved there. I had a mustard seed of faith that I treasured in my heart. It was a gift from Jesus when I raised my hand, heart beating, at a Children’s Crusade when I was six and went in a little room with a pretty lady and a few other kids. We knelt at tiny yellow chairs and I traced the silver fasteners with my finger as I repeated the words to ask Jesus into my heart.
I had no idea the power of that mustard seed. I knew what one looked like. My mom used to wear one around her neck, the tiny yellow speck suspended in a marble. She’d smile when I mentioned it and tell me about the large tree it could grow where birds could nest. But I didn’t know that I could ask God to help with the fear that was inside me.
Although God blessed me with a safe and loving family, I was a fearful child. Everything around me was clean, stable, and safe. Yet inside I felt unsettled. I was fearful of change, trying new things, and of the unknown. I had a deep and insatiable need to hear the words “I love you” and asked my mom many times throughout the day just to hear those words. “Mom, do you love me?” “Yes, honey. I love you.” It was our mantra.
As I grew and changed, my fears grew and changed, always focused on what I loved the most. After Grandpa died, I became terrified that my mom would die too. I began to experience anxiety and depression with racing, intrusive and disturbing thoughts. But I didn’t have words like that back then.
Several times I prayed and God answered, and I was so grateful to Him. My love for Him was growing, so that made Him the next focus of the thoughts. I often heard people in the church talking about how someone could “backslide” and be in jeopardy of not seeing Jesus someday, so I made it my life mission to stay as far away from that invisible, dreaded line as possible.
I focused the rest of my childhood on being “good,” following the rules. When I couldn’t find a rule to guide me about something I feared, my brain would come up with a rule and I had to follow it. Following the rule seemed to help the fear for awhile, but it always came back.
By high school, I began worrying about diet and health. I judged myself as a glutton and decided I needed to fix that. Unfortunately, the change brought compliments and so both my fear was addressed and my vanity stroked. The benefit was that dieting focused all my fears and energy on one area and somehow I was able to function better in the others. The negative was that I was dying and I could feel it.
I made a decision to turn my back on dieting. Instead, I focused all my energy on learning. I loved to learn, and I got much affirmation from it. For awhile, I got a rest from the haunting anxiety, and I figured I had just grown out of it.
I met Jon, we got married and started our adult life. We had an adventure in Florida where we worked for a children’s ministry. We had our first child. Then we moved back to the Midwest to be closer to our families. We had our second child, but soon we were looking for another position, and our Colorado chapter began. We had our third child and things seemed to be going well. I was learning to be a mom to three, and we were going to a church that was helping to untangle some of my misunderstandings about grace and works.
About this time, I asked God to take down the wall between Him and me. My seed was finally planted. Soon, something happened in my mind. The intrusive thoughts returned except this time they were adult sized. The workload was heavy. Jon was traveling quite a bit, and often I was on my own, or so I thought.
My mustard seed was starting to grow, but I certainly didn’t think that I could say to Pike’s Peak to move over and he would listen! Yet, Matthew 17:20 says that I can. “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
I was weak and barely functioning. Weeds were growing in the rocks out front of our house. And in those weeds, God gave me a gift. Orange poppies began to grow. I’d never seen them before. When the sun came up, they opened their petals and bent toward the sun. All day they reached out to their Creator, faces to the light. At night, they peacefully closed their petals and rested. I wanted to be like those poppies.
Matthew 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
God brought together a team of people to help. Over the next ten years I learned about my brain, beliefs, thoughts, reality, prayer, friendships, and community. God used so many people to help: a doctor, counselor, Jon, my parents-in-law, friends, my church, a study on healing—they all played a part in God moving the mountain for me.
I learned that It wasn’t about me gritting my teeth and pushing hard against it. I didn’t need to be like the mountain, I needed to let the Maker of the mountain be my help. It was okay to be a weak and small poppy, if that meant I was letting God do the work.
When my eyes are on what the world around me values, being a poppy instead of a mountain makes me feel “less than.” But in God’s view, it is exactly what I need to be.
2 Corinthians 12:10 says, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Thanks for listening to my story. I encourage you today to turn your eyes to your Maker and open your petals. He is where your help comes from.