These Words Got Me Through Dark Moments

Johanna Stamps explores a recent moment of darkness and how it gave birth to truth and light.

It has been a big couple of weeks. It felt like uncertainty was layering on top of itself. Like layers of bricks stacked on thin sticks. Two biopsies, waiting for lab results, walking around with a golf ball-sized wound on my prized forehead, and dealing with a neighbor’s Covid close call, all the while getting the little one ready for preschool.

One evening, I whispered to my family, with almost no voice left, “It just feels like it’s too much.” It felt like everything was teetering and about to fall. I wanted to be able to surrender everything to God, but the mountain felt too large to release.

One night, I knew I was heading for a night of insomnia if I didn’t do something about it. I could hear the voices starting to ring in my ear as the house became silent:

“What if your wound is infected?”

“What if you can’t get an appointment with the plastic surgeon?”

“What if our neighbor has Covid?”

“What if the little one missed his first preschool classes?”

When I prayed, the tears just started to flow. I was overwhelmed. Tears are so good, so healing. They are the physical representation of emotion flowing.

woman crying

The weight was buckling, and I was breaking, but instead of being crushed by the weight, I was set free. I started a staccato rhythm with these words I had never said before:

“Fear is the chain that binds me, but I am set free by the powerful name of Jesus.”

I was no longer trying to hold up the pile of uncertainty. As negative thoughts started to emerge, I said the line again and again. Soon, the tears dried up and my tension softened. I closed my eyes, and I slept deep.

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What is helping you to raise the stop sign on your negative thoughts? #catholicmom

When my negative thoughts run away from me, I know I can’t get back to positive or even neutral unless I do a full U-turn. These simple words helped to quicken the process.

During this experience, I thought of Romans 12:12:

Do not be confirmed by the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That it may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.