The definition of defeat is to overcome, prevail, or vanquish. To be defeated is to have that definition turned around on you. To be overcome, prevailed over or vanquished. I would like to think that my Tennessee Titans will defeat (at least most of) their opponents. I hope that the people I vote for defeat their opponents. I hope my children will admit defeat and fall asleep before midnight tonight. I had hoped I had defeated panic and anxiety. I mentioned in the last post I was worried it might not last. My reprieve lasted only 24 hours after that post was submitted.
I feel defeated, overcome, vanquished. I feel like a man who tastes freedom after a year of imprisonment only to be caught shoplifting the very next day and thrown back into the slammer. I felt free for 5 days and I don't know which is worse; knowing freedom is out there and having it disappear, or never feeling it at all.
To say that I am upset at the latest in an absurdly long line of setbacks would be an understatement of epic proportions. I want to just....just....I don't even know. Where can you go to escape your mind? I pray. Maybe not hard enough, but I pray. I get angry when I get no response. And then there are the moments after. Once my brain has calmed enough to process without panic, I hear Him. Steady and strong, telling me to hold on. He tells me I have what it takes to win. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Defeat is only temporary. The definition of defeat works two ways. You can either be defeated or you can defeat. I can be vanquished by this internal battle, or I can keep fighting until I find the key that will vanquish all doubt. Mama always said that things lost are always in the last place you look, so I'll keep looking.
"When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze." Isaiah 43:2
I have been asked why I keep believing in this God that doesn't deliver me from this even when I cry out. May I also remind that person I am not the only one who deals with this and some have it so much worse. I wish I had an answer that would satisfy you. All I can say is that I just know. The same way I know that even on a blazing hot day that someday it will be cool again. Just because I ask for the rain, and it doesn't come today, doesn't mean it won't come at all. I know it will.
A great song by a band called Barlow Girl sums it up best:
"I needed you today, but you didn't show
I waited for you, so where did you go?
You told me to call, said you'd be there
and though I can't see you are you still there?
I cry out with no reply,
and I can't feel you by my side,
so I'll hold tight to what I know.
You're here, and I'm never alone"
I'm never alone. Never fully defeated. And the enemy, the one that invades my mind, knows that, and apparently it pisses him off. News for you, my personal demon, I am now, and always will be a stubborn and relentless bad ass.My God made me that way. Bring it.
