sweatpants & psalms

Well, we’ve made it to Friday. Is it just me or has this week felt super long?

I’ve struggled with an extra helping of anxious thinking all week. Every day my brain felt fogged over and muddled with too many thoughts to untangle, and every night was a repeat of the same. 

After feeling so wound up and anxious this week, I became frustrated by what I was quick to label as my “lack of progress.” Why, after all these months of meditating and learning and miracles big and small was it so easy for my brain to slip back into old anxious habits? 

I’ve heard anxiety described in a lot of different ways like a nervous dog yapping at every noise it hears, or a large, looming gorilla taking up too much space in the room, but sometimes anxiety reminds me of a pair of old sweatpants. 

You know the ones. They’re the sweatpants you’ve had since high school. They’re a little too tight and a few inches too short and they’re covered in holes in all the wrong places. But even though they’re falling apart and they don’t fit that great anymore, you just can’t seem to throw them out because they’re familiar. And kind of comfortable. But only comfortable for hiding out in your bed during a Netflix binge with the covers thrown over you; these aren’t the kind of pants you want to wear in public because, well, they’re ratty old sweats. 

Most days I wish I could throw them out (forget donating them to Goodwill—nobody needs or wants these old pants), but managing anxious thinking isn’t quite as simple as that. It’s not like I can carve out the overactive part of my brain, toss it out with the trash, and say “Thanks, but no thanks,” and carry on with my life. 

No, instead I have to learn how to fold up those old sweatpants with tender hands, slide them to the back of my drawer, and practice not putting them on every day. 

This morning, I was reading Psalm 23—The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. I love this Psalm, and I think most of us do. It’s a balm to the anxious thinker and the overburdened heart. It’s a well-loved section of scripture that reminds us that we are constantly cared for by the Lord our God. 

After reading through those verses today, my eyes caught on Psalm 22, which begins with the famous words My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 

I usually forget that those two psalms are back to back:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

As I read those words together this morning, my frustration with myself and my anxious brain started to melt away. You see, I easily fall into the trap of thinking that if I’ve learned something once I won’t need to learn it again. And again. And again. But there I was with the scriptural proof right in front of me that all this wavering, this endless waffling between doubt and faith is the human experience that God is most familiar with. 

When Christ was on the cross suffering for each of us, gracefully redeeming all humankind, He turned to Psalm 22, crying out to the Father, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I wonder if one of the reasons He did that is to point us to the words that start in anguish but always end in hope. I wonder if He’s reminding us that it’s normal to struggle and doubt, but with his triumphant resurrection, He asks us an important question: do we want to change? 

These scriptures remind me that Christ has a new armor for us, something better than our tired old sweatpants we’ve grown too attached to. But these verses also remind me that I’m not always going to get it right; I’m going to swing imperfectly between doubt and faith, anxious and not anxious, every day of my life.

We all are. 

Those days can exist side by side just as those psalms reside on the same page.

God, where are you?

Lord, you are with me. 

Some days I pull out the familiar sweatpants just to look at them, and before I know it, I’ve slipped them back on. Other days I almost forget they’re there in the back of my drawer. But no matter which Psalm I’m singing, I am always seen, cared for, ministered to, and loved by my Creator, the Good Shepherd, who restores my anxious soul.

And so are you, my friend. So are you.