I would hide in the closet and sob. I would scream into a pillow or blanket, shaking. I would pound my fists into the floor, unable to take the irrational lies pounding through my head. It would last for an hour at a time, and I couldn’t escape it. These were my worst moments. I’m so terrified of ever returning to my worst.

I’m so terrified of ever going back there again.

It’s been two-plus years since I was in that place. Since mold poisoning and Lyme disease wreaked such havoc on my mind. I still relive those moments as I process what I went through and grieve what I lost. 

But I never even considered worrying that I might end up back there. At my worst.

Yet one day, a treatment for my health triggered a backslide. Suddenly I felt the all too familiar cliff’s edge, and realized I was way too close to falling over.

It scared me so much. I didn’t want to go back there. I didn’t think I could go back there. Not again.

After being “safe” from it for two years, it didn’t even cross my mind to brace myself for it’s return. Or to realize how beautiful it was to have been able to relax without wondering if an “episode” would crash my day.

I know to some that might sound ridiculous. You’d love a two-year — or even a two-hour — break, and sure you’d be aware enough to brace yourself for another round. And I’m truly sorry. But when I began to finally hope that I might be healing, I braced myself for everything except returning to my worst. I think I’d almost forgotten what my worst was like. Or I didn’t forget, but I looked at it like it was from another life.

I suspect some of you relate to me. At least in the prospect of returning to your worst moments physically or mentally as a chronically ill person. You barely survived the first time. You’d think that knowing what to expect would help, but it also has the potential to make it all the more scary and impossible.

Here’s the thing. The future is in God’s hands. As is the past. We can trust Him. He brought us through it in the past, and He will carry us in the future — even if we return to our worst. 1 Timothy 1:7 (NIV) says, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

We have the power of God in us. We do not need to be ruled by fear of the past or the future. I know that’s easier to say than to live. But we are not defenseless. God will be with us, and that’s why we don’t have to be afraid. He is with us.

I am choosing today to trust God, even if He allows me to face my worst again. I don’t say that lightly. I say that while fighting panic. But I will choose to trust. Even if. 

Will you join me?

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:14-15 NIV)