If you’ve been to enough Christian concerts and speaking events, this has probably happened to you: a room that is full of people, and full of the Holy Spirit.

If you aren’t a believer, that idea might make you feel uncomfortable, but stick with me. There’s a lot of things about the world that make all of us uncomfortable, and if we can’t let ourselves squirm a little while we try to put ourselves in one another’s shoes, then we should stop asking for acceptance from the people we are secretly (or not so secretly) judging. But that is another blog post altogether.

It started as a string of bleak days. Too tired to get off the sofa for hours at a time, I stopped making meals. I lost my appetite, and survived on carbs and water. Apathy took over. I was paralyzed by decision making, and thinking about my day’s responsibilities or having to leave the house left me in tears. All this has happened before, but I couldn’t remember when it had been this bad.

The usual things that snap me out of it weren’t working. I found myself actively avoiding what I know often helps because it felt like I just couldn’t. The days were hopelessness and fatigue. The nights were restless sleep, wild dreams, and night sweats. Every few days I would have a few hours, a morning, or evening of relief where I felt mostly normal again, but then I would plunge back under.

I didn’t quit meditating during that time, but I went from doing two hours a day to one, and that one didn’t feel like it helped. I was miserable, exhausted, and overwhelmed. I didn’t want to reach out to friends. I felt like I couldn’t do anything but wallow. I was just alone, behind a fogged-up glass, and couldn’t figure out how to escape.

On the eleventh day of this, something shifted. It felt like I had bobbed back up near the surface. The depression had been replaced with anxiety the likes of which I hadn’t experienced since before my trip. I was paranoid and crawling up the walls. What little contact I had with other human beings was plagued by doubt. The absence of contact with people was worse. That usually benign waiting for a return email or text became heavy with the negative stories my brain was spinning. This has happened enough times for me to know that isn’t real, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier to shake.

That anxious day was a Thursday. Friday was going to be a full day, ending with a concert for the Chaplain and I, during the time I usually nap before my night shift, and then I was going to work.

Usually, I have a max of three activities a day, and one is my preferred number. Friday was going to be straight up chaos for me, and it was coming after nearly two weeks of feeling like I was trapped at the bottom of a pit. I didn’t feel like I could get out of any of the things we had planned.

I woke up Friday morning feeling clear. I got in an hour meditation in the morning that was wonderful. I was miraculously able to get in two more sessions in the afternoon and evening, and they were both good, too. The day went as smoothly as it could, and when we got to the concert that night, I was almost upbeat. It felt too good to be true.

The concert was Trey McLaughlin and the Sounds of Zamar.

I didn’t know much about the group, just that it was going to be a gospel concert. I’d looked up one video on YouTube before buying tickets after seeing an ad in a program from another show. For about 7 months now, the Chaplain and I have been going to live music events about once a month (up from once a year or less for most of our marriage). I look for events that sound interesting and represent diverse musical tastes. We saw an alt. classical cello group, a Jewish rapper, and a South African Gospel choir this past fall. Plus, my midwife took me to see a bonus concert.

The group’s vocals were incredible. The singers had open hearts. The show had a great flow. It wasn’t long before I was crying (again). And I was in the second row of an intimate venue, so I just closed my eyes and pretended they couldn’t see me sitting there with the tears streaming.

The group had the audience participating, and the  was full of amazing singers. The whole room was just full of the most beautiful sound, and they were calling on God’s name and He CAME.

It has been so long since I have experienced that. It’s the sort of thing you could talk yourself out of it everyone else weren’t clearly experiencing the same thing. I think everyone on stage and much of the audience was crying. I imagine it’s similar to what the disciples felt when they received the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room. You could feel a Presence in the room, just as the group finished their last song.

They cried their way off the stage, and then came back and sang some more. There was so much gratitude in that concert hall. I felt like I’d experienced a healing. I took a couple of videos while I was there, and they were OK, but the best parts of the concert, I never could have pulled my phone out for.

On the ride home, I knew I’d have about five minutes to pull on my scrubs and head out the door for work that night. I wished I had time to write, because I felt like I had a testimony.

God continued to be with me through the night, and I needed the help. I bore the brunt of one patient’s hair trigger temper, while caring for two others who needed all the rest of me I had left.

Amazingly, I was still in one piece when I got home, but I had remained calm in the face of a lot of negativity over the course of the night shift, and intuition told me I’d absorbed it rather than letting it flow through me. That’s a skill I’m still working on, the flowing through.

I could barely move my neck when I woke up Saturday afternoon after sleeping off the shift. I was also drenched, to add insult to injury. I still can’t move my neck. I can’t look up or to the right. It is 100% stuck stress. I’m not sure where that leaves my testimony.

My spirit feels light as a feather. My body is like a twisted piece of leather that has dried awkwardly in the sun.

Tomorrow might involve my first trip to the chiropractor since my LAST trip to the chiropractor. Or maybe urgent care, because at this point, I think I prefer a shot of muscle relaxant to letting anyone touch my neck.

I’m pretty sure what catalyzed my period of darkness was a body memory – you know, when you feel terrible and then realize it’s the anniversary of something? The week my hopelessness started was the same week last year that things started to unravel with the Chaplain and I.

Things aren’t perfect, but they are a whole lot better. We do emotional gymnastics now because of all the practice communication we’ve had over the course of the difficult months since last January. We can sit with negative feelings like nobody’s business. We say sorry when we react defensively or unkindly. There is a different kind of honesty and love. Not that we never had those things before, but we’re much better at it, and there is a new, deeply compassionate piece.

That hasn’t stopped me from plunging into darkness, floating back up again, and discovering that my neck is broken. In a testimony, isn’t this the part where I would say, but God is Good?

God IS Good. I wish that Goodness would heal my neck as well as my broken spirit, but that’s not the way it works. And while my spirit is intact today, it will probably be broken again soon, too. Hopefully not before my neck gets fixed.

I’m going to share my Sounds of Zamar Pandora Station. It has been ministering to my heart today in spite of the tweaked neck muscle. I’m also reading a couple of good books about stuck stress and the body’s response to trauma, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you.

There are all kinds of good things coming up this month. I know that for sure. Maybe THAT is my testimony.

The quote above is from Jack Kornfield’s After the Ecstasy, The Laundry, and I made it look pretty using the Wordswag app.

Right after I finished writing and posting this, something happened. You can read the rest of the testimony here.