“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  - Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about mercy: what mercy actually means, what it looks like to receive mercy, what it costs to ask for mercy. I don’t think I’ve really contemplated God’s mercy before. It was something I thanked and praised Him for (“Lord, You are a merciful God; thank You, Lord, for having mercy on us and saving us”), but I don’t think I consciously or consistently ask Him for it, not like I ask for strength to make it through the day or for peace in times of emotional turmoil.

Lately, and not so coincidentally, I’ve also been experiencing frequent and intense anxiety, to a degree that feels new and like it’s the worst it’s ever been, but I also acknowledge that I’m in the middle of this wave and cannot objectively stand back to make that call.

(Note of warning: In the next two paragraphs, I describe two different experiences of my anxiety. If you feel that reading something might be unhealthy or triggering for you, skip to the third paragraph below that begins with “I hope it’s okay…”)

I often find my brain kicking into overdrive, and I have all these racing thoughts about “I’m so scared that A will happen” but also “I’m so scared that A won’t happen” and “What if A happens and B also happens, and then I’ll have to do C, but if I can’t C then D E F will happen and if THAT, then G, and…” and then I spiral further and further, and there really aren’t enough letters in the English alphabet to fully spell it all out, but you get the general idea. It’s a speeding train of internal anxieties pushing faster and faster until my mind blanks out because it can’t keep up with itself, and that’s usually when my face and hands kind of go numb for a little while. By the time I regain an awareness of my physical body and my surroundings, I find I’ve been crying pretty hard and I will have to consciously slow down my breathing so that I don’t choke. And then…then I have to continue with my day, because this will usually happen at my desk at work or when I’m driving and have pulled over on the side of the road. I do my best to “shake it off” and try to move on with my schedule, because I have to, until it happens again. Because it always happens again. Rinse and repeat for roughly a dozen times each day.

Other times, it’s not like that at all. This is harder to describe, but other times there’s just an intense and heavy fear that seems to kind of come out of nowhere, and it leeches onto my insides and begins to constrict. The fear feels dark and big, insurmountable, and always always uncontrollable. My body reacts to this fear similar to the way it reacts to my brain kicking into overdrive—difficulty concentrating, crying, a loss of control over my breath—but this kind of fear feels more insidious, because it’s unknown and much more unpredictable. Usually, in those times, I kind of curl up and just call on the name of the Lord Jesus over and over, until it passes. It always passes after a while. But similar to the other experience, it can happen multiple times a day, and it can be equally as draining.

I hope it’s okay that I went into a little detail of my experiences of mental un-health. I hope it doesn’t come off like I’m trying to be dramatic or to persuade you to feel bad for me. There is always a disclaimer because I know a lot of people out there experience much more severe and debilitating symptoms of anxiety/depression than I do, so I’m not trying to say that what I deal with is the worst or that it deserves your sympathy. I guess…I’m just trying to describe a little bit of how anxiety manifests itself in my daily life. To set the stage for why God’s mercy has taken on a new meaning for me recently.

Human mercy is limited. If I’m supposed to pick you at 8 AM and you’re not ready to go until 8:20 AM, I’m going to be a little annoyed, but I’ll forgive you because it’s not that big a deal. If you’re twenty minutes late again the next time, I’ll probably be a little more snippy when I say hello. A third time, you’ll probably get a lecture. After a while, I might stop offering to give you a ride altogether. (I…may not be the most merciful person when it comes to timeliness.) I may “have mercy” at first and keep offering rides, but I quickly run out of patience and the desire to extend a second chance.

Dealing with anxiety isn’t exactly like someone being twenty minutes late all the time, but it’s similar in that I find myself beseeching the Lord to help me and bear with all my weaknesses. 

Right now, the hour between when I wake up and when my day really gets going is the absolute worst part of my life. It’s the hour when the entire day with all of its unpredictabilities, responsibilities, unknowns, and anxieties looms. I sit at the foot of my bed knowing that I will end up sobbing for breath at least a couple times a day, that I’ll end up feeling overwhelmed and out of control, that it’ll be repeatedly exhausting over and over. I think about my future self freaking out, knowing it will happen and knowing I have no way to stop it or to shield myself from the speeding train of anxiety or from the inexpressible fear. All I want to do is go back to sleep so I don’t have to feel it, so I don’t have to live it… So that hour is when I ask Him for His mercy. Well, that’s when I ask Him for a lot of stuff—for Him to get me through the day, to protect me from the evil one, to supply me through all the difficult interactions that might trigger a bout of anxiety, etc.—but mercy is the request that feels like it’s being torn from the depths of my soul.

Because asking for mercy truly means I have no other options. I’ve tried to everything currently in my power to control or assuage this anxiety/fear, and nothing has caused it to abate. In that blurry hour when I first wake up, eyes puffy and heart full of dread, grey false-dawn light shining weakly out the window—I beg the Lord to show me mercy today, and I feel so small. I am small. Faced with this current season of fear, I can’t help myself. I can’t save myself from it. But I have a Savior who has saved me eternally, and each morning I ask Him to save me again today.

In the realization of my smallness, I cling to my God who is so big.

And it’s weird.. Sometimes I feel guilty asking for the Lord to have mercy on me. Didn’t He already do so much in mercy? Didn’t He already create me and find me and save me? Didn’t He already die for me even when I was dead in my sins, and didn’t He already make me alive together with Christ? (I don’t really have an answer for that. I have those questions but still I ask Him for mercy because I need Him.) Other times, I feel like I need to “store up” or “save” my requests for mercy. Like, when I know that Tuesday’s schedule will be especially difficult, I find myself hesitating as I pray on Monday morning. As if our God won’t be merciful to me two days in a row. (He’s not as stingy as I am when it comes to patience and second chances.) 

It’s this season in which I’m beginning to realize just what it means that “God, being rich in mercy” has mercies that are “new every morning.” It’s humbling. He’s merciful in eternity and He’s merciful in time. He has mercy on me Monday and Tuesday (and every other day of the week, too.) He has shown me mercy already—in carrying me through some truly difficult days and many difficult moments, in allowing a way “out” of an unhealthy environment, in providing resources for me to seek therapy—but that doesn’t mean He will cease having mercy on me now. He’s given and He continues to give. I can still come to Him every morning, every moment even. In a strange, shouldn’t-this-be-obvious-but-it’s-not way, I’m thankful that we don’t have to worry about “using up” God’s mercy, because I’m once again opened up to realize how desperately we need Him every day. What a promise it is that His mercies are new every morning. And what a glorious God is our God, rich in unending mercy.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”  - Ephesians 2:4-5 (ESV)