Easter for the Anxious

It's Easter Sunday this weekend and I couldn't be more uneasy. All I have been able to think about for the past 2 weeks is the idea of stepping back into a church for the first time in months and the thought sends me into a lonely tower of anxiety I don't easily escape, while my nights have been filled with panic-stricken nightmares of trying to escape and run out of some church from my childhood. 

Sunday. It's approaching. And while the evangelical Christian realm is readying their flyers and proselytizing their church's Easter service, all I feel is dread. Dread over the songs that will be sung and the memories they will conjure. Dread over the lingo and the phrases that, all too often, were used and abused. Dread over having to be in an institution with all my questions and no answers. Dread over what panic may seize me. 

"How bad will it be? How long will it last?"

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Great. God knows the appreciation I hold in my heart for what Easter represents and means- meaning that is not lost in my anxiety. However, my anxiety is not subdued or lost in its great meaning either. 

For so many of us living with the consequences of spiritual trauma, Easter Sunday is not really a celebration- it's an anxiety attack. And whereas so many of us may have found a God that understands and is not offended by our pain and our fear of feeling it, that doesn't mean that others are not looking at us with worry in their eyes. 

I have never experienced an Easter Sunday like this. Easter is all about resurrection, but the resurrection I've become intimately acquainted with in this season is the resurrection of trauma long stuffed and pain long ignored. This is what I fear Easter Sunday holds in store for me, more painful resurrection. 

Sunday morning may end in a panic attack, but every morning has that chance. I know I can't be ruled by fear and I can't be ruled by what ifs. The struggle, however, is too too real my friends. 

This Sunday I'll be in church despite all my fears and anxieties. I may be asking for trouble, but it may be a great day. All I know is that I love my family and I choose to join them in this day. My mind will most assuredly be in a different place than the rest of the congregation. My thoughts will be divided between keeping the memories at bay and remembering all those who are in the same boat as me- us exiled battered seekers who, perhaps, this Sunday are just doing our best to survive the occasion. But take courage friends, if Easter shows us anything it's that the worst of struggles has an end; no pain lasts forever; and there's life on the other side...oh and multi-colored egg salad.