I think I can

“I can’t make it tonight. I think I have the flu.”

I can’t count how many times I’ve said or texted something similar to this – anything along the lines of “I can’t…”

I wasn’t honest with other people. And I wasn’t honest with myself. Surely anxiety couldn’t be the reason I missed school five days in a row. 

Surely it was the stomach flu that hit me right before my college formal. 

Having every symptom of cardiac arrest should mean cardiac arrest – it couldn’t just be a panic attack, right?

After “surviving” the multiple scares that in the moment felt like near-death experiences, I began to learn that mental illness was at the root of these excuses. 

This realization helped me to recognize the power of the mind; to better understand my body; to be honest with myself and others. 

But it didn’t help with the excuses – excuses that sounded a little different and a little more honest, but that had the same outcome.  

“I can’t. I have anxiety.”

The more I gave in and bowed out, the more difficult living everyday life became. And mental illness had the potential to become an excuse against living at all. 

It’s incredible how mental health is being acknowledged and understood more and more in modern culture. But accepting yourself and your mental illness must go hand and hand with propelling yourself forward; not allowing yourself to make excuses and stay at rock bottom as long as your future is before you. 

Sometimes mental illness is the most legitimate of excuses. But I wonder how many more experiences and friendships I’d have if I’d pushed through, not allowed my mental illness to take even more from me, and asked myself some important questions:

“What am I actually capable of?”

“And for that which I don’t feel capable, do I trust that I can rely on the Lord’s strength, not my own?”

“What does the Lord want for and from me?”

Your mind is powerful… but this doesn’t mean you are powerless against it. Be honest. Maybe you CAN; maybe it is possible to get out of bed, to fight back against the excuses, and step forward, leaning on the everlasting arms of our most powerful Savior.