Headaches: The Monster Within

“No matter what precautions we take, no matter how well we have put together a good life, no matter how hard we have worked to be healthy, wealthy, comfortable with friends and family, and successful with our career — something will inevitably ruin it.” -Tim Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

For the first time in my life, things felt right. Beautiful wife, baby on the way, seminary education, job as a full time pastor, respect from family and friends…everything made sense. The only thing we lacked was a new house with a dog in the backyard. Just when the struggle of education was over. Just when life FINALLY made sense. Just when all of my plans were coming to fruition, the monster within took a bite out of my reality. Bleeding all over the place, my heart and mind were a mess of band-aids and gauze wrapped in medical tape.

Daily headaches knock you to the ground (sometimes literally) and steal the life within you. Waking up with a dull pain in the back of my head and then spending all day dreaming about getting to lie down on the couch after work, was my life for a whole year. Sure, there were days of relief, but they were short lived rays of sunshine surrounded by the thickest fog of despair I could imagine. The only thing worse than total darkness in the middle of the night, like a scene from a horror movie, is that moment right after the sun goes down in the winter and everything looks gray. As if Satan is granted a few minutes of authority over light to drain all of the color from the world. With all of the happiness gone around you, all that can be done is to sit there and think about how to live in a way that minimizes the pain, just long enough to take another bite of dinner and kiss your wife and baby before going to bed.

Origins
I have thought long and hard about when and how the headaches started. As far as I can remember, sometime in the summer of 2012 they began. All I remember was driving down the interstate coming back from work and feeling this dull and occasional sharp pain in the back of my head and neck and thinking, “well that’s new.” From that point on the headaches only seemed to present themselves during stressful situations, so I tried to fight through them and get myself out of the stress. Which is pretty much impossible as a full time seminary student. So I just learned to deal with it. When that summer ended and so did that dreadful job, the headaches went away as well, but only temporarily.

Transitioning into my next part time job at the beginning of the school year, I didn’t realize I was walking into what would turn out to be the worst job situation I have ever experienced. Long hours, low pay, and the most stubborn employer who repeatedly lied through his teeth to save his own skin, you can say my stress rose again. It will probably take me years to get over that experience. Seriously, it was that bad. Frustration. Tension. More headaches.

Finally, during the spring of 2013, I began the candidacy process with our current church, Journey Church. Once I started that process, and was confident enough that we would be hired, I quit that part time job and almost immediately felt relief. During that time, Katy and I found out we were pregnant with Morgan and because of the timing of our lease, we moved in with her parents. The relief of getting out of that terrible job, preparing ourselves to be parents, and living rent free…the stress instantly melted away. Life finally made sense, or so I thought.

As I stated in the previous post, “New City, New Job, New Life,” last summer was brutal. Two of the hardest seminary classes I ever experienced, coupled with 6+ hours of commuting a week, rebuilding a youth ministry as a rookie pastor, and preparing to bring a new baby into our family, let’s just say the stress and anxiety skyrocketed. Almost everyday since I started this job on June 1st, 2013 I have had a headache, or at least felt tension in the back of my head.

Meeting the Monster
Everyone who has ever had any type of moderate to extreme physical recurring pain seeks out help to discover the root cause. We pour through medical journals and blogs, we mistakenly open up our WebMD app and convince ourselves that the worst is inevitable, but rarely do we look within our hearts and minds. Now I realize I just switched gears without warning you, but this is necessary. I’m actually still in the middle of talking with doctors about the different medical explanations for my headaches, but I’ve discovered the answer to my struggle, I’ve met the monster within causing all of my problems.

This monster is ugly and stubborn. It does not like to be told it’s wrong, or that it should consider a different path. It gets mad when things don’t go its way, but complains when its own plans fail. It’s judgmental of others and arrogant about its own abilities and success. This monster lurks in the shadows of the night, and dresses up in a pretty costume by day. You see this monster embodies the stereotypical hypocrite who walks around all day as if nothing is wrong with it, but only to be hiding underneath its pretty costume its most hideous self. This monster has been tormenting me since the day I became a Christian in high school.

By now you’ve probably figured it out, and are either a) frustrated because I’m writing yet another cliche post about “fighting the demons inside you” or whatever OR b) confused because you think I’ve been possessed by a demon the past 2 years. Well, if you’re the frustrated person ‘a’ you’re right, but you need to get off your high horse and finish reading what I have to say, because you probably struggle with the same problem as I do. So listen up. If you’re person ‘b’ I love that you’re willing to consider the spiritual so you’ll probably have no trouble with the rest of this story. Thanks for keeping an open mind.

So let’s continue.

If you somehow have no idea of the identity of my ‘monster’ let me enlighten you: it’s me. Well actually it’s the old me. The apostle Paul talks quite frequently about this confusing old self throughout his letters (Romans 6:6-12; Eph. 4:17-24). The idea here is that the old self is the one that seeks a life of defying God and his righteous way of living. By “righteous way of living” I’m not talking about the Mosaic Law, forgetting to sacrifice an animal that day (or insert your favorite right-winged talking point, like homosexuality, here), I’m talking about something more evil, deeper within the human soul. Sure, the 10 commandments are eternal, sexual immorality of any kind is sinful, but those are just outward actions of a deeper more evil inward struggle. The symptoms of a genetic disease, and we all have it.

Monster Theology
You see, my view of sin goes much deeper than a typical Sunday morning sermon, or a Wednesday night small group lesson at youth group. When I read about “the fall” of Adam and Eve in Genesis, I don’t get upset that God kicked them out of the garden for “eating the fruit of the tree.” When I read that story, I cringe because I picture myself as Adam committing the very same sin, as I often do. My old self doesn’t trust God. My old self hates receiving help from anyone. My old self doesn’t like grace or mercy or love because my old self wants to pay an “eye for an eye.” A free gift can’t be paid for and is absolutely NOT compatible with the worldview of my old self. Adam and Eve were not banned from the garden for merely eating some random fruit, as if God is that petty. It’s what the tree represented that got them banned from the garden.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents all of God’s knowledge, which is eternal, about everything there is to know, both good and evil. That is okay for God to know because He is also eternally good and powerful and thus able to handle the knowledge of evil, but we are not. Humans were created as an “image” of God and therefore only a reflection of His goodness (i.e. not the source of goodness), thus susceptible to the evil side. When they ate of the fruit God forbid them to eat, they realized from within that they couldn’t handle this knowledge, and thus hid themselves, expecting God to punish them for not trusting Him. It’s like when you tell a young child not to touch the stove, it’s not because you’re mean and want to smother the child with legalism, you care for them and do not want them to get hurt. So it is with God and His own children.

The point is that for me, sin is rooted deep within my own rebellion against God. My old self, even though I became a Christian 10+ years ago, is still rebelling. It still wants to overthrow God’s righteous judgment seat, and rule all by itself. The old me is selfish and wants to be king, even though it never will or ever could be. For me, my headaches represent my old way of thinking that wants to “pull myself up by my bootstraps” and “control my own destiny.” Misguided attitudes I grew up hearing. The monster within is rebelling against what God is doing, and the battle is ugly and it hurts.

While there probably is a medical explanation to my condition, it will never fully explain the internal torment caused by the monster within. Even before my MRI appointment this afternoon, and subsequent appointments with various other health professionals in the future, I knew what had to be done. And it all lead to a miraculous Easter Sunday.

Stay tuned for next week’s post, “Headaches: An Easter Sunday Miracle” and the conclusion of this series.