Yesterday evening my husband and I went out to eat. When we got to the restaurant, we had to wait for just five minutes for a table. It wasn’t much to ask. I could have waited outside, but since it was so cold outside, I chose to wait inside. I was standing inside the small waiting area. I could hear loud music baring in my ear. I heard workers working in the kitchen right behind me. I heard the hostess taking names nearby. I heard several groups of people talking as they were waiting for tables. I also heard another hostess calling people and seating groups. Then, I heard a couple standing right next to me talking. The woman was much louder than the man. I think she was standing right next to me.
I tried to play a computer game on my phone to distract myself from all the noise, but it really didn’t help. I couldn’t understand how so many people could be in one place and not be bothered by so much noise. For me, it wasn’t just loud, it was a cacophony of noise. There were so many discordant sounds all at once.
I wonder if that is something that is truly scary. It isn’t just one overwhelming sensory feeling, but several of them all at once that don’t go together. At the same time, knowing that you don’t have any control over them.
When I have had panic attacks, I think maybe that is a good description. Overwhelming feelings that I have no control over. I always said that it feels like you are dying, but you don’t die. I would think the scariest feeling in the world is pain and torture and never knowing when it is going to end. That’s probably where all the ideas of what Hell is like comes from.
However, as I grow and learn the one constant is that everything is changing. Neverending pain and torture doesn’t really exist. It might last a very long time and it might feel like forever, but it really doesn’t. Nothing last forever, except for God. So, anytime something feels overwhelming and scary, like the noise or the pain of a migraine, I can take comfort in knowing that our world changes. God is the only truth that I can rely on. I have faith in Him alone.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
