"Stigs"

It usually happens at night. They come slowly to my door, the one I usually always leave open. The thoughts come in pairs, like lazy vultures, they’ve circled my room for hours, but probably never went too far away from it in the first place. They lurk in the alleys of my mind, remaining hidden until the eve of the next day’s slumber. They are what I like to call: “stigs”, a nickname I coined for them late one night that probably empowered them if anything, but amused me so I stuck with it. A stig refers to those lies that mask themselves as “thoughts.” This way, they’re an innocent commonplace natural occurrence, to ensure us that there is nothing to be alarmed by. Their hope is to be as natural and unassuming as a thought like: “I think I still smell like that In-N-Out I just left.” This way, they can’t be charged with anything in our soul’s court of law if it comes to it. They sting and parade our minds in hopes to become permanent members of our inward selves. Stigs have one job. Their goal is not to conquer us, that’d be too bold. The career that they’ve chosen is a little more simple: to convince us that we are as we are, but that they are not in fact just thoughts, but truths. These little things are the ones that keep you lying awake under heavy covers, too still to toss, too straight to turn.

I thought about calling them “stings” but I thought that was too plain and obvious, and my mind had the idea to pop the “n” out, and sure enough they came alive and started dancing around the room even more once they were introduced to their new fitting title. They throw quite the party. Most of the time, I don’t protest or make a big fuss, I even slide past my door to make more space in the room, easier access to my head. I become a reluctant party host, arriving at my nightly duties of brushing teeth and YouTube scrolling all the while indirectly entertaining these little gremlins.

They’re quite hard to describe. I wouldn’t call them creatures as much as they are like little blobs. There is nothing quite delightful or interesting about them. Their bodies are accompanied by one tentacle-looking index finger that points and pokes, that’s about it. You would think that these anxieties would at least seem attractive to make people more likely to engage with them. They are for the most part, colorless, odorless, little balls of soot. Yes, that’s a good way to describe them, they remind me of little milky black remnants of a fire. They don’t just walk in, but rather they kind of float or drip in from a much larger source, like one ant finding its way far from its hill.

One night I decided to be proactive. I saw the sun dropping ever so slowly into a basket sky and I jumped at my opportunity. I found every knob and horn and turned it up to insane volumes. “HUMBLE” had never played so loud. Songs became anthems, and Instagram pictures became the canvassed pillow in which I laid my head to rest. Everyone got likes on social media that night, and I mean everyone. I created a new dimension of sight and sound as if my senses had been deprived for ages. Noise began to conquer all.

None of this worked, as you can imagine. To my distress, stigs love Kendrick Lamar, and the noise made them do their work more diligently. The pictures themselves were, well decent distractors, but once the stigs got to work, a coveting campaign began. Evidently, every time I scrolled up, I ended up feeling more down. All of this noise, became a little too hyperbolic for my taste. I proceeded to shut it down.

I was left there in silence. I started to weep, but not the kind of weep where there is any kind of purpose or dignity underneath it. It was kind of a helpless weep, my collapse was leveraged by a relinquishing of control. The farther down I kneeled, the more complete my surrender became. My body caved, and the floor took the shape of an altar. I sat there crying, not so much feeling sorry for myself, but emotionally going limp to wherever this current of grief was taking me. It felt like pressure being released. After awhile, I was reminded of a verse that a mentor told me about, and how it can be helpful in times of trouble, as well as to wield when necessary. I dug in my pockets and came up with: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all that I need.” So there I knelt, holding an incomplete Psalm that I hoped to fully believe and held it as tightly as I could. I squeezed it until my fingertips were as white as the walls surrounding me, as if to break apart something within the verse, or possibly within myself.

The stigs didn’t leave quickly. I regret to share that they were not obliterated by some impenetrable force that made all of them go away. It seems likely that a bigger force triumphed in that they became bored. I guess they discerned that their efforts had become futile. Silence in solitude had once again claimed victory, ironically to fend off creatures that did their best feasting during times of being alone like this one. It’s almost as if in the middle of my suffering, I began to find meaning, and they began to lose theirs. Eventually, the moans of a wounded and lifeless party made them file themselves back out the door they came in from.

I can’t tell you about what I found at that altar. I would love to say that there was an indescribable joy upon my discovery that I had beat them if only for just this one night. No such thing, but I don’t think this was my expectation. What I did find was Jesus, who to my disbelief, was asking nothing of me. He knelt down beside me and without saying anything reminded me of a time where He had cried out to someone He felt forsaken by, but obeyed nonetheless. He told me nothing. He spoke no words, and suggested no action. He only knelt down, as if to be there, weeping beside me, to not just remind me of His presence, but to show me, that my King, my Father, weeps with me, and for me too. And then joy, like a stubborn tide, came rolling in yet again.

-SS