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Is There Enough Grace for My Intrusive Thoughts?

By Meghan Newkirk

My brain runs fast. It gets to spinning faster than I can find the pause button. As a young imaginative girl my thoughts whirled around on a constant loop, often leaving me distressed and overwhelmed. I wasn’t diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder until I was in my late teens, and with that diagnosis came the freedom to learn more about why my thoughts overtook my life so easily and occupied most of my time. My fears spanned a variety of categories that took turns monopolizing my every mental move. Proper strategies and medication were the keys to combating my disorder, but even with these tools I found it a challenge to fully grasp how God’s grace fit into the equation of my healing.

Scriptural Assurance Can Lead to MORE Anxiety for Me

As a believer, it’s clear in scripture that Jesus died so we could be forgiven for all our sins; not some of them, but all of them. This truth should make someone like me who is fearful of my own potential as a sinful human feel relief from the prison of uncertainty, however I find that for Christians like myself with OCD, this notion often leads to more unnecessary compulsions and anxiety.

How It Started

When I was young girl, well before being diagnosed, I stressed about losing my salvation daily. I would come up with ridiculous scenarios where if I thought the wrong thing I’d be doomed to go to hell, away from God forever. In my attempts to stay perfectly right with God, I’d have to write my prayers “just the right way” in my journal, often reading them to myself hundreds of times until I felt He would accept my perfect offering of repentance.

One evening, I stumbled upon a verse in the Bible that left me daunted and scrambling for the right compulsion to keep me from becoming doomed. In the book of Matthew chapter five verse 22 it says, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” My thoughts immediately hooked its OCD claws into the word ‘fool’, convincing me that if I used or thought that word, I would get a one-way eternal ticket far south of heaven.

One day after being demanded to provide reassurance about this fear one time too many, my mom lovingly exploded with wisdom filled exasperation. Having studied the Bible far more than I had, she was confident that this verse held a deeper contextual meaning about the word fool and did not, in fact, mean

Finally, in desperation, she saw no other way to push me out of my anxiety than to shout out, “FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!” I fell to my knees with a bellowing scream as I feared the worst for her soul given my incorrect comprehension of the verse. In that one moment, God’s power was scary, and I was helpless to save my mom from her extremely unwise choice. It didn’t matter that God’s truths in and through the Bible disproved my fears because to me, this was her demise. She immediately showed me another verse, Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” She assured me that I was in Christ and that my distress showed the state of my heart to be repentant and to believe, so I had absolutely nothing to fear. The “fool” episode passed with some deep breathing and a gradual acceptance of the truth, but even today, I often wonder in moments when the intrusive thoughts get particularly weird, if God’s grace really does cover all the strange obsessions or feelings I’ve had in my life.

Intrusions–Unwanted, Odd, Perverse, or Horrifying

Intrusive thoughts are the unwanted, odd, perverse, and horrifying concepts and images the brain can cook up. For the person with OCD, these thoughts are distressing and sickening, but somehow, it’s far too easy to believe that there could be enjoyment mixed in as well. Knowing the reality of sin and how it taints every one of us becomes the final catalyst in the chemical reaction of guilt and shame that comes along with these sorts of thoughts.

As a believer who has OCD, I am far too aware of my sin nature and I work tirelessly to combat it, but I still fall very short of perfection. When I first began therapy, I was convinced the therapist would either commit me or have me arrested based on the bizarre nature of my fears. Even though she assured me I was under the influence of an extreme case of OCD, I still wondered if what Christ did on the cross would be enough to wipe those thoughts off my permanent record. How do we, as Christians with OCD, rest in the work of Christ when we know these thoughts would be as repulsive to Him as they are to us?

Living with OCD–Grace in Action

Living with OCD means learning to withstand the discomfort of uncertainty. Every human must learn to deal with the unknown, but OCD causes the intrusive thoughts to dictate the narrative we tell ourselves about that unknown, so it’s extra uncomfortable. Learning to live in that uncertainty means leaning into what Christ did for us, choosing to trust in the things we do know about our Lord.

When we choose to tolerate the active disgust of our thoughts without any short-term compulsion relief, we are seeing grace in action. God will not leave us to suffer through those activities alone. He is not afraid of our thoughts like we are because He eradicated their power when He died on the cross for us. He wants us to rest in Him alone, not in the perfection of our thoughts.

There Is No Condemnation

This truth, that there truly is NO CONDEMNATION for those in Christ Jesus should spur us on through our journeys with OCD because with our panic comes the reality that we are all too aware of our need for Jesus. The distress we feel about our thoughts is a sign that we desire a rightness with God.

We are never sitting in the uncertainty alone because God’s grace not only covers our intrusive thoughts in the here and now but will one day eradicate them forever when we are with Him. God can use our OCD as a gift in the form of an active conscience that helps us discern our impact on the world through a conscientious lens with no rumination required!

Meghan Newkirk is a North Carolina native who graduated from North Carolina State University with a degree in Communication. She was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder while in college and has learned how to combat it with counseling and medication. As a young child Meghan enjoyed writing short stories and imagining make believe tales for her dolls. Her first book came after feeling called to communicate her experiences with OCD to her children in a way that would be encouraging, but entertaining. She wants to communicate her need for Jesus and how He used her mental difficulties as a way to bring her to Himself. Meghan feels called to write fictional stories about characters who suffer from mental struggles, but who also find their ultimate hope in Christ while using the tools of the mental health professionals He provides. Loving Naomi is her first full book. (Affiliate link where Justin K. Hughes may earn a small commission if you choose to purchase through the link.)

👉https://www.meghannewkirkwrites.com/👈