My dad’s last words were: “BE STILL Molly!”
I was in a full panic because I knew deep down that I was losing him. The nurses were rushing him into the ICU because he was unresponsive. I said “NO!! I will get him to respond!!” And I proceeded to block the path of his bed in the hallway and scream at him to wake up. And that’s when he said it. Or mumbled it actually. But they took him anyway and left me crying there.
It wasn’t until several years later that I came to realize that the phrase “Be Still” is found multiple times in the Bible. And the irony was undeniable that those were my father’s last words to me. When I was a kid, he was adamant that I learn the control of nature and how to battle it by calming my mind and body. When we went to Hawaii for example, he taught me that when we were pulled by the current, if we tried to fight it, we would tire and drown, but if we swam with it calmly in a diagonal line, that we could get out of it with energy to spare. He provided example after example of people that died or almost died because they thought they could fight or control nature’s force. It was pretty much the baseline of his parenting all the way up until his death. Those lessons have helped me survive countless events long after he was gone.
Anxiety is no joke. I can’t speak for anyone else, but to me it feels like a train wreck of intense despair, paranoia, powerlessness, and suffocation all at the same time. It is like a furious emotional struggle to the surface to suck in a breath and survive your thoughts that are yanking you down into a black hole of depression devoid of any hope. And I think my dad knew that, even in the state that he was in that day. He knew he had to remind me one last time to just be still.
The anxiety I felt that day waned for the last 26 years until five months ago. Now it tries to toss me about in the strongest current I have ever experienced. But God.
This sign (though the verse number appears to be a mistake) was a reminder to me of the way I have regained my peace in moments of desperation and hopelessness over these last almost three decades since losing my dad. Slow down, physically and emotionally, and “Be Still.” Because in the same way Jesus calmed the wind and the waves that tossed the boat about, He can calm the waves of torment in my mind and heart and slow my roll. When I read the words of this sign as I pulled my car over to stop, I could hear His command as clear as I can still hear my dad’s voice as He reminds me to just “Be Still.”