When Your Mind Feels Overwhelmed: Finding God in the Middle of Mental Chaos and the First Great Awakening

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan

As I sat down to write this entry, this blog, I realised something again that I’ve known for a long time but sometimes forget in the middle of everything.
These entries these daily writings… they’ve always been my safe place.
Not safe in the sense of comfort.
But safe in the sense of honesty.
This is where I wrestle.
This is where I struggle.
This is where I don’t have to pretend that everything is steady when it’s not.
And today if I’m honest
Mentally has been a rock bottom day in so many areas.
Not one of those days where things feel slightly off.
Not one of those days where you can just push through it and keep moving.
One of those days where something feels heavy from the moment you wake up.
Where your mind doesn’t feel like it’s working with you.
Where your thoughts don’t line up cleanly.
I have struggled with fear.
Real fear.
Not always logical.
Not always connected to what’s actually happening in front of me.
But present.
Persistent.
I have struggled with feeling overwhelmed.
Just full spiral
I even questioned my own sanity 
Not just by what’s in front of me.
But by everything at once.
Responsibilities.
Expectations.
Internal pressure.
The weight of trying to hold things together while feeling like something inside is not settled.
And if I go deeper
I’ve walked some dark roads today.
Not physically.
But in my mind.
Old roads.
Thought patterns that feel familiar in the worst way.
Paths I’ve walked before.
And when you find yourself back there, something in you reacts.
You question it.
You push against it.
You wonder why it still has access to you.
Because part of you thought you had moved past it.
But today, it was there.
In full view and plain sight
And in the middle of that chaos, when my thoughts were not aligned, when my emotions were not steady, when I didn’t feel grounded
The Lord spoke.
“Son… I want you to set your mind and your heart on Me and start looking into the history of the First Great Awakening.”
And I stopped.
Because that wasn’t just a thought.
That was direction.
And what struck me most wasn’t just what He said.
It was when He said it.
Right in the middle of instability.
Right in the middle of confusion.
Right in the middle of a day where I didn’t feel strong.
And that tells me something I need to hold onto.
God does not wait for clarity before He speaks.
He speaks into confusion.
And He didn’t tell me to fix myself.
He didn’t tell me to try harder.
He didn’t tell me to analyse every thought.
He pointed me somewhere.
To truth.
To history.
To something outside of myself.
The First Great Awakening.
And as I sat with that, something began to open.
Because when you look at that moment in history, you don’t see polished people.
You don’t see people who had everything together.
You see people who were confronted.
Confronted with truth.
Confronted with the reality of God.
Confronted with the reality of their own condition.
And it broke something in them.
Not to destroy them.
But to bring them to life.
And I realised something.
What I experienced today
That internal chaos…
That exposure of fear and overwhelm
It’s not disconnected from that.
It’s not the same in scale.
But it’s the same in principle.
Something in me was exposed.
Something in me that still needs grace.
Something in me that still cannot stand on its own.
And instead of pushing me away
God met me in it.
Just like He met people during the Awakening.
Not when they were composed.
Not when they had everything together.
But when they saw clearly that they didn’t.
And that changes how I see today.
Because instead of labelling it as failure
Instead of seeing it as a step backwards…
I can see it as exposure.
A revealing.
And you can’t deal with what you don’t see.
And today, I saw things clearly.
Fear.
Overwhelm.
Old thought patterns that still exist beneath the surface.
But I also saw something else.
I am not alone in it.
Because God didn’t step back.
He stepped in.
He spoke.
He redirected me.
And that matters more than anything else.
Because it reminds me of something I never want to forget.
My lowest moments do not remove His presence.
They reveal my need for it.
And as tonight settles in, there is something else I can’t ignore.
Something that has been pressing on me.
Not loudly.
Not in a way that overwhelms.
But steadily.
Clearly.
The Lord has been pressing on me that He wants me to steward the incredible historic works and writings of Jonathan Edwards under Refined by Fire Press.
And if I’m honest…
That doesn’t come with immediate confidence.
It comes with weight.
Because when you begin to understand who Edwards was…
What he carried
What he wrote
You don’t approach that lightly.
His writings were not casual.
They were written under the weight of eternity.
And I feel that.
Because this isn’t about building something impressive.
This isn’t about attaching my name to something significant.
This is about stewardship.
Handling something that does not belong to me.
Preserving something that carries truth.
Honouring something that was forged in a time where the reality of God was not theoretical.
And if Refined by Fire Press is going to stand for anything
It must stand for that.
Not comfort.
Not diluted expression.
But truth that carries weight.
And that humbles me.
Because I know my limitations.
I know my struggles.
I know what today looked like internally.
And yet
This is what the Lord is placing in front of me.
Not after I’ve perfected myself.
Not after I’ve reached some level of stability.
But right here.
And that tells me something important.
This isn’t about my strength.
It’s about my willingness.
My willingness to approach it carefully.
My willingness to not rush it.
My willingness to treat it with the weight it deserves.
Because if this is something I’m called to steward under Refined by Fire Press
Then it’s not something I can approach casually.
It requires reverence.
Patience.
Dependence on Him.
And I don’t have a full plan.
I don’t have a clear structure.
But I have a direction.
And that’s enough for now.
Because God doesn’t reveal everything at once.
He reveals the next step.
And this feels like one of those steps.
Not fully formed.
Not fully understood.
But clear enough that I can’t ignore it.
So tonight, I don’t pretend this day was easy.
I acknowledge it for what it was.
Heavy.
Confronting.
Unsettling.
But also
A moment where God met me.
And spoke.
And redirected me.
And that…
is enough.

About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.7 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

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