Is Someone Getting on Your Nerves?
Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” (Mark 1:40)
“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.”
“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”
In Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice,” Mrs. Bennet learned that two eligible, wealthy bachelors had moved near their home in 19th-century England, and she fretted that Mr. Bennet had not made an appointment to socialize with them. She desperately desired to marry off their five daughters into comfortable situations and pestered her husband frequently about it.
In creating these characters, Austen gives a cheeky description of a marriage punctuated by fits of frustrated nervousness by Mrs. Bennet and the wry response of her tolerant husband in ignoring them.
Today, we often speak of someone “getting on your nerves.” It could be a co-worker, friend, family member, or some public figure. Their behavior or conversations have been annoying, nagging, worrisome, or irritating to you personally, usually going on for some time…perhaps to the breaking point.
Nerves, though, are some of the most amazing features in the human body created by God. Our nervous system is an incomprehensible network containing billions of nerve cells.
From vital organs to the extremities to the brain itself, our body is an interlocked system of electrical signals sending messages back and forth. They constantly operate other chemical systems as we sleep and move through our day, registering pleasure or pain in various activities. Cut the small nerves apart, and they grow back together to reconnect.
Pick up a hot bowl or step on a rock with bare feet? You react quickly from the painful touch. See something you like in the store? Or hear a child’s laughter? Or find yourself in an emergency? Your eyes and ears instantly register these, and your nervous system responds.
When nerves aren’t working properly, though, that’s a big problem.
Hansen Disease (leprosy) is a horrible illness resulting in a lingering death. Today it’s treatable as a bacterial infection, but it was incurable in biblical days. Lepers at that time were complete outcasts, unclean, shunned by society and forced to live in leper colonies away from family and friends.
One of the properties of the disease is a loss of feeling in extremities. Lepers often died from unknown injuries because they couldn’t feel pain.
For Jesus to reach out and physically touch lepers to cure them was a horror to those who watched. Yet He responded with love and without fear to those who sought His healing. When Jesus gave His 12 disciples the same power to heal all kinds of diseases, He specifically instructed them to cleanse the lepers (Matthew 10:8)…His implied command was to not be afraid of them.
God has given our bodies this incredible gift of physical pain…it has a purpose, to make us alert to danger and protect us. What about emotional pain, too? What about those nerve-wracking moments when we can’t seem to get through uncomfortable encounters? How do we handle people who are stressful to us?
Prayer is your first recourse. You can plead with God to stop the problem in the first place. Ask him to keep the person or thing away so you can be protected.
The second request is for God to show you this person in a new light, revealing what causes him or her to be so aggravating to you. Maybe it’s a pain in this person’s background, or maybe it’s your response to suffering you endured in your own history. Pray for this person.
Last, pray to endure. You can’t always escape tough situations, especially if the annoyer is a family member. But God will lead, provide, and guide your circumstances and heart to the right outcome. Jesus is unafraid to touch Your heart with His healing.
Our Lord is, after all, the One who created your nervous system. He has the power to give you a renewed heart as well. Even when it’s hard, trust in the One who gave you pains and joys as wonderful blessings!
Holy Father, please grant me relief from situations that grate on my nerves. At the same time, please give me tolerance, patience, and love for the people who exasperate me. Show me what I need to do to treat them as You did, Jesus, with compassion and grace. Change my heart to be more like Yours. In Your healing name, Amen.
Nancy C. Williams is a Christian wife/mom with a writing career spanning more than 40 years in business and journalism. Williams is the author of the novel To Love a Falcon and the devotional book A Crocus in the Desert: Devotions, Stories, and Prayers for Women Experiencing Infertility. Her blogs are featured on Crossmap.com and AriseDaily. To follow Nancy’s posts and news, go to her home page at NancyCWilliams.com and subscribe at the bottom.
© Copyright 2026 Nancy C. Williams (text and photography). Unless otherwise noted, Scripture verses are taken from the New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. #janeausten #prideandprejudice #nerves #nervoussystem #hansendisease #leper #leprosy #stress #stressors #annoyance #prayer
*Source: The Project Gutenberg eBook (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1342/pg1342-images.html)
