I had a moment.
It was only a few weeks ago but I can still taste the bitterness of it on my tongue.
Like charcoal and dirt, the smell was every bit of the darkness and decay I fled from many years ago. I hated it, the stench of depression and suicide hanging in the air like a guillotine over my head. Once again, creeping in through the cracks in my heart trying to swallow me alive.
I sat on the edge of my bed weeping and begging God to help me. I didn’t come this far to fall backwards. I didn’t escape with my life only to give it up now.
“I don’t want to die God but I don’t know how to live like this!”
“I can't do this anymore!"
There was no strength left in my body to keep going. There was no motivation in my bones to carry me forward. There was only emptiness and this familiar numbness from a long-passed season of my life, trying its best to choke the faith right out of me.
I was done fighting. I was done trying. I was done with the medications, with being poked and prodded to no avail. I was done with five years of people telling me it’s going to be alright, only for yet another birthday to pass me by.
Five years I’ve been doing this. Five years I’ve lost to sickness and disease. Five years I’ve wasted laying in my bed, sleeping through life, tortured with nightmares and upon waking, tortured with trauma and chronic pain. Five years of no treatment, no diagnosis, no answers, no direction and yet still, more problems with no explanations. Five years of “you’re lazy” “It’s just anxiety” “maybe you should try yoga” “If you can walk from here to there, you can do this and that”. Five years of zero validation and unceasing illness. Oh and of course, there’s always the questioning of my faith, the condescension and the criticism that comes with my lack of consistent church attendance and lack of “fake face” in the midst of suffering.
Because believe it or not, people can be unknowingly cruel in the midst of your suffering. They don’t like when you're fake but they equally dislike you’re honesty because your honesty requires something from them they're not prepared to give. A lot of people have so much on their plate that genuinely caring about you and supporting you, feels like too much for them to handle. Especially, with so much “negativity” going on in your life.
So, I often sit alone in silence. Begging for compassion on the inside while encouraging others and easing their discomfort with my situation on the outside.
And I just couldn’t do it anymore.
That early Sunday morning, I felt the walls closing in on me like the trash compactor scene in “Star Wars: A New Hope” and I cried out for hours. Going over and over things in my mind.
How I couldn’t stand to be around people outside of my immediate family because they’re too bright and alive.
How sometimes suffering feels like being stuck in a space suit, surviving on a small dribble of oxygen. You don't realize that you're slowly suffocating when you’re coping with what you have and learning to survive. Until you look around and see people breathing easy.
How being social, as much as I need social interaction, comes with heavy tolls nowadays. Not only on my body physically but also, on my mental health. How can I be around people without feeling like I’m choking on the air and how can I survive without community and support?
And how do I keep going when the doctors send me away and the test results come back negative? “Where do I go God? What do I do when an episode hits me and I can’t breathe and my heart is leaping out of my chest but I can’t go to the ER cause not only is it too expensive but they have no idea how to help me because they don’t know what’s wrong? What do I do, pay thousands of dollars for a glorified hospital babysitter? Why should I keep going God? What’s the point???!!” I cried out into the darkness. And like a cold familiar hand, tightening it’s grip on my shoulder I felt that spirit of suicide clinging to me with false ease.
Terrified, I pleaded “No, God, please help me! Now God!” and I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Go wake up your mom”. Because sometimes the battle is too big for you alone and you need people to come alongside you and fight with you in the dark. You may not be able to see a way out but they can. You may not be able to stand but they can.
So I got up, shaking and trembling and walked to the guest room where she was sleeping and shook her awake. I told her what was going on; how I couldn’t do this anymore and we both broke down as I laid next to her sobbing. She sat with me, trying to comfort me, begging me not to give up, to keep going. She prayed over me, over and over again until we both started to fall asleep. She stayed with me and kept an eye on me. And since that day, I’ve been walking on eggshells where it concerns my mental health. Trying to protect myself fiercely against falling into any sort of dark holes, watching very carefully where I step.
I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God is the thing holding me up right now. Like the stick that props up the scarecrow or the strings that keep a puppet upright, someone is keeping me steady. I can feel it in the way my head just wants to fall forward in exhaustion and my body wants to crumble in defeat but can’t. Something just won’t give and I’m almost mad at it for being so stubborn. I’m almost angry that I can’t just lie down in a heap on the floor and wallow. I’m almost pissed off that I’m sitting here writing this right now to help someone else when I’m still struggling on the daily. I’m laugh-crying right now because it doesn’t make any sense. Nobody but a believer will understand this. Nobody but someone who’s walked through a fiery furnace without a single burn or stray ash touching them will get it. Nobody but a man who walked out of His own tomb by the word of a rabbi, nobody but a woman whose healing was found in the hem of a cloak, nobody but a man pierced through His side and hung by His hands and feet from a cross will comprehend how ridiculous it is that I’m still standing. Because it isn’t me at all. Me, only got me so far. Me, ended right around lap 3 and it’s lap 6 now.
Every. Single. Day. is constant war, all out assault. I get no breaks, I get no room to breathe but somehow I’m still here, somehow there’s strength even here.
So, I want to take a second to speak to the person out there who understands this feeling. The feeling of being propped up, not in your own strength but in God’s. The feeling of defeat, followed by the gentle breeze of being carried. I know how hard you’ve been pushing, I know that you’re tired but you have to keep going. You may want to give up, you may want to shut down and you may be terrified by where you’re at and what you’re feeling because it feels like defeat, deafeningly quiet and cold. Like a great big “What’s the point?!” echoing out into a midnight sky devoid of stars. But I’m hoping that it’s not what it seems, I’m hoping that it’s the hard part of letting go that we’re feeling. The part that is uncertain and out of our control and a complete hail-mary surrender. I’m hoping beyond all hope that this is the part where God completely takes over because we’ve finally let go of trying to do it in our own strength and within our muster.
I know it’s hard, I know it’s scary and I’ll admit to you freely that I’m afraid. I can still feel myself trying desperately to keep my grip on things because I’m afraid of letting go. I’m afraid of making disastrous mistakes, and that if I don’t do everything in my power to make things happen that they just won’t. But I’m learning, right here, live and in person, that I have to trust God’s hand in this and that there’s a huge difference between partnership and control. Letting go and trusting God doesn’t mean giving up or not trying and in spite of everything, sometimes you just have to do things afraid. And let’s be real, God never said we wouldn’t be afraid, He just assured us of why we have no reason to be. He said, “Do not be afraid, for I AM your God.” “Do not fear, for I AM with you”, “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will hold you up”, and man! Do I need that right now! I need it for the vivid nightmares and waking disappointments that don’t want to leave me alone. I need it for the next doctor’s appointment I don’t even know how to prepare myself for. I need it for the waiting, the watching, the weakness. I need it for the moments when people step into my stuck, with all the brightness of life and movement, that makes it so apparent to me just how dark and lifeless things feel right now. I need God to hold me up when I can’t stand the physical taxation of yet another medication or test, on my already taxed body.
I know this probably isn’t the most uplifting blog post you’ve read in a while and you probably weren’t expecting all of that heaviness, but this is reality for me right now. And sometimes reality doesn’t reflect our faith as much as it does our fears. Sometimes reality doesn’t look like a Sunday morning blue sky day every day. Sometimes reality is deep with unfulfillment, grief and pain; and we have to learn how to be okay with that. Not live there or set up camp there but acknowledge when we are going THROUGH something.
So, to those of you who needed to hear this, there is more. There is a better yet. And I say that, still waiting to reach mine. I say that, sitting next to you in the middle of the valley, in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the darkness. I’m calling out into the abyss to let you know I’m here and because I’m spiteful and petty, I’m not letting the enemy have the last word on my life or my faith. I’m not giving up and I’m holding onto those whispers of hope God’s been folding through the cracks in these walls that the enemy erected around me. Little messages of truth he’s been sending via whisper, “hold on, I’m about to breakthrough” “hold on, I’m about to tear it all down” “hold on, one more lap around Jericho and these walls are gonna fall”. I’m holding onto the red letters dipped in blood and promise. I’m holding onto the truth that He is good and He is for me and He loves me (despite my pitfalls and sins).I’m holding onto the provision and faithfulness that I’ve seen before, believing He will do it again and even better. I still believe. I still have faith, small as it may feel in these moments and I won’t let it go. So, I encourage you to be petty with me, be stubborn and spiteful enough against this situation, this sickness, this sinking feeling, to keep going. When your strength wears thin and your motivation runs out, if nothing else, keep going just to see what happens. To see what changes by tomorrow, in a week, in a month. Give God the opportunity of your tomorrow and then the next one, and the next one, etc. And even when you don’t feel it, shout this into the darkness, say, “I still believe” and then say it again. Let it echo throughout your situation, let it ring through your ears.
“I still believe”
“Even when I can’t see it”
“Even when it doesn’t make sense”
“Even when I’m too tired to fight and too weak to stand”
“I still believe”
And to the enemy of our souls, to the enemy of mine, all that’s left to say is, WE STILL BELIEVE. After all of your attempts to take us out, regardless of every trap, temptation, assault and pain you sent our way. In spite of and literally just to spite you for every ache in this body, for every anxious lie and fearful doubt, for every spirit of suicide and depression you’ve sent, for every little bit of sickness, disease and sin you’ve tried to topple us over with. For every disqualification, insecurity, heartbreak and scar you’ve tried to leave. WE STILL BELIEVE IN OUR GOD, we still believe.
I WILL BELIEVE…
God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever
Psalm 73:26
God delivers me from all my fears
Psalm 34:4
God is my way out, my escape
1 Corinthians 10:13
God protects me from the evil one
2 Thessalonians 3:3
I will not be put to shame for trusting in God
Psalm 34:5
God is near to me and saves me when my spirit is crushed
Psalm 34:18
I will run and not grow weary; I will walk and not faint
Isaiah 40:31
God has healed me by His own wounds, He is my healer
1 Peter 2:24
I have died to sin and death
Colossians 3:3-4
God is working all things for my good
Romans 8:28
God will repay with affliction, the enemies that have afflicted me
2 Thessalonians 1:5-6
God is at work in me, to will and to act according to His good purpose
Philippians 2:13
I am blessed and comforted
James 1:12 & Matthew 5:4
I am not alone in my suffering
1 Peter 5:9
The God of peace will crush Satan under my feet
Romans 16:20
I am from God and overcome because He, who is within me, is greater than he that is in the world
1 John 4:4
God has good plans to prosper me; to give me a future and a hope
Jeremiah 29:11
I am not crushed, in despair, abandoned or destroyed
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
I carry the death of Jesus in my body so that His life may also be revealed in this body
2 Corinthians 4:10
God will restore me; make me strong, firm and steadfast
1 Peter 5:10
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living
Psalm 27:13
Amen (So be it).
(6) Even Louder - YouTube- Steven Malcolm
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