Saturday, February 18, 2012

It's Been a Long Time Coming...

It's been a pensive night, as they all are when I sit down to think through writing. I've had a song running through my head for days now that pretty much sums up this past year. I'm not gonna lie, it's been a tough one. Really tough. Things that I never thought would happen in a million years happened. They happened to me, to my family, and it sent me reeling. I think it sent all of us reeling.

What do you do with dreams when they come crashing down around you?  I definitely don't know, so honestly, I haven't done anything. It used to be that whenever I didn't know how to deal with something, I would shut down. So its a sign of growth for me that instead of shutting down, I can fully admit that I just don't know. I don't know how to deal with everything that's happened over the past year, so I just keep going day by day. Wake up. Do the day. Go to bed. Wake up. Do the day. Go to bed. Sometimes that's all you can do. But after a while, a little bit of light starts to shine back through. Wake up. Notice the way the sunrise lights the clouds and the sky, and the city skyline looks breathtaking. Do the day. Go to bed. Even when life is trudgery, eventually our step will become a little more firm.

I can't say what's gone on this past year, but I can say that if I were to be totally, one hundred percent honest, I'd have to say that I've stopped talking to God. I might throw out a quick one-liner prayer for someone if its something really important, but other than that, it's been silent. You see, I've been left pretty disillusioned by life and the way things have turned out. Dreams that I once had, dreams that I was sure God had given me, all crashed down around me. I think I've been sitting there for a really long time just staring at the pieces, not even necessarily trying to sweep them up or wishing that I could glue them back together. I knew that those dreams had to change because they were making me discontent with where I was in the moment. "If only I could move back overseas to work with street kids, then I would be fulfilling God's purpose for my life." "I don't belong here. I never have. The only time I've ever felt at home was when I lived overseas." All these thoughts that had been running through my mind for ten long years left me in the deepest depression I've ever been in. I'd come to accept my depression as something that I'd deal with for the rest of my life, but it had never been like this before. I was so afraid that it would feel like that for the rest of my life... just so dark and hopeless. I had no idea what hope even was. It was such a foreign concept to me, like asking me to describe the Middle East or Asia or Russia when I've never been there. Hope was for people lucky enough to hear God, but not for me. He'd led me on with the promise of mission work overseas.

I don't exactly remember when those black days started getting lighter. It was such a gradual thing. Laughing a little bit more, smiling at quirky roommates, and eventually feeling free to be stupid-crazy goofy and totally not caring. What a freedom to be known as you really are! One day I turned around and I wasn't afraid of being by myself anymore. I could handle being alone in the house. I could cope with the thoughts inside my head and the weight in my heart. I can't tell you the day that the load got lighter, but it did. And even though I still wasn't speaking to God and definitely couldn't hear him or feel him, I saw that he was still taking care of me. I found strong, solid people in my church that I could be blatantly honest with, I could tell them that I didn't want to talk to God, and they weren't phased. They didn't condemn me, they didn't try to tell me it would get better. (There's something so infuriating about someone telling you that it's gonna get better when they haven't even really listened to what's been going on. It's a patronizing pat on the hand.) Most of the time, all we really need is for someone to listen, to accept us where we are in that single moment and to love us just the same, someone to sit there in the darkness with us for as long as it takes to see the daylight again.