Somebody to lean on…

In late 2015, I was in a dark place. A hole, really. Not a literal one… but one of depression, frustration, & hopelessness. There were myriad reasons for this, & I KNEW all of them, at least in my head, though I didn’t know how to navigate out of the pit of freakish misery I felt. I knew I had friends, but I had isolated myself out of shame, fear, & feelings of ‘stuckness’… I was there mostly from my own choices & I made it more complicated by getting stuck in my own head on the hyper-critical, hyper-self-analytical way-overthought “hamster wheel of death.”

At one point, a well-meaning soul recommended that I read the Bible MORE. Pray MORE. Seek God until I found Him, MORE. 

I wanted to scream. And to vigorously shake the person who’d made the suggestions, to ask them, “Don’t you think I’ve TRIED doing MORE? I’ve done MORE.”

And I was still in the darkness.


At the worst of it, I didn’t have to wonder where God was, or why He was ‘letting’ me go through what I was going through. I KNEW exactly where He was. Where He always is. Right there. With me. Even in the darkness, He was WITH me. He was quiet. But He was THERE. And He gave me what I needed every day (hour? minute? second?) to make it through that day (hour? minute? second?) 

And as I came to the end of myself, multiple times, I sensed God’s gentle reminder to me, over & over, that He would never leave me or forsake me. That He gave His Spirit to live WITHIN me as a reminder of His constant attention & presence, no matter what I FELT like. It was like He was sitting WITH me in all my anguish, in all the pain… not trying to fix me, not correcting me, not doing anything but being WITH me. 

When I did read the Bible, it was Psalms. I’d read the whole Book of Psalms my whole life 1x/month (5 Psalms/day, like THIS.) But it was in these times I discovered that Psalms spoke the language of my soul. In Psalms I discovered words that painted the picture of what I felt, & questions that I’d not yet asked myself, but that I resonated with. The words of desperation, full of dark emotion & agony, capable of scratching the ’emotional itch’ that I’d been reaching for for months. The questions. The worries. The soul-crushed declarations. All of it.

And I was reminded of a few things.

Our faith is made for dark times & difficulties. Sure, it is good for the good times too, when everything is “alls as it should be” (to quote Matt Redman) but it is even more tangibly appropriate when I’m seemingly lost & suffering in the dark, literally & figuratively. 

It’s in those times that I (re)discovered a faith that cannot be shaken, rooted in the Person of Jesus Christ. And things got better, but not because my circumstances changed. They didn’t. Rather, they got better because I discovered what it meant to have “Someone to lean on.” To not try to live & function in my own strength.

To be fair, I wasn’t even aware that I had often been functioning with an attitude of “I’ve got this,” in relationship to my family, my friends, & also my God. And the months of darkness, where I got to see the beginning of my end, my own inadequacies, & my own inability to rescue myself. After all, I was there to HELP others, wasn’t I? Not to need others.

In all the dark, I was reminded of my own humanity & my desperate need for God & for others. Of how God often would answer my prayers by sending a person… a person to listen to me. To sit with me. To offer a shoulder to me. 


I’m reminded of this all because I’m approaching my 8 year anniversary of that time. It was back on the 21st of September, 2015 (yes, the 21st of September), when I began to see a light emerge in the darkness. God brought a specific connection, someone for me to lean on, who stood with me while I navigated in, through, & around the dark, ever being lead by the Holy Spirt towards the light of Christ. It lead to changes in perspective, transformations in how I saw myself & others, & the ability to embrace grace again, God’s grace for ME.

And I am eternally thankful.

Faith, expectation, the New Year, & other musings…

This Sunday at Hillside we are wrapping up our “Jesus REVOLUTION” series – it’s also our last Sunday gathering of 2014. The normally hectic pace of life has significantly increased in this Christmas season, & in some ways, I feel like I’ve had to be more & more intentional about stopping, reflecting, & evaluating life, its happenings, my priorities, & what I give my time to. Specifically, over the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to take time to reflect on the questions:

  • What could/would it look like if Jesus did a revolution in my life?
  • What am I expecting/hoping for Jesus to do in me?
  • What am I wiling to put on the table?

Don’t get me wrong. I love my life. The time spent with my family & friends. Watching my kids turn into great adults who love Jesus & are making strides forward in their own lives. The work I am privileged to do. The life & growth in Christ I’m seeing within our church family. And still…


 

I wonder what areas Jesus wants to cut away so that I can grow, develop, deepen. What thought patterns & meditations of my heart He wants to transform. What ways I interact with & respond to others. How I can better take care of myself (body, mind, & spirit.)

I guess what I am expecting is that He is doing something NEW in me. That He is in the process of awakening parts of my life, my soul, that have been dormant or stagnant. That He is going to be refining me – So can will continue to be growing more & more like Him.

So the answer to the last question, “What am I willing to put on the table?” is ME. It feels a little scary – which means that my prayer heading into 2015 & beyond is: “Increase my faith, Lord. Because “…we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” Hebrews 10:39

Blessings, grace, peace, & FAITH to you