KIND

“Sometimes rehab turns to relapse and you're left just askin' why

And for all the prayers I've prayed, I still wonder if He's real

And if He is, how is He choosin' who He does and doesn't heal?”

I feel the majority of life strongly. The Idea of a neutral feeling to something doesn’t compute with me, and I have long despised that about myself. The Highs cause rapid excitement in me and the lows can easily send me into a pit of despair.

In conjunction, I have a hard time expressing what’s going on inside or at least I believe no one understands or cares to. I guess that’s why I begin most of my posts with song lyrics, because they’ve somehow taken all the turmoil I push down and put it into words, I admire that.

I’m terrffied as being labeled as “average”. The term “lazy” scares me more than the word “death”, and my biggest fear is coming to the end of my life, laying on my death bed, and wondering what was it all for, did it matter, and is He deeply disappointed in His creation of me?

“I’ve tried to run from Jesus, I've started holy wars

I've tried the patient waitin' and the kickin' down the doors

I've cursed His name in anger with my fist raised to the sky”

I was raised in a Christian home, My biggest rebellion was to stop eating. I went to a Christian collage, and I served in every way I could think of. I lived for the rush of feeling God’s presence, of knowing that he was near, as if sitting next to me. For the most part I tried to please Him in every way possible, petrified He was consistently disappointed in me, a wasted potential, a space that could’ve been used for someone more effective.

What I didn’t know is that I was also sick, always had been.

From a very young age, there was a virus lurking in the background, waiting to pounce and make the perfect entrance. I can see it all now, The pieces making all the sense when I was left with so many question marks as a child.

• Why did my stomach always hurt?

• Why did my brain get stuck and couldn’t move on?

• Why did my sisters have so much energy, how did they have so many hobbies?

• Why did I need more sleep than them?

• Why couldn’t I Sleep?

When called dramatic or lazy, I believed them, I took it to heart, that was my Bible.

Not the one God wrote, but one that expectations, question marks about my physical limits, rules that were more important than relationship, body image and an unhealthy fear of disappointing authority figures (including God) slowly began to write for me. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment the first verse was written, because I honestly can’t remember not ever checking the verses everyday to make sure I was not wasted space in this earth.

And then it came. Like the slow build up before a horrible tornado. When every thing goes quiet, everything goes still as if creation itself is afraid to make a single movment that might wake the beast. And then it hits, at first it’s just a watch, something you hear bust mostly ignore. Then comes the warning, this catches your attention but it’s not even on your side of town yet. You begin to make little preparations but still allow yourself to go to sleep. You sleep because you’re positive the tornado siren will wake you up, that you’ll get to safety in time.

What you fail to realize though, is the by the time that siren goes off, the tornado has touched ground and nothing you do now can stop its war path.

Maybe I’m Crazy, maybe this metaphor makes absolutely no sense to you. If that’s the case, it’s painful obvious you were not raised in central Missouri. But this was my story, is my story. The warning signs were, but I didn’t know what they meant. By the time the watch came around my fear of being lazy and pointless in life fairly outweighed a “potential” threat to my body. And when the warning appeared I started to pay attention, but it was too late, because I wasn’t ready to give up “My Life”.

Little did I know that the tornado was coming, and as soon as it touched ground my life would never be the same again. In fact, I would go on to question if it was even life anymore.

I’ve been sick for at least 22 years, and I’ve been noticeably sick for about eight of those years. The symptoms hit me in what was supposed to be the prime of my life, seventeen. As I hit my twenties, the storm had touched down and I was officially scared. By twenty-four I’ve attempted every avenue of damage control you could think of:

EVERY SINGLE Diet, exercise (but not too much), rest (but not too much or too little), Every available migraine medication, sleep routine, leaving collage, stepping down at work, yoga, essential oils, supplements, increased water intake, therapy, Dr’s, specialist, and specialty clinics. But no matter how much I tried to control the damage the storm raged on and has to this day.

It’s because of this, because of the amount of effort, trials, and tries I wake to every day, that as I approach my twenty-fifth birthday, I’ve questioned if it’s worth it any more, if it ever was to begin with. And I’m not the only one that feels this way. Dr’s and even those close to me began to question.

• Was it real?

• Is she simply psychologically ill and if you fix that will all her symptoms will go away

• Why hasn’t God just let her go?

So I tried to figure it out, over two months of intensive outpatient therapy and skills, opioids, Benzos, psychiatrist, and anti depressants, the mental health professionals came to the same conclusion again: She has a Chronic pain, Chronic illness induced major depressive disorder. In fact, her pain and exhaustion are so bad she now has a condition that causes her to black out or seize when her brain can’t handle the physical and emotional stress anymore.

So I was back at square one, either fix the pain and exhaustion or also deal with severe mental health issues the rest of your life. The odds weren’t in my favor.

And without my ministry outreaches, mentoring, education to find “My Purpose” and no job to share Jesus with others, I slowly felt His presence slip away.

It no longer felt like He was sitting next to me, it felt as if He had walked away completely, couldn’t even be bothered to be in the same room as me.

“For not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them. (Psalm 44:3)”

As I wearily laid down my sword, exhausted from the fight, I didn’t feel the light of His face, I didn’t sense His delight. Instead I was met with ear shattering silence. The kind of silence that sounds like darkness, that envelopes you as if it is the very color black. As I laid in in the ER in pitch blackness for twenty hours, I could feel him slip away. My heart wrenching screams were met by skeptic nurses who were hardened by the antics of the psych ward. My weeping was met by silence, again. In the wee morning of the hours, I felt as if hope was a foul four letter ward, something unreal, made up and forever lost. As I laid alone The only comfort that could get me through the night was the thought that I could end it all when I got out. I was scared up until that point, but fear was utterly overridden by complete hopelessness.

I was ready to die, and if God wouldn’t fix He wretched mess of a creation I would do it for Him.

Obviously it hasn’t ended this way yet, because I’m sitting here writing this journal entry. It took two hospitalizations and more to get me just inches away from that depth of hopelessness. Now the tips of my toes are all that is over the edge of the cliff instead of the heal of my foot. I know no-one likes to here of these things, no one wants to know because they don’t know what to do. But neither do the people who feel that depth of loss.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)"

Even if you’re not a Christian you’ve seen this verse on a poorly made t-shirt or stitched on your grandmas pillow. It’s a nice sentiment, a good thought, a happy verse. But what if all evidence points to this verse not being true. What plans Lord? What good? All I see is evil. What future? What hope?

I don’t know how to see God as something other than a disappointed authority figure, I don’t understand when I go to pray or read His word, why I can’t feel Him sit down next to me anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever feel Him again within these walls of my apartment, the apparent plans and future He has for me. I don’t know why He keeps me Here. I don’t even know why He made me in the first place if I am of no impact for Him any longer.

All I know right now is this: in all my questioning, my cursing of Him, my thoughts of walking away, of ending it every couple of days, my anger, my patient waiting, my kicking down doors…

"in return, all He's ever been is kind."