There are times when I get indescribably sad. I can’t help but see my peers graduating college, getting great jobs, having children, and making stir for social change and not succumb to the lie that exists deep in my heart, but also at the surface of my skin:
You are stuck. You aren’t good for anything. You are weak. You are sick. You will never recover.
That simply isn’t true, but it’s like a gnat buzzing in my ears and around my eyes. I constantly struggle to feel worth. I feel like I work so hard and do so many things but they are in vain. Sometimes the gnats win.
But I’ve written and printed a book, I keep up with a blog; I fight and scratch and claw to get better.
People tell me all the time how brave I am. But the gnats respond, “Then why are you not getting better? Why in fact, are you getting worse?”
There is a lie that says I can work hard enough, achieve enough “success”, accomplish enough tangible things and maybe I will get better. But it isn’t true.
I have to remind myself and be reminded all the time: What I do does not define my worth.
I’m going to be 24 in May and while my classmates from high school have degrees and jobs, I have a year and a half worth of credits and the inability to complete any degree program right now.
I am married and I would love to be a mother but I can’t even plan for that eventuality because I don’t know when I’ll be well enough.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t get to be a mother.
Lent is the season to appreciate our failings so that we can take Easter Sunday to relish in the gift of The Cross.
My life is a gift, Jesus is a gift, my husband is a gift; but what do we do then it’s hard to remember that GOD’s Love is what gives us worth?
What do we do when it hurts so bad we can’t pray?
What do we do when nothing seems to make anything better?
I don’t know. There is no quick answer. You just keep going until the day seems a little bit brighter, your voice seems a little bit clear, and tears seem just a bit further back inside your eyes.
I keep hearing about people getting denied care because of “medical necessity”.
Regardless of who is deciding these things, I can tell you that there is in times of illness a Spiritual Necessity. Letting go of GOD is easy. Too easy.
So don’t. Don’t leave. I know in my heart what that looks like and I know you do too.
It isn’t what you think it is either. It isn’t quitting church or reading your Bible, it isn’t silencing your prayers or avoiding the subject of GOD.
It’s giving up hope that you are redeemable. It’s saying that this is where it ends, there is nothing salvageable left. It is believing that GOD is done with you. He isn’t.
The point of observing Easter every year is to remember that we are redeemable; that GOD chose to redeem us, chose to rewrite our story, chose to pay the cost.
GOD chose to give His Son so that at times when we feel like there is nothing left for us, we can know by faith that there is.
GOD has not left you alone. He doesn’t need you to sing or speak or read.
He needs you to believe.
Christianity, healing, hope, Hurting, PTSD, rethink trauma, Trauma