When I was a little girl my Papaw and I would play a game in their old house. He would turn off the lights and run and hide somewhere in the hallway, and I would have to run to the end of the hallway without him catching me. I LOVED being scared and I loved the unknown of wondering where he would pop out of and if he would catch me.
I would run down the hallway scared out of my mind…
… Of what?
My Papaw?
The moment he caught me in his arms there was nothing left to fear. Was it the dark that scared me the most? Was it the absence of my big papaw by my side?
I knew he was there, I knew there was no big monster that would pop out and grab me during the game. But I was still scared.
I think what scared me the most was I couldn’t see my Papaw, so I thought I would have to run that big dark hallway by myself.
How often is this our relationship with God our Father? There are different seasons in our life that are dark, and because we may not be able to see Him we either believe that He isn’t there or He is the source of our fear.
What lies can be placed in our mind as we are in the valley!
Right now, I am in the valley. I am in the darkest season I have ever been as a follower of Jesus. It was a slow walk to the edge of the cliff that led to a quick and immediate downfall off the edge.
It started with questions. Hard questions. You may look at a T.V or Facebook posts about hungry children around the world and ask, “God, why is this happening? If you are a good God then why is this pain all around the world?” Well… imagine that question asked with intensity x10 as I am living it. My heart has been snatched out, wrung out, and pulled apart as I see things happen that I don’t have the power to change.
There is too great a need, and “if God is so good”… none of this would be happening, right?
If God is so good… then why did I just find out that my aunt has breast cancer?
If God is so good… then why was a newborn baby thrown against a wall during the genocide?
If God is so good… why did I have to witness a 7-year old boy eating out of the garbage can because his parents had neglected him?
If God is so good… why was a young girl with special needs left to die by her mother who is supposed to love her and care for her? As I held her body made of only bones, and had people on the street ask me “is she dead?” I had a hard time believing in the goodness of God.
If God is so good… My list can go on and so can yours.
I started to ask a lot of questions, and I ended up taking three steps closer the edge of the cliff.
Then I began to doubt God and who He says He is. I chose to turn away from Him, because I felt He couldn’t be trusted. I decided to not go to Him anymore, and I was left broken. I didn’t want to tell people that Jesus was all they needed, because I was at a place where I couldn’t believe it for myself. Was that because it was truth? No. I put up a dam where there was once an unlimited amount of flowing water. Did that mean the plethora of water wasn’t there? Absolutely not. It was there the entire time, but I tried to cut it off and it left me dry. It wasn’t that God wasn’t enough… He was plenty… I cut Him off.
When I chose to cut Him off… I jumped into the valley.
Here is the cool part of this story… hope. When I jumped in the valley, it is not as if I jumped to my death… and splat… it’s over! It’s more like I paraglided into the valley, but God in His mercy was there with me and is continuing to write my story right where I am at.
I couldn’t escape my thoughts. I found myself weeping on the floor because I begged for His presence, but He was nowhere to be found. I started doubting my salvation, my experiences with Him, and even His existence.
How did I get here? What started as a slow fade of asking a couple of questions turned into me wanting to go home and pretend all of this wasn’t real. I truly felt I was looking down on myself from the mountaintop and wondering how this happened. How could I be so far gone? How can I one moment be filled with the Spirit and overwhelmed by His love, and the next not believing a word He says.
To say this season was scary is a complete understatement. I was terrified. Petrified. (Is there a word stronger than that? If so… that’s where I was at.)
It got deeper than just a few doubts. I found myself in a whirlwind of lies. If I wasn’t struggling with my appearance, I was believing that I didn’t belong on the Race, and if I wasn’t struggling with that thought… I began believing my teammates, squad-mates, and leaders thought I was a fake. If you have ever been in this season you know exactly what I am talking about. The only way I could get away from my thoughts was to rest in the love of my Father, but how do you do that when you have no idea where He is?
I am a girls ministry leader, I have spoken at many events, and I have led worship through word at many services. This is not me. I am Anissa Lotti! People come to ME with this kind of stuff, and I lead them to higher places through the love of Jesus.
Should I read the bible more? Pray more? Serve people more? What should I do to get closer to Him? How can I be with Him again? I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and I have realized that being with Him is more fulfilling than anything else in this world.
I don’t know why bad things happen, and I don’t know why we lose the people we love. THIS is what faith is. The unknown. I can’t see the restaurant making my meal, but I have faith that it’s going to come out and be placed on my table. (Obviously I’m hungry) There are so many things that if you stopped and thought about it… are based on faith. Without faith you would have got up from the restaurant and never had that delicious meal, because you couldn’t see them make it so you thought it would never come.
Oh the deliciousness you could miss out on! Oh the abundance of love you could neglect!
All my faith was gone, and so I went to the roof. (Don’t worry… not to jump) I needed to change my perspective. I needed to climb the steps to the top of the mountain even though I was in the valley. I needed Jesus, I needed my Father, and for once in my life I wasn’t going to “do” in order to get to Him. I was just going to “be” and meet Him where I was. I’m not going to lie and said I felt His presence, had a Holy Baby Jesus moment, and now all is well with the world.
The World Race phrase here recently is to “get in the river”, meaning to soak up all there is to soak in the presence of the Holy Spirit. We tend to so quickly want to “dance in the river” or “be on the mountaintop” that we climb there on our own thinking we are good, only to end up in the valley because we haven’t learned how to truly worship there. We haven’t learned the fullness of what God is trying to show us. We believe He is on the mountaintop, we know He is in the river, but there is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks He can be in the Valley… right? Wrong.
Take Jesus for example. He was sweating blood! He begged that God would take this valley away from Him! It hurt too much for Him to not only carry these burdens, but for His own Father to turn away from Him. He begged, He pleaded, He cried, and He felt alone. In this moment before He died on the cross and when He took His last breathe… ALL HELL BROKE LOSE. Satan thought He had won! Death had the victory for almost 3 whole days! Darkness has overcome! Demons rejoiced!
While I was on that rooftop I felt the Lord tell me two things:
- Dance in the valley
- Remember the empty grave
The shaking and trembling of the world when Jesus arose and the veil was torn, (I personally believe) was Satan falling on to his face in defeat. Here is how I like to think of Satan: He is like a puny general of a weak and failing army. He already lost a war and we have heard of his story, but he continues to try to bring other people onto his side. It makes no sense! He is a failure! He has heard of our army and he knows our weakness, so he tries to poke at them… but we have the right to look at him and scoff because he has already lost! It’s actually kind of pathetic if you think about it.
When all seems lost and I can’t remember who I am anymore or how I got to this point… I can choose to dance in the river and remember the empty grave. If there is anything that is of most importance in the valley, if you cant remember anything else… remember the empty grave. Because sure, all hell broke lose for 3 days… but the third day came! Death didn’t last very long! Darkness wasn’t allowed to reign forever!
If we die with Him we will also live with Him. If we endure we will also reign with Him. While we are faithless… He is faithful!
You are not alone in this valley. When scripture confuses you more than it uplifts you, remember that Satan tried to do the same with Jesus. When darkness seems too powerful… remember the empty grave, and when you are in the valley remember to dance there overtop of the enemy. Above all remember that Satan is not in charge and has no reign, if he did and he was…
You wouldn’t be here.
When all hell breaks loose… remember that the third day is coming, because while other gods’ bodies lay lifeless in the ground our God reigns and desires an intimate relationship with us.
You may be as deep in the valley as I was to where you can’t even believe a word of this blog… but I promise you it gets better. I promise you the light is breaking through over the mountains and into the valley. Don’t ask for God to pull you out of it because the pain is too hard to bear, ask Him to teach you how to dance there. Don’t give shame the place to disqualify you because of where you are.
I’m tired of so many Christians wearing the mask and playing the part, and I refuse to ever do that again. Vulnerability is beautiful and honesty with where you are is needed if you ever want to grow. I feel sorry for the people who fight this battle on their own, because they are too prideful to let anyone fight with them. God gave you allies for a reason and He designed us for community. I promise you and I promise myself as I am in the valley still… the light is breaking through! He is in the valley!
As my mentor told me this morning there are two rules to life:
- Never give up
- Never forget rule number one
“Doubt is not a sign of weakness but a sign of growth.
Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, but we are only leaving behind the idea of God We like to surround ourselves with—the small God, the God we control, the God who agrees with us.
I know a lot of people raised in the church who are like the writer of Psalm 73—but they are afraid to talk about it.
They have heard sermons and Bible studies their whole lives where they were taught to think of the world in a certain “Christian” way, and then maybe in high school, maybe in college, they begin to see that it’s more complicated. Then there is a major disconnect between what they had been taught and what they see. Faith is no longer a convincing way of explaining the world, and so they leave it.
When you feel like that, realize that you are right where so many of the writers of the Psalms are—not to mention Ecclesiastes and Job.
Your period of doubt has value—to move you further on in the journey, even when you feel like you’ve left the path altogether
Doubt gets you moving.”
