“It's time”
I knew God was right though, even though I still hesitated.
I hesitated, because I believe in using wisdom and discernment in deciding who to share the details of life with. Not everything that happens in life is meant for everyone to hear. People take things the wrong way, gossip, judge, and lots of other ugly things. No one is perfect and that's okay, but it also means that I've been careful with who I've shared parts of my life with, even though it wasn't always received well.
But God asked me to share my story, and I know that it's important that I be obedient, no matter the cost.
Because even though it's “my story,” I don't have the right to withhold it. It's only mine because God gave it to me, so that really makes it God's story. It really is his, too, because without Him, I wouldn't have a reason to share it. There would be no hope, no freedom, and no redemption, but because God showed up in my life, it's a beautiful, messy, crazy tale of how amazing He is… and that's a story worth telling.
That's a story that can change people's lives.
And I know it's true, because I've seen it all year long. Every time I've shared even a brief moment of my life, God has used it to impact those around me. So to withhold it, in the end, would be selfish, because if what I've been through can help change one person's life or even just bring them encouragement. Why wouldn't I share it?
Oh I have the answer to that question, too. Because it's scary. It's scary to be vulnerable when the end result could hurt and hurt very badly. But even though I have been sacred to share some of my story, I shouldn't be and I don't want to be.
There is freedom in Christ, so if I truly am free like I say I am, I should have no reason to fear. And if my foundation is actually in Jesus and the only thing I fear is God, people's opinions and judgments should never hold me back from doing anything, especially something I believe God is asking me to do.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM.”
– 2 Corinthians 3.17 ESV
So take this as a declaration of freedom.
And get comfy, because this might take a bit to read, but don't worry I'll jump to all the important parts and the ends a kicker, promise 🙂
Oh, and I'm starting in the middle.
As I sat in the counselor's office for my first session, with tears streaming down my face, I was still confused as to how I had even landed there in the first place. I was a senior in college, had great friends, came from a loving family, loved Jesus, had a good job, and for goodness sakes, my middle name is Joy. What had gone wrong?
How was I so broken and so…. depressed. Ugh, I hated that word, depressed, and I hated the other word more, depression. All it screamed to me was “you can't keep it together,” and “if people find out they're going to think you're crazy.”
The week before, Ryan, my boss, had called me into his office for a meeting. I was the student ministry intern at The Branch and I had been for going on two years. I absolutely loved my job. Well, I had until recently. Lately, I had felt a bit off, spending time with my students wasn't fun and life giving like it once was, but I just figured it was the pressure of my last year of college. Other things in life weren't going well either, but I just thought I was in a funk, an “off” season if you will. Maybe even, I was a bit burned out, working in ministry and going to college can take a toll of a person, right?
If only.
Our meeting that day went something like, “I'm worried about you… I think you are going through depression… you have to get help.” I was already sobbing before the words came out of his mouth. I knew I hadn't been myself for a long time now and I hadn't really know why until that moment. I knew deep down he was right, too, and I hated it.
The night before, I laid in my bed crying myself to sleep as had become all too common by that point. Things had been on a downward spiral ever since I'd returned home from my missions internship to Guatemala over the summer. I came home mad at God for so many reasons and still trying unsuccessfully to get over a break up. It was weeks later though, and I wasn't getting any better, only worse. By this time I knew it went deeper than what I could see on the surface. This hurt went all the way to my soul and my only response was tears and lots of them. So as I laid there soaking my pillow, I asked God for help. Just help me, please.
So there I was, less than 2 months into my senior year of college sitting in my counselor’s office ashamed and a bit unsure of how this was going to go. The only thing I did know was I didn't have another option.
Shortly into that first session, my counselor confirmed what Ryan had thought, there was no doubt I was suffering from depression. And when I say depression, I'm not talking about those days when you might say, “oh, I'm so depressed,” followed by a long list of reason why things aren't idea. I talking about the I can't get out of bed, I hate my life, I can't function, hot mess, nasty, can't get a grip on my own life, ugly, life ruining depression, a disease that has it's own rules and it certainly doesn't play fair.
Little did I know, I was about to start what would become the fight of my life against something that I'd been unknowingly walking towards my entire life…
You Have to Start Somewhere
One Sunday morning in a small town in Louisiana, I made my entrance into the world, joining my parents, Gary and Joyce, as well as my 8 year old sister, Charity. Oh and it was Easter, too. I suppose that's fitting to include since God was the center of my family's life and two weeks later, it became the center of mine when I went to church for the very first time.
As a little one, I remember loving to read, to dance, to learn, and go to church, and as I got older that pretty much stayed the same. I thrived in my school work, accepted Jesus when I was 8 years old, and was always in dance class. I was a happy little girl for the most part, except that from an early age in school, I started to get picked on. And not just every once in a while, more like all the time.
Even though it might not be quite as bad as I remember, the mean words of children stuck with me and from a very young age, the enemy made sure I knew that I wasn't liked and I certainly wasn't accepted. So as a shy little girl, this made me go into my shell even more for quite a long time.
The scars of rejection only grew deeper as I got older, as I was picked out for being a Christian and well… for being ugly. I had friends though and I was less shy, but I still had low self esteem and minimal confidence. Thank God for for parents who cheered me on, loved me well, and told me I could do anything I set my mind to. So I suppose it balanced out.
Why me?
It's here in my story that I was diagnosed with severe scoliosis (a curvature of my spine, mine is the shape of an “S”) at the age of 14. I was terrified as doctors wanted to operate immediately to put a metal rod in my back, but God protected me.
Instead, my parents found alternative treatment in chiropractic care which I would receive through out all of high school and a back brace program that I would be in for two years following my diagnosis. Neither one healed my back, but they saved me from the other option, enabled me to live a normal life, keep dancing, and in the process, learned how to trust God's perfect plan even if that meant I have an imperfect back.
(I'm still praying that God heals my back completely one day, so please feel free to pray with me.)
Hitting my Stride
Even with the back brace though, high school was better and by my junior year, I started to feel confident in who I was for a change. I stopped getting called ugly, became the class president, and boys even started to notice me. I was a happy, seemingly healthy teenage girl on the outside, but the lies planted in me as a little girl were still deep inside of me. So I continued to determine my worth by the opinions of others (especially boys) and through my achievements and successes. The only difference was that now it made me feel good about myself instead of the other way around.
What a dangerous place for an easily influenced teenage girl. But God protected me as I somehow stayed away from the party scene and from boys that were up to no good since my favorite place to be was still at my church.
Redirection
God stayed my number one as I got older and at 16, He grabbed a hold of my heart in a new way and I finally accepted the call to ministry at a summer youth conference. It was something I felt like God had been asking of me for quite sometime, and I finally feel confident to embrace it.
That same decision landed me on my first mission trip, right after my high school graduation. I really had no idea why I was even there, but I knew I was suppose to be there. On one of our last nights God showed me why, as I stood praying on top of a hill overlooking a city in the backwoods of Brazil. There the words of Jesus washed over me again and again, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” I knew He was asking me to be a worker.
Starting Over
That fall, I moved to Texas, enrolled at Dallas Christian College, and started a brand new life. The fresh start was exactly what I'd been looking for. I moved into the dorms, made great friends, started volunteering at churches, got my first real job, and became involved with some campus organizations. And that's pretty much how life went and I loved it.
I was a pretty normal college kid, too (okay, Christian College kid…). I dated, had fun, worked, studied, did ministry, played sports, and fell more in love with God. Oh and eventually I started working at The Branch, simultaneously gaining an amazing church family and a solid support system.
Yet, I continued to seek my worth through anything but God and especially in men. By now, I was convinced that this deep need for affirmation was normal and I didn't see anything wrong with it. I assumed everyone (especially women) always felt like this, insecure, unsure, and a bit desperate.
The Pit
Things got worse before they got better with that one though, as right about then I started to spend a lot of time with a good guy friend, too much time actually. We started doing just about everything together, weren't dating, and of course, I had a crush on him. Yet, he never indicated that he felt the same. So instead of being wise and moving on, I stayed and sunk into what I like to call the pit.
I assumed that that I simply wasn't “good enough” for him to date or for anyone else to date either for that matter. I may have flirted (a lot) and entertained the idea of dating guys, but I never actually started a relationship with any of them because either I didn't feel the same way about them or vice versa. So, I lived in the pit believing the lies that I wasn't good enough, nice enough, kind enough, pretty enough, or smart enough for anyone to love. I saw myself as ugly and unworthy, I flirted to get self-esteem boosts, and I cried myself to sleep sometimes, too.
I was the poster girl for self-condemnation and brokenness, yet the enemy had me fooled into thinking that I was okay. I completely thought I was healthy, good, and right on track with God.
Oh the irony.
God's Grace
I was in desperate need of God to save me from myself and save me He did.
A few weeks after my 21st birthday, God gave me exactly what I wanted, a man… or rather the man. We met, were instantly attracted to one another, and quickly started dating. I thought all my dreams had come true. He liked me for who I was on the inside and out, we both loved the Lord, and we both wanted to do mission work. He was everything I'd ever prayed for and he completely fit in with my very simple plan to graduate college, get married, and go to the mission field.
The best part was that I seemed to fit into his dreams, too. Surely this was God's plan, we thought. So we started to talk about getting married eventually and were slowly falling in love. Everything was perfect, until a few weeks into our relationship, when they weren't anymore.
Blindsided
It was over just as quickly as it had started. I was heartbroken, not only because we'd broken up, but because I felt like God had given us the thumbs up and we both thought that God was the who brought us together in the first place. Nonetheless, things ended.
My world kind of fell apart at that point and I kind of fell a part, too. But life went on and I got on a plane to Guatemala for the summer, hurt and confused, but ready to finish my internship.
Breakthroughs/Breakdowns
As usual, God knew what He was doing when He sent me there.
During those months, He helped me to see the pit I'd been living in and I tasted a bit of the freedom God desires for those He loves. I realized for the first time the way I'd relied so heavily on others to feel worthy and valued for so many years. I also started to learn to let God tell me the things I needed to hear, too.
You are beautiful. You are loved. You perfect just the way you are.
And the best part is, I believed Him.
I was finally starting to believe the truth about who God said I was, instead of believing everyone else. I also recognized how stubborn I had been, that it took God bring a man into my life for me to listen. Thankfully, God also took him out of my life, so I could hear what the Father had been trying to tell me all along.
Yet even with the huge strides I felt like I was making toward God, I still didn't feel quite like myself most of the summer. I wrote it off to cultural shock and being away from America longer than I ever had before. But I was so affected by how I felt, I came home unsure if I wanted to actually be a missionary.
I also came home hoping that since I thought I'd learned the lessons God wanted to teach me, that me and “guy I thought I was going to marry” would get back together. Call me overly optimistic, but I was sure God would work it all out and we'd live happily ever after.
Seriously, Do I even live in the real world?
As if I even have to tell you, we didn't get back together… and well you know where things went from there.
Broken
So now, we're right back where this story began, my first counseling session.
I wish I could say that this is where everything takes a turn for the better and after a few sessions, I sorted though everything and everything was hunky dory.
Yeah, right.
As is the nature of the beast, things got a lot worse before they ever got any better. If I could even begin to describe the next season of my life, the only thing that even comes close is my own personal hell hole.
Every day started the same way. By asking myself the same question, “Do you hate your life?” And every day I said yes. Not because I was choosing to hate it or I was having a bad attitude, that's just how I felt. It didn't matter what I tried or how hard I prayed, that's just how it was and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
Let me explain.
What happened?
Like I said earlier, this had been building up my entire life. Depression doesn't just happen overnight and for me it was the accumulation of years of rejection, situations that communicated to me I wasn't good enough, and in the end, it was the result of growing up in a home where we really didn't talk about how we felt. Okay, so we talked about it… sometimes, but we really didn't. So I just never learned how to deal with any emotion in a healthy way.
Who knew that was a problem? I didn't. So I just stuffed them deep down inside of me and as I found out, that can only go on for so long until I broke.
My counselor put it best. She explained that if I had a wheel barrel and over the span of my entire life, all of those emotions, hurts, fears, and feelings that I never actually dealt with all went into it. Eventually, it would become so full and so heavy that it would break.
Mine broke on a beautiful day in May when me and “that guy” broke up. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, even though it took a few months for me to feel the full effect of it.
Now, I was in the process of dealing with everything that had spilled all over the floor.
My Secret
Wading through all of it was pretty ugly, too.
But it had to be done.
Many times during the months that followed, I felt like Job as He asked God what the heck He was doing. I felt like Satan was being allowed to attack me and he was giving me everything he had. But of course, that was when I actually thought God still existed. At one point I just decided He didn't and if He did He certainly wasn't worth following. But there I was trying to live my life as a bible college student and an intern at a church, going through the motions, because I couldn't just quit my life. So I faked it instead.
I kept as much of what was going on a secret from as I could. I didn't want people's opinion of me to change, and didn't think people would understand (and some didn't). I also didn't want people to feel sorry for me, either, so only people who had to know knew anything and even then, I still was embarrassed to talk about it.
Reality
Because like I said, It wasn't pretty.
I had no control over my emotions or thoughts. I couldn't see the bright side of things. I cried ALL the time. I couldn't concentrate long enough to even read an entire page of a book and anxiety attacks were common.
I was easily angered, pessimistic, overly emotional, judgmental, weak, joyless, stressed out, burned out, and on top of everything, I was failing my classes and I wasn't doing well at work either.
Every day and everything was a battle. I was miserable, tired, and beat down. All I really wanted to do was lock my door, stay in bed, and never come out again. Instead, I chose to fight. Like in any battle though, some days I won and some days I lost.
Winning looked like mustering up enough energy I had to actually get out of bed. Losing meant, I didn't, and I had to try again the next day.
This went on for months, as I did my best to get by and did everything I could to just survive.
Restoration
Yet in all of this God was (and still is) faithful. He gave me the strength every day to keep going. Even though I had turned my back on Him, He saw me through week by week, and day by day.
He had a plan for all of this.
Slowly but surely He was putting me back together one piece at a time, one session at a time, one healed wound at a time, and He was building me back up the way He wanted.
Hope
That December my first break through in all this finally happened and I'll never forget that night. I was at the Phil Wickham Christmas Concert, still doubting if God existed, and somewhere in the middle, the presence of God rest on me for the first time in longer than I could remember. Instantly, all my fears and doubts faded away and I heard that comforting whisper saying, “I'm here and I'm real.”
The next morning I knew things had shifted, because when I asked my daily question, with a smile on my face, I said, “No, I don't hate my life.”
I knew then that the worst was over, but I still had a long way to go. At least now though, I could see a glimmer of light in the darkness, and it was that light that helped me through the months still in front of me as continue sorting through all the broken pieces of my past.
The Last Battle
By the grace of God, at the end of that last semester, I was so much more myself again. I somehow still graduated… with honors even (thank you DCC) and I still had a job (thank you R.R). I was on top of the world considering I shouldn't have been able to do either of those things in the first place.
I was in the clear, out of the woods. I smiled and I meant it. I was happy, healthy, and on my way to finishing counseling.
But the enemy wasn't done yet.
A few days after graduation, the depression was back in full force and I was hopeless. I didn't know what was happening, I was confused, I couldn't get out of bed again, and I was done. It was May and I'd been fighting this battle for over a year. I had no fight left… and the enemy knew it.
That Sunday night, I was on my way home, crying my eyes out, and I kept hearing the whispers of the enemy saying,
“Just drive your car off the road, you won't die… they'll send you to a nice mental hospital and you don't have to fight anymore.”
God got me home that night, I ran to my bed, and started calling everyone I could think to just talk to. No one picked up and no one called back.
I was alone and terrified that I was going to hurt myself.
Everyone was asleep in the house and I didn't have the courage to wake anyone up and tell them what was happening. I cried out to God again, asking what was going on and questioning His faithfulness. In the midst of this, I pulled out my bible and found myself at the story of Peter trying to walk on the water with Jesus. I read it through and stopped when I read these words.
"You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
-Matthew 14.31 NIV
I knew those words were for me as I heard that small whisper and moving in my spirit say,
“Don't move and nothing will hurt you.”
So that's exactly what I did. I wrapped myself in my covers and cried myself to sleep as God sent angels to fight off the enemy that night for a weary and defeated little girl who couldn't fight for herself.
Victory/Miracle
The next morning, I woke up and the only way I can think to describe it, it is that I was free. The enemy was gone, the depression was gone, and it has never come back. God healed me that night, that's the only explanation. It was absolutely a miracle and I've had the victory ever since.
“The Best, Worst Year of My Life”
I call that year the best, worst year of my life. It is the worst thing I had ever walked through, but it was also by far the most transforming time of my life (yes, even compared to The Race). And well, that break up that started it all is one of the best things that's every happened to me.
Sometimes the hardest things in life really end up being the best.
God healed the heart of a broken little girl that year by revealing my brokenness, making me deal with it, and helping me overcome it. In turn, He showed me His tangible deep love by not saving me when I asked Him to, but instead giving me what I needed when I needed it, so that in the end I could walk in the light, in the life, and in the freedom He wanted for me (and wants for all of His beloved).
I walked out of that year truly in love with the Father, too. The best and most freeing thing there is this side of heaven.
Life Lessons
Even though, I never want to walk through a year like that again, I wouldn't trade it for anything, because I'd rather be the woman I am today, then the one I was before.
I now find my worth in the Father and see myself the way He does.
I am His precious, beloved, beautiful daughter and everyday I learn more of what that means. I always be thankful for the perfect way God taught me this and for the many other lessons He taught me along the way…
I learned that God loves me at my very worst even when I don't love myself.
I learned how to handle my emotions in a healthy way instead of stuffing them deep down.
I learned how to love God in a new way and now have a sold foundation of truth to stand on.
I learned that I am a lot tougher than I thought.
I learned that I'm a fighter.
I learned how to really love my family again.
I learned how to really love myself again.
I learned that God doesn't need my help to do anything.
I learned how to ask for help and how to humbly ask for grace and forgiveness.
I learned that depression doesn't mean a person is crazy.
And I learned that [the right] counseling isn't for those “who can't keep their life together,” it's for those wise enough to ask for help when they need it, instead of trying to handle it on their own.
Besides, we were never meant to do this thing called life alone anyway.
And then I became a Racer
The rest of my story can be found on the many pages of the blog you are reading right now, but for those tuning in now, I'll give you the short story.
The summer after I graduated, I spent it at The Branch doing what I loved again, being the intern and loving on my students (Thank you Ryan for letting me stay and giving me a second chance) and at the end of the summer it was time to move on as I heard God whispering, “It's time to go.”
Well, I later found out that meant The World Race and the rest is history. God aligned everything to make it possible for me to do the Race thanks to my amazing group of friends and family (Thank you all for how you made this year a reality, you know who you are and I'm forever grateful). Now, I'm finishing up my 8th month of 11 and I couldn't be happier with my decision to do this. It's been a crazy year, but one that I wouldn't trade for anything.
I've continued to fall in love with the Father, have gotten to love people all over the world and be loved in return, I've learned that people really do love me just the way I am, and I've discovered more of the dreams and desires God has placed in me (I'll save those for an upcoming blog though, but they are pretty stinkin' awesome and I'm excited to share them with you all soon).
The end/beginning
But like I said before, I had to find more of God to find more of myself and I'm so glad I did.
But the best part of it all is that I'm just getting started and I know God has so much more in store for me in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.
Because He loves me, He just really loves me, and He loves you, too.
"But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.
Psalm 52.8, NIV
