November 1
A year ago today…
I was laying in a room in the hospitals emergency department, high as a kite on the drugs I had been given for pain, and my best friend by my side, making sure to capture priceless snap chats of me commenting on how attractive I thought the ER doctor was.
(But seriously, it wasn’t just the pain killers)
I had been in a car accident that was my own fault. I had worked a 13 hour clinical, and then I had worked at the bar for 9 hours. We had been really busy because it was Halloween, and I was beyond exhausted. Not even a mile from my house I was dozing off at the wheel, I had mistaken a red light for green, drove through an intersection, and was hit by an oncoming car on my drivers side.
At the end of it all I only had some bruising, swelling, a mild concussion, and a totaled car.
What’s the point of this story?
I look at how different my life was a year ago. How all the things at that point I was so terrified of happening, actually happened.
At that specific point in my life, I was struggling with severe depression. I will say that there were previous times in my life where it had been much, much worse, but through the highs and the lows, I had gotten really good at hiding it. By this, I mean it was obvious to my friends and family that I was sad, maybe even really sad at times, but the true extent of it I kept to myself.
The countless sleepless nights alone of staring at my ceiling, unable to sleep, letting my demons consume me, wishing I could just fall asleep and never wake up. Randomly texting people to hangout because I didn’t trust myself to be alone. Every time I got in the car, thinking that all I had to do was run into the divider on the highway at full speed and it would all be over. Sometimes I would lay in bed for literally days without even eating, just laying there, missing school or work, unable to physically drag myself out of bed. Thinking that if I died right then no one would even notice I was missing for at least a week (except maybe my RT program).
I thought about death constantly, it consumed my thoughts. Even in that hospital bed, after my mom had driven all the way up to be there, and informed all our friends and family that I was okay, and as I began to hear how happy everyone was and how grateful to God they were, I felt resentment towards God, and I wished more than anything that I wasn’t walking away from it.
I wrote in my journal last year,
“We still search for the answers that we will never find. We try to heal the wounds that never stop hurting. Maybe we ignore our past so that we don’t have to feel it, maybe I just don’t want to feel anything at all. Time keeps moving on, and the same things keep happening, and for some reason when they do it doesn’t hurt any less. Maybe I just am searching for something to believe in, because I can’t believe that life is this cruel, I can’t believe there are no good people left in this world, I can’t believe that we are inevitably going to follow in the same foot steps as the ones before us. I have to believe… that life gets better than this, otherwise what is the point.”
I write this because when I look back, even at my lowest points, when I thought I had lost all hope, I was still subconsciously searching for something to hold onto, to believe in. I may never find all the answers, but I have found healing and peace in God’s love.
When I thought that God as done with me, when I felt like I had just completely failed as a human being, that is when God showed me who he really was.
To those people who think I am magically changed:
Im not, I’m no where near perfect, I still struggle with certain things every single day.
To those who think this is all an act:
It’s not, but I do struggle with fitting my true identity into a life I had created with my false self.
I am still surrounded by those same circumstances that I had been so afraid of, I “failed” career wise, I experienced heartache twice in one year in almost in an identical way, my pasts found their way into my present, and I am “facebook status” alone… except that I am NOT alone! The difference between that person then and who I am right now… is God.
I thank God for all those circumstances! That I have nothing anymore holding me back or tying me down, because it got me to right here, to right now. Hope, love, forgiveness… I’m telling you these things are life changing! The things of my past don’t satisfy me anymore. Feeling close to God is the ultimate high, it’s a place that I don’t ever want to come down from! He is playing all roles right now, he is the man in my life, he is my father, he is my best friend, he is loving me like no one else ever could!
All I know is that I wake up every day and see things so differently…
Where I saw failure, God has shown me opportunity.
Where I saw heartache, God has shown me healing.
Where I saw weakness, God has shown me the beauty of vulnerability.
Where I saw brokenness, God has shown me restoration.
Where I saw loneliness, God has shown me unity.
Where I saw lies, God has shown me His truth.
He pursued me even into the darkest places of my heart and mind. So just be reassured, those of you that may be struggling, that may feel hopeless, that might be running away from certain things, just know that there is no place too far that you can run that God cannot also run.
“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Isaiah 40:31
