A year ago today I was sitting on the floor of an apartment opening up presents that had been sent clear across the world in advance that I might have a bit of home with me in Kiev, Ukraine. That morning I woke up to my teammate Emily Rae making one baller b-day breakfast, and later got to wrap up the night witnessing the French Spring Festival near Mia-Don square and dancing underneath the Friendship Arch with everyone from CCX. As far as birthdays go, it was probably one of the most memorable ones I’ve had. There is nothing like unwrapping two boxes full of pure surprises from people whom you love and haven’t seen for 8 months. There’s also nothing quite like experiencing completely OVERCROWDED streets, which people were still attempting to drive cars down (wwhhaat?!) while a live musical performance is suspended a hundred plus feet above you on the biggest mobile you’ve ever seen. And there are very few things that compare to the joyful happiness I get from being around brothers and sisters in Christ, dancing up a storm, laughing our butts off, cracking jokes, and celebrating what the Lord’s done in our lives. April 4, 2012… a full year has passed since that wonderful day.
When I reflect on the past year of my life one word comes to mind: tumultuous. The first three months of my 23rd year were the last three of my world race. They were long and full months, which disappeared quickly and left me walking off a plane into the KCI airport shell shocked and feeling like a zombie. The walking dead is actually a really great analogy for how I felt at that time, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. That, combined with the turbulent nature of circumstances I came home to, made for one tough cookie of a transition. My zombieness was very much the consequence of my own decisions. I have always been given a choice to seek and press into the Lord’s goodness through faith, and in so doing experience fullness of life; I just don’t always choose that. Instead, for far too long I fought for my own understanding and in the end was met with greater confusion than I’ve ever experienced.
I remember lying on the floor in the JFK airport, where I spent a night before flying to KCI after arriving back to the states. I had said goodbye to most of my squad, was lying next to a few other stragglers, and unable to wrap my mind around the limbo I was in. My mind spinning, I was still confusing my identity with the things I do and the relationships I have with other people. And as the transition off of the race began I lost all sense of confidence because of the choices I had made to do so. I came home and entered into the most insecure and confused condition. I didn’t know what I believed about myself, except that there was very little good I could say.
The long story short here is that over the course of a few months I ended up in the lowest of lows. Depression came upon me like an angry sea and I got angry back at first but didn’t fight long before sinking down deep. I kept busy but was constantly consumed by the destructive trap of dwelling on things frozen in time past. I was so consumed I forgot to eat for days and days. I lived a passive present life and an aggressive contemplation of the done and gone. I knew it was getting to a horrible level when I went from just forgetting to eat, to times of catching myself daydreaming about death; moments I would snap out of in disgust. Then the pinnacle arrived Halloween night when there was the serious suicidal contemplation. I snapped out of that one in fear, overwhelmed and feeling completely out of control. There was a battle and I was losing it. I had arrived at the place of feeling like I had gone crazy and feeling like I was utterly powerless to change it. I didn’t even feel able to pray for myself. Actually I don’t think I even wanted to pray for myself. I did not want to talk to the Lord about what was going on because I resented the circumstances of my life. I saw no goodness in them or myself.
THIS IS THE TURN IN THE STORY.
At that point the Lord delivered His truth to me through a conversation with a friend, who accepted where I was at and let me know I wasn’t crazy but distracted. That struck a chord right quick. Thoughts triggered domino effects that were debilitating because I followed them on down the line leading in the wrong direction. I believed all these thoughts and the way I felt defined me. Then comes:
What am I then? Who am I? There is someone who knows that answer Who is beyond me, it’s no one of this world, and no one in this world has a right to add to the definition unless they are aligning their words with His. I don’t even hold that right unless my thoughts are aligning with His.
This realization began a reconstruction of self. It came with a couple more months of sensitivity and tears, because Jesus is always gentle with me and lets me really learn things. It reminds me of the grace He gave me that first year I began walking with Him. It also came with a bit more turbulence as circumstances continued to change as the Lord picked up the reigns I had finally dropped and I began to finally lean in and trust the steering. And oh boy has it been a beautiful and redemptive ride since.
THIS IS THE PART WHERE WE CELEBRATE.
I remember shortly after I got home meeting up with my squad leader Lucas here in KC and telling him, “I’m a bitter person” and his response being something along the lines of “Excuse me, no you are not. You may feel bitter, but you are NOT a bitter person”. Even then I caught a glimpse of the freedom that, that distinction gives, but I was too weighed down in it all to live it. Beginning in January however, a shifting of gears happened. The Lord crazily provided for me to go the Passion conference in ATL and there a point was hammered home and some serious release from those bitter feelings occurred.
The point was that ultimately my focus on self was the killer of myself. It’s a form of selfishness that can deceivingly be perceived as vital and yet in reality is volatile and deadly. It cut me off from the life around me, and the very nature of God in me. See it matters very little if I come to know what I in and of myself think of me, because that’s not what changes anything. What I had strayed from was the reality that it is what the Father thinks of me, through Christ’s atonement, that changes everything.
I literally have it tattooed across my collarbone so I won’t forget, and still forgot that God is TRUSTWORTHY. I was hurt and in that hurt I backed away and doubted the goodness of my God. He never doubted His goodness in me though. He never gave up on it, and refused to back off calling it up. Where bitterness was, he gave me goodwill, fighting for me to honor others and myself no matter what. My mom called a chunk of what I went through this past year, a severe mercy and it’s fitting. It definitely felt severe, but more than that it has been overwhelmingly merciful. Our God NEVER forsakes His children. He is faithful above all else. I can say in the times I felt most abandoned, the Lord gathered Himself and His family around me and proved the deception of those feelings.
I know we’ve all heard it maybe but it’s worth really remembering that our God’s plans are BEYOND what we can conceive for ourselves. The identity He has for us, BETTER than anything we could create. His love more pure, His connection more intimate, His purpose more fulfilling, His joy more abounding, His restoration complete.
Do not doubt the goodness and faithfulness of God; He has so much to give if we’ll come with an open hand ready to receive.
