Three Months Overview

I have been home for three months…and it has been the hardest and most stressful time of my life. When I got home May 11, I had an expectation that I would be going to the doctors, getting on medication and getting better during that first week then for the next two and half weeks, I would be exercising and building strength back up. I never unpacked by bags because I was planning on meeting my squad in the air as we transitioned to Tanzania, Africa. 

 

Well, come the third week of being in the States, I had visited the doctor more than a dozen times, been admitted into the hospital four times and even went to Birmingham to see a specialist at UAB Hospital. I had went through several tests and labs and doctors still could not give me a name to this junk I had. I would have days of improvement and days of total collapse. It was really hard for me to comprehend that I was home. I did not want to be here, I did not want to see anybody, I did not want to call friends or jump back into relationships. I just wanted to get medical care, get better and get my butt to Africa! 

 

My Squad was in Ukraine and preparing to go to Africa…without me. I was so angry, bitter. Why was this happening?! Why did God bring me home just to be miserable and ultimately, isolated? Was this His plan? It seemed so stupid. Seems like the Worldrace was so “golden” such a “Godly thing to do”…“so hard, such sacrifice”… so, why wasn’t His will for me to go and be a Worldracer? Well, now I know… that even though something seems so extreme for Jesus… does not necessarily mean that its what God wants for you… 

What? 

I know. 

 

I’ll come back to that later. Back to the storyline. I had gotten so involved with physical health that I accidentally ignored my spiritual health. It is easy to do in our society where there is no accountability or daily feedback. You’d be amazed how quickly you can completely camouflage back into a Godless world, community, culture even despite all your training and preparations to avoid it

 …actually, on second thought, you would not be amazed… because it happens so quickly, you don’t even notice that it happened…or is happening. 

 

I am gonna hit pause on the storyline for a second and interject a comparison.

I always thought Adam and Eve were some of the dumbest characters in the Bible. They literally, physically walked with the Lord, Creator of all that beauty around them in the garden of Eden. They knew Him… knew His voice, knew what He looked like, knew His character…they KNEW Him! But, just like that, so quickly, in an instant…a single moment… all that changed. They traded that relationship, friendship for a lie. God could not longer dwell there with them since sin had been introduced into the world. They tried to hide from God, they tried to camouflage themselves… they slipped away into this world. 

 

Well, I joined the “idiots” of the Bible. You see… when I was laid up in bed in Romania… although I had some of the most terrible, scariest days of my life… I experienced God in a way I never had before. And, not just a one time occasion…Not just a “flash of light”…not just goosebumps….not just a moment… it was a month long process….and a developing lifestyle! I had entered into Eden. I came to know God, know His character. I knew the voice of the Lord… it became a real, audible voice that I knew and recognized….without any distraction, without any doubt… I knew it was God. I knew God. 

 

Then, all the sudden… something changed… I took my eyes off God… started focusing on my problems… my sickness. I pushed people away and out of my life. I did not want to invest in relationships when I thought I would just have to leave them again. Somehow, I became this cold hearted, bitter and ill person. It wasn’t that I tried to hide from God, I just did not seek after Him. I quit seeking Him, quit spending time in His word, quit praying. And before I knew it.. I was naked and outside of Eden…trying to camouflage myself with the world.

 

And my flesh does what it does best and started the blaming game. I had came to a point where I no longer praised and worshiped my God…but… demanded answers. I did not care about His grace…His plan….or His timing. I got pissed and threw a tantrum when people would feed me the line, “there’s a reason for everything!”… yeah.. So many times I punched people in the face when they fed me that crap… (all in my head of course.)  It felt like my whole world just came to a crashing halt. Nothing was going right… I did not have any friends because I basically pushed them all away… I was a witch to Justin…  Was still sick…

I was ill…bitter… and quite honestly… impossible to be around. I blamed God that He brought me home… for this crap?!? A lot of days I was so mad at God for bringing me back to the states… I would think, “If I was in Africa.. I would not have to deal with this stupid nonsense!”….

 

And well… at that point.. It was about month two home… and being the complex woman I am… I went from completely blowing the situation out of proportions to getting mad and blaming everyone, everything… to getting sad.

 

And, I’m not just talking “A Walk to Remember” sad.. I’m talking.. I had the most severe attacks from the enemy that I‘ve had in over a decade… I hit all-inclusive rock bottom. I got brutally and dangerously depressed and a lot of days I struggled to exist. Nothing mattered anymore…I did not care about anything or anyone. I treated Justin like…well… shit crap. There was zero ambition in me. I had no goals. I just did not care about anything. I was ready (and contemplated) death-frequently. What was the point? I felt like I was never gonna amount to anything.. I’m the offspring of my parents that decided to be an artist instead of some doctor… I got the same minimum wage job that I’ve had since high school. Felt like I was never gonna be good enough or skinny enough for my fiance. And now, the one thing I have worked so hard for… invested so much prayer.. .money…time… THE WORLDRACE… that I had been praying about for FIVE years… Man, I could not even do that. I just felt like failure…at everything…at life.

 

What was the point in anything? What was the point in life? 

I was ready to give up… totally. 

 

Yeah… it got pretty bad. I’m not real sure what happened to turn things around…but…something did.
Read on to the next blog… "Mirror Image…only through a broken mirror."