it's been two years.
month two of my first world race, my team, along with team goodness gracious, brought the kingdom of God in targu mures, romania. we preached, we evangelized, and we played with tons of children. any of you that have read my blogs or stayed even slightly in touch, probably already knew that. however, most of you don't know the whole story of that month. the real story. the raw story. of how my life was completely thrown upside down and ripped inside out on the stairs of a cute little house in a quiet romanian village called stejeris.
you see, two years ago i was delivered.
[pause.] honesty time. i've been struggling for two years to write out this story. i've shared it in person, but writing it out is a whole different ballgame. so know that i don't really know how to write this. i've been on my knees for almost 2 years straight asking the Lord how He can receive the most glory and honor from it. i don't have all the answers and a lot of this still doesn't even make sense to me. i don't quite remember everything and some of this is from other people's perspectives. this is just a glorious experience of the powerful grace and victorious redemption of a God who loves jealously. through my lenses. ok [play.]
the 14 of us were blessed with a beautiful house in a village called stejeris. corn fields as our neighbor, dirtroads, and a hill that sang during sunset. the month before, team goodness gracious had been up in northern ireland working with a church with a miraculous healing ministry. they saw arms and legs grow, eye sight healed, and scoliocis-ridden backs realigned before their very eyes and through their tingly holy-spirit-filled fingers. my team wanted to learn everything they had and so we set up a night for them to teach us. i was pumped.
[our home for the month.]
as the night grew closer, i found myself looking forward to it less and less. to the point that, when the night finally came, i had to force myself into that dining room. as soon as they began to speak, my struggle began. i hated being in that room. the more they spoke about God's healing powers and the ways it can manifest, the more i raged within. after a while they asked us to start some practical application and lay hands on a guy on my team. i didn't. i prayed for him, just across the room in my chair. at this point, i beelined out the door for the bathroom upstairs. as i started to come back downstairs to join the teaching again, i stopped. i remember just standing there, in the pitch black hallway, wanting to do just about anything other than go back down. that's when the thought flashed:
i could just throw myself down the stairs.
now you should now that the Lord has blessed me in my life. i've never struggled with depression and never had suicidal thoughts. everyone has bad days, yes, but i had never ever gotten somewhere so dark. and this got really dark. really fast.
somehow i knew that that thought wasn't of me. i had been learning a lot about taking your thoughts captive and the schemes of the devil over the last few months so i'm pretty sure i recognized in that moment what was going on, whether it was in my heart or in my head, and i almost sprinted down those stairs back into the dining room. isolation is one of the enemy's most powerful tactics, so i needed people. and to be honest, hearing voices, late at night, is reeeeeeally creepy too. so to the people and the light room i went.
but as soon as i got in that room, i was overwhelmed by something. i sat back down in my chair and immediately went into the fetal position, arms holding my knees tightly to my chest. i don't remember what was going on or what people were saying. i'm pretty sure i had started crying when daina turned to me and said "hey are you ok?"
i couldn't even open my mouth. i shook my head and booked it out the dining room door, landing on the staircase directly before me. and as i hit those stairs, something let loose. i cried. i bawled. i wailed. i didn't know why. it was uncontrollable.
now here's where it gets weird. weird in the normal usage of the word, but also weird in how i need to tell this story. my perspective is different from the people that were around me. it's easier if i integrate the viewpoints together, but know that the internal thoughts are mine. and, for the most part, everything else is from the perspective of the 4 people on those steps with me. some of it i knew as it was happening, but a lot of this was told to me later to help me understand what exactly happened. add in some more weirdness in that my perspective is also a fuzzy picture, a dialed down version. as the rest of this night continued, i was shoved to the back of my head. at least my sight or self or perspective was. everything i describe from here on out was extremely out of body. i was in the back of my own mind, watching my own mind think other things. and i was observing my self do and say things that weren't coming from me. it was like watching a movie about myself through a pair of glasses with the wrong prescription with the volume turned down low. hey, i warned you it was weird….
after a few seconds, daina followed me out the door. sobbing continues. after a few minutes, denise came out. hyperventilation-inducing weeping. i vaguely remember them trying to talk to me. but i couldn't respond. or maybe i didn't want to? i was so confused and honestly didn't know why i was crying. after a few more minutes, i remember denise turning to someone and saying, "go get mike" (her husband).
