God has blessed me with a level of compassion that allows me to put myself in other people’s situations almost entirely. I’ve felt the consuming love a mother shares with her newborn baby, I’ve felt the heart-wrenching pain that claws at a women’s very soul when they lose a child, I’ve experienced the feelings that bolemic & anorexic people struggle with- the urges to starve, to binge & purge, & to be “beautiful” at all costs, I’ve experienced a life-threatening level of worthlessness that a father felt when he was unable to pay for food to support his family, & my personal favorite: i can feel the hope-filled, God-given, everlasting love that a couple shares at a wedding that was meant-to-be.
I just want to run away. When I get hurt, there’s a deep part of me that opens up & beckons me to come. It tells me to dive deep into myself, to get lost, to give up, to fade away into the darkness & never look back. This darkness is accompanied by a soothing voice that calls to me & fills my head with visions of blurred nights, dancing with strangers, losing myself to alcohol, & wandering the city streets at random. The voice wants me alone. The voice wants me in a distant & unreachable state of mind. The voice wants me dead.
I started hearing the voice when I was 20 years old. I started to think things that didn’t make sense considering my blessed & easy way of life- still living at home with my parents & 5-6 siblings (it wasn’t too often that we were all home at the same time), I had a serving job at Steak ‘n Shake, I was going to school at Columbus state community college & I was surrounded by people that loved me. The first time I ever remember hearing the voice was when I was helping a dear friend of mine through intense life struggles. She suffers through bolemia among other trials.
The night the voice came was a stressful one. Work was busy & I ended up being one of the last servers on the floor. I remember looking out the window of my restaurant at the freeway. I had never noticed how close it was before then. I began to think about how stressed out I was in that particular moment when from the back of my mind slithered this thought, “it would be so easy.” I stood for a moment unmoving & confused. As I stood there, I began to see a vision play out in the back of my mind- I watched myself walk out of the building, walk up to the bridge over the freeway, climb the fence, & then jump off. Rather than horror, at first, I felt an overwhelming sense of serenity & peace. Then came the voice again, “it would be so easy. Everyone would be better off.” The voice was like a quiet melody that drifted through the forest that is my mind- it flowed freely through all of my other thoughts and danced its way up to the very forefront of my imagination. I indulged in this suicidal fantasy for a couple of minutes before snapping out of my trance-like state. I immediately questioned my sanity & began to worry. Where did that thought come from? I’d never had one before & it didn’t make any sense. I did my best to wave it off & went about my life as normal.
The next time I heard the voice was right before my 21st birthday. I was working on a project that required research on Woodstock. As I lay in bed watching countless YouTube clips on crazy drunken hippies & coked out runaways, I heard it again, “Drink. Drink until you can’t feel. Dance until you can’t move. Numb until you can’t stop.” I began to feel dizzy & free, I felt wanted & beautiful- like a prized possession. I could see myself consuming all kinds of liqueur at an inhuman pace. I wanted to be drunk. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted to stop feeling and start dreaming. I blinked, shook my head, & the visions stopped. This time the experience shook me to my core. Where are these thoughts coming from? Why do I want with everything in me to obey this voice?
As time went by I, like most lost, broken, & unsure-in-their-purpose young adults began to throw myself into “the crowd”. The crowd doesn’t love you & certainly doesn’t have your best-interest in mind. The crowd uses you for their own glory, their own self-satisfaction, their own “needs”. I began to drink too much, too often, & with the wrong people. I began to base my self-worth on whether or not I was invited to every outing, party, & get together. If I wasn’t invited, the voice would tell me I didn’t matter. I was no longer satisfied with the love from my “good” friends, my fiancée, my family, the lessons in church, the beauty of nature, or the awareness that being sober brings. Everything felt better when I couldn’t feel a thing.
It didn’t take long for those who truly cared about me to start calling me out. Some did a better job than others but all attempts to “save” me fell on deaf ears. I listened to the voice when it told me I was too far gone. All I wanted to do was escape…from everything.
Towards the end of 2013, not even the alcohol satisfied me anymore. I didn’t stop drinking at that point but I certainly began feeling again. God had started to stir something in my heart- something deep, something worthwhile. A calling to something better.
At that point, I began to feel a different kind of yearning- the voice still told me to lose myself & to drink & to runaway from everyone that loved me but at the same time I would feel another urge- one that told me to go to nature, to look at the stars & feel the grass beneath my feet. An urge that reminded me to think of happy times surrounded by people that loved me for who I was in God. This was hard for me to handle because at that point I had no clue as to who I was at all- let alone in God. I based my self-worth on & got my identity from a group of people that didn’t care about me.
It was in this in between stage that the beautiful melody of the voice that had been carrying me turned into a harsh hateful scream. The voice told me I was nobody that I was nothing & that I was hideous.
The voice had turned on me. It didn’t tell me how sexy I was anymore. It didn’t tell me how amazing i was or how everyone wanted me. It, like everything else in my life had changed. I was desperately alone & the voice told me I deserved it.
I believed everything the voice said at this point. I spent the majority of my nights wallowing in my emptiness & swallowing everything it told me about myself. I wanted death but I couldn’t die- God continued in that time to push me to live. It was around then that God brought my attention to the world race. I applied, went through the interview process, got accepted, & began to get ready. I began to hear a different voice- it was warm, loving, vibrant, & revived something that hadn’t mattered to me since my mission trip to Peru in 2011: my soul.
I started trying harder to follow God. I distanced myself a little from the crowd & began praying again. I don’t remember exactly when it happened but my soul began to breath- I was coming alive once more.
The voice hated this change and my life got a lot harder. I quit one of my jobs, my fiancée and I broke up, I had my heart stollen by a man & then “returned” unwanted, I lost my other job, my family moved from ohio to California, I felt worthless, unimportant, and like I was a burden to everyone around me. Through it all, as many times as I messed up, fell off the path, or got hurt, I never stopped going to God. I was different. I wanted real & lasting change.
I went through band camp, training camp, final family & friend visits, vacation, a leadership conference, several packing processes, & leaving for the world race before my opinion of myself finally began to reflect that of my Savior rather than that of the deceiver. My life went from blessed to broken in what felt like an instant and it’s taken almost a year for me to decide to start fighting to reclaim it. I´ve noticed that every time I take steps to follow God, I can count on the voice popping back into my life.
My life does not belong to the voice. My life belongs to Jesus- my savior, my protector, my teacher, my warrior, my all in all, my everything. If I didn’t have Jesus, I wouldn’t have life today.
Even when we walk with God, even when we’re thousands of miles away from our “troubles” or our past, the voice is still there. The voice wants you and me and everyone else. It brings death, destruction, and decay. The voice belongs to Satan & he is impressively skilled in hiding it. He will do what he has to to get into your head & to get you to believe his lies. As Christians, we must combat it. We can combat the lies with truth, through worship, through true love of ourselves and for others, through faith in God, through prayer, & through support systems/good community. We are not helpless against the enemy. He is helpless against our God.
Remember that God wants every good thing for us. Jesus brings life in the midst of destruction, light in the midst of darkness, & purpose in the midst of depressing brokenness. Fall into His arms. He is waiting, He is beckoning you, & my personal favorite, He will keep you if you’ll let Him.
I asked God for scripture to end this blog & here it is:
Psalm 37:1-11
“(1) Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; (2) for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. (3) trust in The Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. (4) Delight yourself in The Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. (5) Commit your way to The Lord; trust in him and he will do this: (6) He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. (7) Be still before The Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. (8) Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil. (9) For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in The Lord will inherit the land. (10) A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. (11) But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.”
Please rest in the promises that God has for you and for me. He truly cares about us & wants us to come to Him. Go to Abba our Father and He will give you rest.
Until next blog,
~ Vashti W.
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