The last couple of months have been difficult in a new kind of struggle. It seems like the highs and lows of unthinkable circumstances keep me grasping at the moments I felt God the most. I’ve had so many of those highs and there’s an invisible wall that I’ve built up again – clinging to a half-truth.
I was talking to a pastor online through a chat system shortly after Hurricane Harvey came through. I remember that day feeling overwhelmed by the destruction and uncertainty in others lives – namely my mother and my uncle. He had lost everything in the flood. And while my mother wasn’t impacted physically by water in her home, the new business she’d recently bought was in a stand-still post flood. I wanted to help them but I have nothing to give, other than compassion and prayers.
Maybe allowing myself to grieve on the account of others was a way of grieving for my own circumstances that I struggle to face. I know the Lord has done miracles in our lives and I fight to keep looking forward for the next one to come, reminding myself that wavering faith can’t release the word of God over my life.
As I vented to this pastor, I could feel the deep anguish and worry battling to the surface – like everything I felt inside was screaming to come out and yell, “I need help!”
In the middle of my rant, tears flowing down my face over my keyboard as I typed violently on my laptop spilling out the sorrows of my heart’s concerns, I looked up to take a deep breath and read the pastor’s short and direct response to me.
He said he rebuked my complaining and paraphrased the story of the Israelite’s, who murmured and complained, angering God as he led them through the wilderness to the promise land.
Shock and shame came over me. I quickly excused myself from the conversation, shut my laptop and laid down to sob – crying out to the Lord to forgive me for venting about my troubles. I felt so ashamed that I had allowed myself to be so vulnerable – to cry out to someone who I didn’t even know for guidance and help. That pastor had put me in my place and made feel like I was working against God through my moment of weakness in murmuring and complaining, rather than thanking the Lord, “praising Him in the storm.”
Maybe that was the turning point of a shadow that would grow darker over me day by day. I wake up to each morning and ask the Lord to show me how to be a servant to Him – how to give him the Glory in my life and to speak positive things to others, even when I feel weak myself.
Meanwhile, what started as random panic attacks that came once every few weeks has turned into almost a daily occurrence. I struggle to make it through each day, praying for the Lord to take the dizziness and nauseousness away. I keep telling myself that the heart palpitations, chest pains and breathing problems are all a lie – a figment of my imagination that can’t be in my body. But each time I go down, shaking and crying and unable to breathe, I feel more ashamed with myself. I question what has happened to my faith? How could I be going through such overwhelming anxiety when the Lord doesn’t give the spirit of fear? Had I stepped outside of the Lord’s will? Had I done something wrong against Him to deserve these new struggles? And how can I continue to take care of Josh when my own body is beginning to fail?
Last night I picked up a book called “When I lay My Isaac Down”. I must have read that book for 5 hours straight, crying more intense with each page that I turned. As I read through this mother’s heartbreaking story about her son, I could feel her pain as if it were my own testimony. I know where pain that like comes from – I know the hopelessness she felt and the despair that lingers as days turn to months and on to years, and hanging by a thread becomes commonplace – a new way of everyday life.
There was one chapter, specifically that just shook me with such intense emotion. She talked about the story in the Bible of Lazerus’ death. And she examined the meaning behind the shortest, but most powerful scripture to her – “Jesus wept.” Jesus, the Son of God cried! He felt sorrow! He felt pain! ….. “He wept”.
But, how can I be a testimony of the goodness of God, if I’m walking around crying and complaining? I’ve asked myself that question, like a voice of authority inside my own head demanding that I hold back my tears, force a smile even when it seems impossible and carry the Joy of Jesus with me wherever I go. But reading that chapter last night, I realized what a fraud I am. I saw the fault in my make-believe reality (a costume I wear for the world to see), pretending everything is so great and we are doing so good, when in reality I’m screaming out for help on the inside – repeating the same mistakes I’ve made most of my life – bottling up my problems and wishing them away.
Yes, I lay down my troubles before God in the privacy of my heartfelt prayers, but then I keep that secret place of humility hidden from the world around me. And with each day that passes, I wonder why no help comes.
Pride is my worst enemy – always has been, and I’m still fighting that battle today, as much as ever. And even though I’ve told myself I’m fighting it for the Kingdom of God, I’ve continued to hide the truth, waiting for a breakthrough that ends my testimony the way “I” think it should go. I tell myself, “surely the Lord won’t allow us to lose our home”. “Surely, he doesn’t want me and Josh and our two kids homeless – surely he gave us all the resources to make this house handicapped accessible for Josh to have the care he needs while recovering from this awful stroke”… I tell myself help is on the way.
So, I see this ending the way I think it should go and I convince myself over and over that everything is going to be perfect if I can just hold on to my faith for one more day. If “I” can just BELIEVE with unwavering faith. How did I get so prideful of my own ability to wish things into existence? Who the heck am I? Why do I keep falling into this delusion that I can WILL anything to be the way I want it to be?
I went to bed crying last night and I woke up crying this morning. I’m hurting badly and I know the Lord sees me, but does anyone else? Am I disobedient to complain and murmur, as the Pastor said? Am I disobedient to let other see me falling apart? And if so, why did JESUS WEEP? Maybe its OK to lose everything because HE gave everything for us. Maybe its OK to throw my hands in the air and say “I’m not strong enough to do this Lord and I have NO answers to the problems we face.” Maybe it’s time for me weep again, carrying the cross I didn’t choose, but am appointed to bare.
I think about the definition given by others of a “Christian Martyr”, and wonder if the variations are misunderstood – maybe I am a modern day martyr in an emotional fight against the will of God, still trying to hold onto a plan that makes no sense to me, instead of accepting the sacrifices my heart must make. Maybe I need to lay it down again, just like I did in those powerless moments when I knew that nothing in this world could save Josh’s life – only GOD.
At the end of the day, God let Josh live. He did it! If everything else falls apart, I am forever grateful for that one answered prayer. Maybe that huge victory (that thing I cried out for the most – “Please Father Let him Live!”) – maybe that one, very important, answered prayer will be enough to get us through what we must face next. And whatever happens to us now – no matter how broken I may feel, and no matter how hopeless tomorrow may seem, I pray that I can just lay it down, accept it, cry when I need to cry, scream out when I need to scream out, sit in the pit of my misery feeling alone and abandoned by this world and fall to pieces every single day if I have to, knowing that the Lord will pick up those pieces and take my tears as an acceptable sacrifice for His Glory.
Father please help me to walk this out in truth. Please help me to accept whatever plans you have for us and to stop playing a game of righteousness in hopes that a door will open to solve all of our problems. Help me to admit that I’m not strong enough and take my tears as an acceptable sacrifice of praise, when I’m not strong enough to raise my hands in joy. Father, forgive me for trying to will my own idea of solutions into existence and help me to accept whatever valley I’m required to walk through for your name’s sake. Thank you for the blood of Jesus and that hope that I hold onto that one day, there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more sickness and disability, no more bills to pay, no more flesh to sacrifice and no more obstacles to overcome. One day we will be home and I thank you Lord for the saving grace of what you’ve already done to make a way for us to find HOME.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.