A Letter to My Friends

It was around a year ago that I buried pieces of my heart. Pieces of who I am. I had painfully come to realize that I was made very differently than everyone else around me. I was painfully reminded that I could never truly be myself on this earth. And that to survive I had to lay down pieces of my being, pieces of my heart and walk away. Since then I've been terrified of connection. Terrified that if people truly saw all of me that they would walk away. Since many of them have before. Terrified that if people really got a glimpse of all of me then they would reject me because I am too much.

At that time my life had shattered into a million tiny shards of glass. My best friend had started saying some things about me that were not true, claiming I was this monster. Simply because I was panicking. I had found myself in a very stressful job, balancing school work, all of my safety nets were removed in one week's time frame and suddenly I was trying to not drown. I was in full panic mode and I had become so intensely clingy. My anxiety, depression, and PTSD were in hyper drive all at the same time, making it seem like borderline personality disorder and yet it wasn't. I felt like I couldn't breathe and all I was seeking was comfort and protection. I couldn't hear God's voice and I was beyond desperate to hear His voice. I felt like I was walking through hell. I felt like all these forces were sucking me under the crashing waves and I alone had to fend them off. My faith crumbled. My life crumbled. And God was silent. I was angry. And I was emotionally and verbally being beaten up by someone I trusted to the core of who I was. It's been a long road of recovery. A road many looked down their noses at me for. A road they couldn't comprehend because they didn't understand the depths of my relationship with God. And the depths that my heart went for people. Nor could they comprehend the sheer battle I was in with my own mental illness. My body and my brain had gone to war against me and there was no grounding point for me.

I learned from that point on to never trust people. To trust would mean all of who I am could be accepted and respected, that others could understand and love me for who I am completely and still stay by my side. To understand that I have a mental illness and to still love me even if the healing never comes. But the truth is my wiring and who I am overwhelms. It scares people. I have a capacity and depth of connection, and am deeply empathetic, that very few people share. And some that do share struggle immensely in the same way I do. So I determined I could never connect deeply with people this side of heaven. Because those I connect deeply with reject me or they just don't have the same capacity to connect deeply that I do. And I'm left unsatisfied and wanting. Can you imagine how lonely this is?

So when I say I'm lonely, I'm really saying is there someone out there that I can be OK with to finally bring those pieces of myself I buried into the light? Is there someone I can be myself with, who is willing to take the time to unwrap and CHERISH the gift of all the intricacies that make up who I am? When I say I'm lonely I'm really wondering if someone is going to respond to say "I have not rejected you!" When I say I'm lonely, I'm really looking for safety. I have never felt safe in all of my life. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really asking if I've been forgotten about. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really wondering if those people whom I have revealed myself to still cherish the self I've revealed. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really wondering if others have been positively impacted by me, that they've been blessed to have me in their life. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really asking if someone will make some time to pay attention to me because I make time to pay attention to everyone else.

The truth is God did not make any mistakes when He made me. In fact, there is a call on my life that many people believe to be really powerful. I'm a very passionate and intense person and I believe there's nothing shameful in that. The call on my life requires this depth of passion and love. But it's a call I have an EXTREMELY hard time following because it requires me to lay absolutely everything I want in life down on the altar of God and walk away in service to my King. I walk around with a bleeding heart most days, a mind that constantly betrays me, a body that is always overreacting to stress or different emotional things and companionship is one of the prime avenues through which my soul is filled back up again when I become drained.

I long to know I have made a difference in someone's life.

So dear friends I write this out of a place of need. A need to be able to commune with those who can bring me deeper in love with my Savior, who can be OK to develop deep, intimate relationships with me that I can be safe in. Who can allow my days when I'm overwhelming to simply be and not shame me for them because you know that all I need in those times is companionship. Who are equally able to be wholehearted and authentic, including those days when you are overwhelmed and open to receiving as well. Who are open to discussing the boundaries of what is OK and what isn't.

And I write this because I secretly know many out there who, like me, are struggling right now. I invite you to come a little closer, peer a little deeper into God's heart, look a little harder into who other people are and really challenge yourself to love God and love others more.

I apologize that this wasn't a very helpful posting. My hope is that in some way that my authenticity and the realness of my life would connect with others and reveal to them God's presence in their life. I understand that doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense, but I hope you can see in this that God has been working in my heart recently to not just settle, to not just pour out, to not just be helpless against the things in life. That justice comes through the next step taken after the shattering. That justice comes in lifting others up, that vulnerability is beautiful, and that Satan ain't going to keep me knocked down.

Thank you!

My 2016 in Review (Part 2): Worth It All

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to 2017 :)

This last year, 2016, was definitely a year where everything I thought was certain, stable and dependable was shaken. The end of 2015 began with me giving up a lot of things to follow after what I thought was God's leading in my life. It seemed very clear to me. And it lead to so much pain. So much loss. The beginning of 2016 began in a state of loss and continued to hold a lot of loss for me in it. Every year since high school has been hard, but I would say 2016 was one of the harder years for me.

2016 began with me in a state of uncertainty about myself. I had lost a semblance of who I was, where my identity lay, and what God really wanted me to do...and really I had lost a semblance of what my relationship with God was, which was ultimately at the core of myself. I was in an identity crisis at 24.

The crisis, at least from my perspective, was influenced by the major stressors in my life between work, school, relationship struggles, financial struggles, limited access to my well-being support system and living in survival mode for months on end. I thought if I could just get through these stressors, run away from them, change them then everything would go back to normal. What I didn't factor was the months of healing it would take. A tornado had swept through my life, leaving a huge path of destruction and I felt like I barely escaped with my life. It would take some time to put the pieces of my life back together again. My heart was numb, my body was locked up with all the stress. And it felt like core pieces of who I am had died, or at least I had to send them away for safe keeping just to deal with everything I was facing. And I couldn't hear God speak to me. I can't describe well enough what that was like to not be able to hear God speak, but to me it felt like the closest thing to hell I could have walked through.

But there was a small piece of my heart I could not ignore, and it said weakly but with certainty that above all else I had to get my relationship with God back in place. I would not be complete without that. For I am nothing without God. I really can't say when that was, but it had to have been around the time when I put my resignation in at Medica. Which led me into my three day prayer retreat. That was when I knew God had been hearing me the whole time. I knew that, but my desperation made holding to the faith difficult.

How many times have we caught ourselves holding to a deceptive lie when we knew the truth? When the lies speak louder than the truth.

It was at the prayer retreat that God revealed to me this simple truth: if there's something I'm believing that is causing me to doubt any piece of God's character, than it's a lie.

That became a stepping stone in my journey, put a skip in my step and gave me a bit more joy as the light of truth was able to break through the storm clouds. The quakes became less and slowly God started breathing life back into me. It was at this point I looked back and saw how I had grown through that experience and I saw hope that yes I'm getting back to where I want to be with my Savior.

There was more loss to come, there was more struggle that I had to walk through. The aftershocks and more storms came through and yet things had turned. I still dealt with an intense amount of anger and I struggled to connect with God but I kept praying and believing. It was with the last loss that I realized I had allowed good things that God had given me to help me along my survival journey to become hindrances to completing the journey of 2016. It wasn't until I released those things that my prayer life took off, my time with God deepened and my healing really took off.

I chose this particular song by Meredith Andrews because it really portrays the state I'm in as I head into 2017. "Everything I've lost I have found in you...You are worth it all."

As much as I still feel angry at God over some of the things that happened, some of the ways I was treated and how little vindication there was, how many times God asked me to surrender everything precious to me over to Him, I can honestly say He is worth it all. All of this brought me closer to God, and pushed me to become stronger. And not only did I find my relationship with God stronger, but I also found myself stepping into more of who I am meant to be.

Oh precious Jesus, thank you for your faithfulness and love throughout this last year. Thank you for protecting and guiding me and for all the blessings that were evident in both the good and the bad. I am not the same woman I was at the beginning of the year. That is purely by your grace, none of this was my doing. I could not have made it without you there, right beside me through it all. Carrying me and guarding me. Thank you for your gentleness with me in the midst of my complaints and whining, in the midst of my immaturity and unbelief. You truly are worth it all...I pray that my testimony doesn't just become nice words on a page but becomes a seed, an open door in the hearts of those who read this that leads them to deeper communion with you. Wherever they are at. Lord would you be glorified and magnified in 2017. You are worthy of glory and honor and praise! Amen.