Through the Dark Night...

Depression. I feel it in the air like static, slowly building up and filling the atmosphere with tension and disturbing sensations. It's the ghost that wanders the halls of my soul. It's the shadows of the tunnel vision focused in on my failures and my shortcomings.

In light of Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to share a little bit of my own heart and journey.

As a pre-teen, and on into my teenage years, I struggled with varying levels of depression, and occasionally experienced suicidal thoughts and desires. Self-harm was no stranger to me, though I never drew blood out of fear. Self-inflicting pain was a weekly occurrence for me, and the desire to die was nearly daily. I filled multiple journals with prayers asking God to end my life. I saw no beauty in living. No peace. No freedom. In my mind, I looked at myself as being without purpose or meaning; without value.

At the age of 16, I found myself sitting in a youth service at a church that my family had just started visiting and my heart turned toward dark places. I began to contemplate the various means I had available for taking my life, from slitting my wrists to chugging pills. They all scared me, but I had decided that my fear of death and fear of facing God was no longer more unbearable than how I felt about life. I was ready for the end, but God intervened.

As I sat there in the darkness of my thoughts, the youth pastor came and sat with me and spoke life into me. He told me that even though he didn't know me, he wanted me to know that I had found a place where I belonged. He told me that he wanted to be there for me and to disciple me. I don't know if I really would have had the courage to take my own life that night, but thanks to God sending me help, I never had to find out.

Eleven years later and I have come through so many trials and storms. That conversation might have saved my life, but it didn't put an end to the onslaught of mental/emotional struggle! I have since had many nights of deep, emotional turmoil. Yet it holds true that God continues to see my through each dark night that I traverse. Each battle leads to strength and to growth. I survive.

If you struggle with mental illness of any sort, please no that you are worth the time and energy to to work through it. Please do not seek to take this on alone. Find help; find support.

We were never meant to live this life alone, and we were never meant to fight our battles in silence.

Fight for your life, because you are human and you are DEFINITELY worth it!

Grace and Peace,

Stephen

After Two Years of Residential Work

The purpose of this post isn't to really convey or teach a particular topic. The purpose of this post is to share a little of my life with you and maybe help someone going through a rough time in ministry.

Two years ago I moved out to Kansas City, MO out of a desire to show love to troubled teens and to sacrifice my self (my time, energy, and resources) to try and bring hope and to share the Gospel of Christ. So why am I so often surprised by the difficulty and struggle that I experience? I knew that I wasn't wanted by those I went to minister to. It made the choice more difficult, but I felt like it was a needed element in my life. like it was something God was pushing me towards.

Since then I've had an evolution of form and function in the work place. I grew and became more experienced. I took on the call to move into a leadership role and to train and mentor staff to do that which I had done as a Mentor myself. Having done a year of both being a Mentor and being an Assistant House Director, I can say that I am nowhere near where I want to be, I've grown in ways I never could have expected, and I'm still not able to live a life void of my own struggles and flaws.

In college I had plenty of pastors and professors tell me that ministry was difficult, especially youth ministry. That always confused me. I never understood how they could say what they did. How could they always talk about being tired, stressed, and feeling ineffective. Now I do. If I can spend months and months with a student, seeing them 70-some-odd hours a week and feel completely useless and ineffective, then I can't imagine what someone who only gets a few hours a week with their students feel.


Lately I have wrestled with feeling completely ineffective and being unappreciated. Everyone who works at Shelterwood wrestles with this. Despite my best efforts to help others feel supported, I never seem to get them there. One of the areas that I failed in was sharing my own suffering and pain. I kept quiet and bottled up all the hurt and pain I felt so to not add to everyone else, but what I did was rob others of being able to be there for me.

When I was a Mentor, I would often share a little of my struggle with my students and it helped to build the relationship. It helped me to get things off my chest that were less sensitive things, and it allowed my students to know what it felt like to be there for others and to feel valued. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing that. I felt a responsibility not to; like it was a requirement of my current position to suffer in silence and alone.

After many months of doing this, I now feel overwhelmed and far from "ok."

God's way of helping me has been the opposite of what I've wanted. He has forced me to open up with others and talk about what lies beneath. He has been humbling me by leading me to share my burdens and to be honest about things that I am embarrassed about.

I've been able to get away for a few days and the distance has been helpful in taking some of the mental and emotional weight off of my shoulders, but it's not enough. I've been pushing against a wall and trying to do it without help. Two years of residential
work, and taking in all the second-hand trauma, has taken it's toll on me and worn me out.

I'm angry. I'm hurting. I don't live perfectly and I'm still working out this whole healing thing. They say that salvation isn't works based, but God sure seems to be pushing me to do a lot of stuff. Christianity isn't meant to be as lazy and relaxed as pastors preach it in the pulpits.

To those of you out there saying "just sit back and watch God work", please just stop. God isn't a circus or a movie to be just "watched" and entertained by.

There is no resolve to this post. Sorry if that cuts you a little bit. There are no Christian cliches that can accurately minister to your pain or mine. It's takes something more than cute words and "reading the Word" to make the world ok. We walk and we fight because God gave us purpose and He told us to keep going. He told us that He is coming for us so to keeping moving towards Him. Light comes when we least expect it. Grace always comes just in time.

Please know that if you are suffering you aren't alone. You aren't the only one. Many have come before us and succeeded, and so shall we. God will see us through, but we can't give ourselves over to our enemies before He does. Fight with me. Fight with me until the stars collapse and the Earth melts into itself.