Girls, Growth, and Grace

I remember it clearly: It was 2008. America was over. A new president had been elected. It was a clear sign that the "end" was here. The Great Tribulation had started and Christianity itself was at risk of mass genocide!

Naturally this meant that I had the motivation I needed to ask this really pretty girl from church out on a date. I mean, the world was ending... what did I have to lose?! It was the first time I ever mustered up the courage to ask someone out.

It was also my first rejection...

She let me down easy. While I could make a case that she turned me away due the same apocalyptic terror that I spited me to ask in the first place, let's face the facts: No amount of beautifully crafted sarcasm or love of fantasy movies could cover up the fact that I was not ready for a serious relationship.

At the age of eighteen, I had developed into a relational invalid. I was deeply insecure, chronically depressed, and had an ongoing struggle with self-destructive thought patterns. While I came a long way in terms of overcoming my social awkwardness, and began to move to  far more healthy frame of mind, I was far from being in a place to justify pursuing that kind of a relationship. Nearly a decade later and I’m still warding off the same problems.

But here is the saving grace: I'm getting better.

With each passing year, with every failure, I become more aware of who I am and of my value. Through it all, Christ has been redeeming me: healing me from the inside out. The sickening truth is that our trauma, wounds, etc. don't just go away overnight. If you get locked up in the belief that it's all your fault and/or that you have to overcome it all on your own, like me, the progress will be even slower.

We all need help sometimes. The key to getting through my pain isn't to hold it all in, nor is it to try and find relief by relationships or gaining prestige. It is from learning to be vulnerable and to make REAL connections with humans. I need honest feedback and for people to hear the truth of my struggles. I need to take the risks so that I can be surprised by their love and acceptance. Love and acceptance that has been right here waiting for me to open up this whole time.

Here are just a handful of things that I'm learning:

•You're not the only one who feels the way you feel. To think that you are the only person (out of several billion human beings) experiencing life as you are, then you are falling for a trap.

•Thunderstorms are God's way of reminding you that He is big, and yet still very present with you.

•There are few things more precious than Italian food with those you love.

•Denying others the opportunity to love you is a severe injustice and akin to murder (a blog post for another time.)

•The harder you hold onto something, the more likely you're going to lose it.

•Books are severely underused and underappreciated.

•Don't compromise to impress. It is far better to be rejected for being yourself than it is to lose yourself trying to get approval.

•Wake up every morning seeking to be a better you than the you the day before.

•Learn to be vulnerable at the right times with the right people.

I’m nowhere close to where I want to be. I'm often very emotional, even neurotic, I sabotage my relationships with doubts and distrust, and I punish people for the wrongs of others. This is a part of life! Growing, fighting! So let's fight together! Let's fight for healing because we are most definitely worth our time to discover who God made us to be.

Grace and Peace,

Stephen

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

Healing in the Haitian Sun

As I got on the plane and began the final flight to Haiti, I felt my emotions begin to rise up into my nasal cavity and over take my face like a fever. I played music to distract myself but it only aided in turning the knobs that unblocked the waterworks. I felt the Spirit move in with His scalpel and all I could do was sit and let Him cut me open as I began my ascent to 30,000 ft. Despite my resistance, God had called me to go to Haiti and in my reluctant obedience He was able to put me right where He wanted me. Haiti was His seven-day project on my heart and He wasn't going to waste a minute of it.

Surgery continued over the course of the afternoon and we made our way through the hot, dusty streets. We got to our first orphanage and I ran for the nearest camera so that I could feign the desire to be useful while also protecting my heart, which was still bleeding out from the fight. Despite my attempts to run or hide, I was found by a few of the most precious little angels and they insisted that I hold them and take pictures of them.

That night, I chatted with various members of my team, including the students that we brought along with us from the boarding school where I'm employed. I still felt the heaviness of the Spirit doing his work on me, and it was anything but pleasant. I was approached by beloved friend, Kyle, who expressed the desire to speak later concerning what was going on with me. Little did I know that he would be the instrument by which God would begin to really remove the junk out of my heart and then also be the stitches that closed my open wound.


Looking back, I can only say that that moment was one of providence. I had been set up through circumstances and various different elements of life leading up to that conversation. My journey to that moment could not be limited to the afternoon flight and orphan visit. No, it had been in progress over the course of many months. Everything was somehow connected. My current problems of interest were reflections of deeper wounds and heartaches that had lay in my heart and festered for years. YEARS! The healing I sought was not what I thought I wanted, but was more than I could have asked for. It was irony. It was inconvenient. It was Haiti. It was friendship. Lastly, it was unbridled and courageous confession.

Each day that followed that first night was a process of recovery. Recovery from, not only the trauma of surgery, but from the trauma that had made the surgery necessary.

There were plenty of tears as I saw years of cancer and disease laid out before my eyes. The pain of loss, of misguided desires, and of a twisted self image that robbed me of value and purpose; robbed me of truth and relationship that I so desperately wanted; yet rejected because of the illness that I both hated and relied on.

That is most often the nature of our sin. It is the friend we hate most. It is the enemy we invite to dinner and even into our own beds for the sake of not being alone.

With each orphanage we visited, I found the Spirit drawing me out and doing something in me. On the second day we went to a town called Hinch where I met this beautiful little boy named Miguel. He stayed with me the entire time and, unlike several others, didn't care that I had nothing to offer. He wanted to be loved and he wanted to show love. We met each other exactly where we needed. We gave each other time and we spent our time being grateful that we had someone else that existed to spend time together.

In Les Miserables there is a line stated multiple times that "to love another person is see the face of God." The next day I met Brianna. That precious girl that I had the privilege of pushing on the swing went out of her way to find me and be with me. In a time when I felt unloved and unlovable, God sent me two beautiful, innocent little kids for me to love and love me in return. In the midst of my darkness, God brought me a little light.

I want to love well. That is my heart's desire! I am, however, tainted by sin and by suffering and lack what is needed to truly love well. Haiti broke into a part of me that had been walled up. Even though I still suffer and I still struggle with all of my insecurity, I long to love others and to bring them to a place of healing and show them there is more to life than sitting in their pain and suffering. There is life that lies beyond their circumstances. There is healing. 

Wrecked by Doubts

Earlier this afternoon I was out doing errands and found myself getting into a collision with a very large truck in the middle of a parking lot. As I was driving through he backed out on me, and it scared the living nargles out of me! In the end, it wasn't that bad of a hit because we were just driving in the parking lot, but I was affected all the same. 

All afternoon I've been more emotional, and have even felt sick, after the event. I've never shared this before, but I am deeply afraid of being in a car wreck. I've often had dreams and day dreams of being hit by vehicle and/or waking up in the hospital. 

Several years back, my mom was was in a major car wreck and it terrified me. I never talked it out or really processed what happened. The wreck severely hurt her and I know that her surviving was a miracle. For the weeks of recovery that followed she wasn't herself. She struggled with memory and her temperament changed. 

I fear pain, but even more I fear losing things I value. What I mean is that I fear that something tragic might happen that would rob me of things that would leave me being less effective as a mentor, a friend, a minister, etc. Specifically I fear memory loss: losing all of my friendships in the blink of an eye. To think that all the time, energy, and love that I've invested into other might be lost to me is horrifying. 

Again, I totally realize that the hit was next to nothing, but isn't that the case with most of us? We struggle with even the small things and when we leave them unaddressed they grow. Traumas, even second-hand like my mom's wreck, can carry on in us and affect us even years down the road. My entire afternoon was affected by something that took hours for me to pin point and address because of the pain it stirred inside. Truthfully, it embarrassed me how much it affected me. 

I don't like how it affected me, and I like even less the reality that I struggle so much to trust God to protect me. That is the root of all of this. I doubt and I distrust, and not just God but the people I love most.

Out of something small I found myself feeling a lot of emotion that I wished I had dealt with a long time ago. I want to rest in the comfort that I am truly loved by others and by God, but time and time again I fall into the belief that I am unlovable and reject the idea that someone loves me for me. Even in my doubts though, God comes to me and whispers that He loves me and He keeps me going. He is there even in my hurt, in my doubt, and in my rejection of the truth. 

In the end, I am loved through all of my junk and I keep going. No matter how low I get, God pulls me right back up. He holds me and keeps me safe,..even when I fail to trust Him. 

That Grace May Abound

The other night I was sitting with a student of mine who was expressing great disappointment in himself. He had had a rough day and didn't respond to others as gracefully as he needed to. He expressed feeling like he couldn't stay on track; that every time he did something really good he would instantly follow up with something terrible. One terrible day for every really good day, and the better the good day the worse the bad day would be.

This wasn't true, though I can relate to feeling that way. I know that there are many times when I feel that same way. I feel stuck or like I'm caught in an unending, undefeatable cycle.

After expressing these feelings he turned to me and, in a place of frustration and desperation to do things right, he said "Maybe I should just do bad things and then I'll do really good things instead!"

This called my mind to the letters of Paul. "Should we then keep on sinning that grace may abound? HELL NAH!" (Culturally equivalent translation applied).

It's a natural temptation, when we face the long war against sin, to want to give up, or even to adopt a poor theology of grace. I have even thought to myself "maybe I should just get it out of my system" (Theoretically the root origin of Mardi Gras). Though I know these are deceptions and my flesh trying to justify poor decisions, I still feel the pull of temptation. I understand where my kid is coming from.

We go through patterns in life where we are constantly fighting our sin nature, our inner darkness. No matter how long you have been a Christian, you continue to struggle and strive against it. That's ok. You can stop telling yourself "I should be free of this by now!" or "I should be above all this!" Don't give in to the lie that says your prayers aren't working, and don't let yourself fall into despair. Grace isn't to grant permission to sin, but abounds that you might pick yourself back up and try again.

We will often feel like the there is more Darkness in us than Light, but Christ lives in you and therefore you stand as a candle in the abyss. You shine as a shard of hope in the midst of despair. Though you might not be able to see far, get up and keep going.