Here today...

I became frightened tonight of how distinctly I still see the memory of that sickly, fragile person I used to be and how often I seem to forget about her completely.

It is good to be reminded of where I used to be.

She comes back occasionally. I hate her - really - and I hated her back when I was trapped inside of her. At the time, it just felt like me, though. It felt like I was genuinely that rotten, all the way through.

Is this confusing? Allow me to explain.

The thought of how destructive I was feels like a puncture wound. It is something I need, though, to understand how profoundly God has worked in me and how tragic my life would now be if I had decided to go the other way.

I listened to "Waltz #2" by Elliott Smith a few times tonight. (HERE it is - so raw and so hollow). It was a song Jackie was really into at the time and I think she and I listened to it on repeat for literally about a week non-stop. It's so good.

But it took on a new meaning to me tonight as I listened to it, just as it once took on another meaning, back when I was that other girl.

Months ago I listened to this song - I used it as a potent drug to numb my pain, to think, "Thank God there is at least someone who knows how to say what I feel."

The lines in the song with which I most strongly identified:

I'm so glad that my memory's remote,
'cause I'm doing just fine hour to hour, note to note.
Here it is - the revenge to the tune:
You're no good.
You're no good, you're no good, you're no good.
Can't you tell that it's well understood?

and

Here today,
expected to stay,
on, and on, and on.
I'm tired.

I'm tired.


I found myself thinking, "This is what it feels like."
The revenge to the tune - push the thoughts from your mind, hide the memories from your mind's eye, and your self-deprecation comes back even stronger when you slip up - "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good."

Like a mantra.

I felt that someone was forcing me to be alive - like there was nothing good about it - "Here today, expected to stay" - and it seemed like it would go "on, and on, and on."

I was tired.


Months ago, this is the person I was. My only solace was to curl up in a song like this and allow myself to be ripped apart by the relentless words that spoke to me as if from my own mind. My cousin, who is very insightful, identifies this kind of so-called "solace" more accurately as "emotional cutting" - intentionally inflicting pain on oneself in an attempt to get away from the more intense pain.


Tonight, I listened to this song and remembered my feelings about it from months ago. It scared me. I had very narrowly dodged a bullet.

I would like to remind everyone that Elliott Smith, while a brilliant musician and lyricist, suffered from severe depression, was a drug addict, and made multiple suicide attempts before finally succeeding and ending his life.

The idea that I ever identified so, so strongly with what were words likely influenced by thoughts of suicide frightened me terribly when I listened to this song again tonight.

Could I have gone down that same road?

I am not saying I was ever depressed enough that I considered suicide. I would never lie about something that serious - I did not consider it.

But the idea does still linger - if I had not finally turned to God and the church for help, would I be closer to considering it?

I think it is important for me to think about these things. Dwelling on them does no good, but I do believe that God rescued me from something absolutely horrific.

I am not writing this post to be depressing. I am writing this to be real and to share what I truly believe was the most important turning point in my life thus far, and I want to attribute it to God. It is all Him - everything is.

I am still trying to figure out where the turning point was, exactly. Maybe it is not God's intention to jog my memory on that anytime soon. It felt like an instant transformation at the time, but I know now that I am still being reborn, that I am still such an infant spiritually. I expect to be an infant until the day that I die, and I'm okay with that.

I hope I can write more about this later, and in a more organized fashion. I hope nobody took this to be a sob story - I just want to recognize how polluted everything about my life was before God and how beautiful and heart-breaking everything is now that He is a part of it.

He was always a part of it, really. It just took me a while to see that.

END.

My first breaths.

Sometimes you are struck so squarely in the face with God that you look at the people around you and wonder how they could possibly be so calm. Maybe they are like you and are struck by Him, too, and they just feel silly laughing out loud or dancing or crying for joy. But mostly they just seem stoic.

I wish I could be like David and dance without fear of ridicule. Anyone who does not dance in public shows the true signs of lunacy - how can one sit still and stare blankly when God is everywhere? Can any person sit idly by while Christ beckons for us to walk with Him through the Gardens of our lives, while he so patiently and lovingly teaches us children about what it truly means to love?

I tend to ignore his pleas for me to follow him, but every once in a while something will remind me to avert my gaze from the stains of the blood on my hands. I scrub and scrub but all I get is more blood.

And, when I finally raise my eyes to look anywhere but the sick tragedy of my own sin, the disgusting hatred I have in my heart for this world and its prisoners, the intense fear that God will see my nakedness if I come out of hiding, what do I see?

I see His arms stretched out in earnest, and He smiles at me.

"I have been waiting for you for such a long time," He says, "and I know you will leave me soon because it is in your nature to seek happiness where you cannot find it. But please, stay with me as long as your fleeting heart will allow, and maybe you will remember the shelter of my love when this world has finally defeated you again, and maybe you will lift your eyes from these terrible stains to find me. Do you see? I have washed them away already - your hands are as an infant's, and your soul is perfect again.

"My beautiful daughter, know that I will never stop being sad when you refuse my love and that I will always hold out hope that one day you will come home to stay. But for now, take the time to see me in the eyes of each person you meet, regardless of what they have done and how they treat you, and remember the depth of my love as you listen for my voice in each and every moment of your life."

And for that brief window of time, my soul cries out to be undignified like the humble king of Israel, to shout out in triumph over a mundane existence that is more like a nightmare than reality, to jump and dance and sing in public in front of judgmental stares, humiliated in my own eyes.

But mostly I am just stoic; I have figured out that stoicism is a desperate attempt made by the human condition to repair the fragments of humility that come from being vulnerable and naked in front of other people whose humility has also been shattered. We are never unfeeling - we are only ever hardened, and underneath there is a jubilant soul coated with the thick shell of pride, or there is a weeping child beneath the toughened skin of a hurt and angry grown-up.

God can soften any tough exterior and wipe away the tears of the child beneath, and he can shatter pride with a quiet little prayer if you let him, and he will rejoice in you and bless the jubilant soul that has been hidden for years.

It is strange the way God reaches us. For me, it was something so unexpected but so obvious it seems silly to never have noticed it. I am so fortunate to have people planted in the soil of the Garden of my life. But He does not just plant daisies, or roses, or even orchids. God plants flowers so exotic and colorful that they sparkle like jewels in His light. They give life to my Garden and they encourage me to keep the soil clean and fertile.

My friend Carter is one among many of these flowers. He reminded me of my good fortune last night at a concert in which he performed. I talked with J about how when he first started performing he seemed sort of reserved about it and not really all that sure of himself - even though he has always been an unbelievable musician - and how he now seems so comfortable onstage sharing his music. It struck me what an honor it has been to sort of see him grow from one great thing to the next.

It's sort of like, if you shake his hand, you expect to come away with your fingers coated in a thick layer of paint the color of rainbows (I think that's what concentrated creativity looks like, anyway: rainbow-colored paint). What a joyful reminder God granted me last night in the form of my friend's music!

We are all vessels for His glory, even when we might feel that we are just playing a concert at a hazy venue in Lynchburg for the pure joy of making music.
Even when we are in an unwelcoming town with nowhere more dignified to sleep than a stable.
Even when we feel that we might just be stuck in a boat catching fish to make a living.
Even when we are dancing in the street and being laughed at by others.

My first breaths make me wonder why my lungs have been here for the last twenty-two years and then I am reminded that I have always been a vessel.

I exist as proof that being reborn is possible.

"I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes." Samuel 6:21-22

END.

The kingdom of the heavens is buried treasure. Will you sell yourself to buy the one you've found?

My last post still stands. Please don't think I don't feel joyful in God's promise of eternal life - who wouldn't be psyched about eternal life? But I'm realizing that being reborn is harder than it sounds. You have to relearn EVERYTHING, and you have to learn to break habits that you've had for years, and think a different way.

I have problems with depression. I have had these problems since my senior year of high school and I've had problems with intense insecurity for years before that. Recently, I've decided that I can change this by thinking a different way and by fighting off any negative idea that passes through my brain.

Guess what? That doesn't work! Turns out, depression is one of those things that can tap quietly at a spot in your brain until it slowly but surely creates a bruise as big as your fist. At first the tapping seems innocent and you can swat it away or ignore it by acting happy and using a bunch of cliches, but eventually, it will hit you again.

It will come back, probably when you're tired, probably when you've been put under a lot of stress, probably when you've spent a lot of time by yourself... I'm basing this on what has been going down in my life recently. Nothing is terribly wrong, but sometimes I start to doubt things (me stuff, life stuff, school stuff, work stuff, boy stuff - not so much God stuff).

The most depressing and discouraging part about it is when you know you've done everything you know how to do to prevent it and it still consumes you - you find yourself dissolving into tears and wondering why. You've warded off the bared, yellowish teeth of this terrible monster for weeks now - even though at times you could feel his breath hot against your face, his jaws so close your hair blows back when he exhales, and all the while you must endure the stench of his previous victims, the growl deep in his empty stomach so low and terrifying you could have sworn he had already swallowed you whole. Even through all that, you were able to at least keep him at arms length. Then, just when you think the coast is clear and you can relax, you fall asleep, weary from holding up high your shield of optimism and positive energy, you find that the monster has merely sneaked up behind you instead of approaching you from the front. Suddenly you find yourself being chewed up to pieces, and you can feel each of his jagged, yellow teeth penetrate your skin.

You realize sadly as you are being digested that your preparation, your training, your suit of armor and shield, and your resolve made of steel was all for naught. You worked that hard and fought off the monster for that long simply to be eaten anyway. Two steps forward, two steps back.

The one step I have taken since my last bout of depression has been my reliance on God, fake as it may feel sometimes. I have spent the afternoon praying bitterly or hopelessly, rather than faithfully and joyfully, but I have still prayed. This is a step for me. I still feel a lump of guilt in my throat each time I say "amen." But I did not pray before the last few weeks. I barely called myself a Christian. Now I timidly push back at the enemy and hide my face in fear, hoping he didn't see me, but it is still an improvement over being curled up in the fetal position and quivering with abject terror at every new day. That is how I see myself when I look back to a couple months ago.

It's funny how, even when I feel that I have sunk the lowest I have in a while, I still have countless blessings, and I have progressed such an enormous amount from where I once was.

Writing this post has been liberating and it has reinforced my faith in God. It's strange how your thoughts sometimes seem a lot clearer when you stop thinking and just let your fingers talk.

END.