Remembering

I looked back on the journal that I have been writing in (sparsely) for the past two years. It's a part of my story, and I felt like sharing it, because it is part of the story that has been unfolding in my life.

June 19, 2009
I don't want to be a Christian anymore. I feel like life is one huge joke that ends as ridiculously as it begins. God being God seems a farce at best. If I had a way out...I think I would take it.

Disillusioned. Frustrated. Let down. Discouraged. Beat up. Weary. Sad. Angry. Unwilling. Uncertain. Unconvinced. Afraid. Bruised. Doomed to fail. Rejected. Alone. Sorrowful...This is what I live with. This is how I feel. Maybe it is who I am.

I'm so tired of this game. SO tired. How is everyone else so capable of believing? I don't know if I will ever be convinced. I used to believe that You would be near to the wrestlers heart. Now, I just feel like You're leading me on in a game that can't be won, that will never end.

I'm done for a while.

Three days later, another entry:

I don't hate God. I don't resent Him (completely) and I don't want Him to leave me alone. At least not all the way.

I think there's something wrong with me- physically wrong. There has got to be a reason why I feel so detached, so frustrated, so quickly discouraged, and why I fall into so many pits so easily. There has to be more of an explanation than simple lack of faith or not believing enough truth.

Jesus, please help us figure this out. Keep me safe. Keep me close to your heart. I'm so confused and feel so out of control sometimes. I get so weird inside, that I can't think rationally enough to connect my emotions to stability. I don't know what is wrong. Please help us figure out what's wrong.

This must have been the point when we started investigating a different diagnosis. I knew deep down that there was something wrong, something not connecting quite right. It has been an interesting process since that point.

It's so hard to process the affect that emotional and physical depression has on people's lives. But I also can't believe how eventually, even when it feels like a long time, God does respond, and in His faithfulness (though sometimes hard to feel) He has not left us alone.

"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. "The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD."

[lamentations 3:19-26]