There

Yesterday I sat for two and a half hours and talked with a good friend. It was a deep conversation, one with many tears and memories. I told her about my life lately...about how blessed I feel that my medication has helped me feel so good and normal these past few months, but how I still feel all twisted and messed up inside my heart. I'm happy and stable, but there's still not something right about my relationship with God--which has always been a priority in my life.

I feel confused, beat up, and (not to be dramatic, but...) a bit traumatized. These past two years have been tough on me. I feel like I have just emerged from war... a battle for my life. After struggling and fighting against suicidal thoughts for months at a time, being depressed for years (almost ten) and not knowing which direction was up in terms of how to process my spiritual life in the midst of all of this, I feel very uncertain of which way to go from here.

Yesterday we traced some of my issues with prayer back to an experience I had when I was fifteen years old.

I remember I was sitting in my room, crying, thinking about how my mom was dying, and suddenly this compulsion came over me, and I realized with a horrified feeling in the pit of my stomach that I hadn't been praying enough for my mom. All of these voices from people who had told me that my mom could be healed and we needed to pray for her filled my mind, and I felt so guilty, like maybe it was my fault that my mom hadn't been healed, maybe if I just prayed hard enough we would see a miracle.

For the next two weeks, I prayed harder than I have ever prayed in my entire life, trying to believe and ask by faith that God heal my mom (because you have to believe when you ask, right?) I tried to convince myself that I believed it could happen, even though so much doubt filled my heart. I asked God over and over for her healing, thinking that maybe, like the persistent person in the parable Jesus told, God would eventually get tired of my asking and just give me what I was asking for (that was the interpretation I was taught, at least.)

On May 8, after praying my heart out for two weeks, I sat beside my mom, held her hand, and encouraged her into the Kingdom. "You can go, Mom" I told her. I knew it was her only option, and I wanted her to know that I understood. And then I sang It Is Well. It was one of her favorite hymns.

But I didn't understand, and all was not well. I wanted it to be. I tried to be okay. I tried to believe that God hadn't been toying with my heart. Why would he prompt my heart to pray for my mom, only to have the answer be such a resounding and obvious "no"? What was the point of even praying? I didn't want to be a cliche. I didn't want to look back and hold resentment toward God for not answering my prayers...I knew God was bigger than I could understand, and I wanted to be mature enough to handle a "no" answer. I tried to be a grown up. But it was too much. My heart was broken, and this unanswered prayer would haunt me for the next 7 years.

I recounted this story to my friend, and she asked me a very poignant question. "What would you say to that 15-year-old girl now, if you could go back to her and talk to her about that unanswered prayer? What do you think she needs to hear?"

I didn't know. I cried, wishing I knew what to tell my younger-self to make it better, but I just didn't know what to say. Pointing out God's goodness didn't seem appropriate. Talking about God's sovereignty would have been a blow to the face. God's perfect purposes weren't much of a consolation. I didn't know what to say.

We talked for a while longer, discussing the lies that have been "truth" in my mind for such a long time, lies about who God is, lies about who I am. We talked about the Bible, and how my heart has such a hard time being open to this oh-so-familiar book. And then, in the midst of this conversation, I started to weep. I don't know where the thought came from- probably the Lord- but all of a sudden I knew what that little girl with the broken heart needed to hear.

"He was there." I choked out. "I would tell her that Jesus was there. He was there in the in the room with her while she was crying out to God. He was there when her mom's spirit left her body. He was there. He never left her."

And I realized that this was what that little girl inside me needed. Not a lesson on the theology of God. Not a discussion of his goodness. Talking specifics were too difficult at that time...I didn't trust discussions about God- too complicated and messy. But Jesus...Him, I still trusted. I don't know why, but even after all of this, I still trust Him. And for some reason, that was all I needed to know--that all along, through the depression, through nights where suicide seemed like the only answer, through nightmares and memories that seem like nightmares, through death and grief and loneliness...through it all, he has been there. He has never left me.

"But as for me, the nearness of God is my good." [psalm 73:28]