“If you’re reading this, then I’m gone.”
“If you’re reading this, then you’ve won.”
In my head, life was a battle: a battle against my parents, a
battle against everyone at school who didn’t talk to me, a
battle against this strange entity in the sky that had apparently
made me and then left me alone to die. It was a battle that no
one knew they were a part of except for me. And at the end
of the day, I was the only one who was hurt.
I could never finish these letters. Halfway through, I would go
back and delete all of the words I had written and stare at my
blank screen, the same way I stared out between the bars that
lined the window on the twentieth floor of our apartment. You
chicken. You’re weak. You don’t have the guts.
Everyone’s story is different, but I know that there are millions
in the world like me. Broken people. Lost people. Wanderers,
searching for meaning in themselves and in the world, only to
find more and more ugliness. There are days even now when
these emotions come back, when I collapse out of weariness
and wonder if it truly would be better to just give in to the
voices telling me that I will never be good enough, to the
world that only seems to grow more and more grotesque?
But—by the grace of my Lord, my Savior, my Jesus: I’m here.
I wish I had an answer for why. It certainly isn’t because I
flipped a switch and changed my life by myself. It certainly isn’t
because I became happier, because my problems disappeared.
It certainly isn’t because I worked my way out of it through
my own willpower.
God met me when I was on my knees, bewildered, lonely,
terrified, depressed. God met me as I thrashed and wailed: “I
don’t know who you are. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know
why I’m here. I’m tired, God, and I’m lonely, and I want to die
more than I want to live. I don’t want to be this way anymore,
but I don’t know what to do. God, if you’re there, why don’t
you see? Why don’t you care?”
10 Fall 2019
As I continue to walk in faith, I realize more and more that the
best prayers are those that are utterly unabashed. God knows
everything about me, so I wail at Him. God knows everything
about my hurt, my confusion, my fear, so I thrust it all upon
Him.
In the Bible, Jesus assures his disciples with a promise: “I will
not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the
world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also
will live.” (John 14:18-19, ESV)
****
There are days when
depression returns.
Loneliness returns.
Insecurity returns.
But the Lord is
constant in His peace.
When I was fourteen years old,
I fell to the ground in tears and
devoted my life to Jesus Christ.
We are not orphans. God didn’t
make us and then abandon us.
Jesus Christ didn’t die for us and
then leave us to die again. God
watches over us every day. Jesus lives. He lives, and walks
alongside us, and the Holy Spirit dwells among us so that we
will never be alone.
That doesn’t mean that the struggles end. I still grapple with
my emotions. Every day can be both a blessing and a source of
utter confusion. While I am incredibly grateful to the Savior
who called me out of my darkness, I still have questions.
Why do I live, I still cry out, when others don’t? Why am I still here
when others are gone?
Because people do die. Some people are worn down. Some
people have their lives unexpectedly taken away from them.
Some of my friends struggle with the same depression that
plagues me. I watch my family struggle with illness. I have
loved ones, classmates, people I knew, who left our world much
earlier than anyone had expected. Last summer, I sobbed to
God in confusion and guilt after a series of heartbreaking
incidents. Why was I still alive when someone else had died?