He Does Not Leave Us as Orphans
Karis Ryu
Content warning: discusses depression, death, suicide.
When I was fourteen years old, I decided that I no longer
cared if there was a God.
I continued to sing on praise team at chapel. I listened to
my parents when they brought our family together to read
devotionals. But even as my mouth said all the things I had
been taught, my heart hardened.
I was fourteen years old, in my sophomore year of high
school, at my seventh school. I was small and sullen and lonely.
Already there was a long, long trail behind me of people and
places I’d had to let go. I remember how I stared blankly at
my friends’ Instagrams, friends I’d moved away from after just
getting to know them, and cried, because while they had dates
to Homecoming, cars to cruise in, and friends to study and
have sleepovers with, I felt like I had nothing—only a list of
names and places I had to leave behind. I dreaded spending
birthdays alone. The mundane experiences that other
people seemed to take for granted were the things I wanted
desperately. All I wanted was a normal life.
As the first two years of high school passed, apathy festered
inside my heart. If God truly existed, and if he truly loved
me, then why did he let me suffer? Whether or not he existed
(whatever “existed” meant, anyway), clearly it didn’t affect my
life. With or without him, my life sucked.
When I was in elementary school, my father, an army
chaplain, used to put my siblings and me to sleep with the
Aaronic Blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The
Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance toward you, and give you
peace. Karis. Shannon. Christopher.”
Amen, amen, amen, we would chorus in response, grinning
underneath our blankets.
But that felt like ages ago. That was four schools ago. Three
military assignments ago. Where was the Lord here? Where
was he when I snuck into the bathroom at night and pressed
towels against my face so no one would hear me cry? Where
was he when I skipped meals and dragged myself up and down
the twenty flights of stairs in our apartment building, hoping
that if I were thinner, if I were prettier, I would be happier?
Where was he the day I collapsed in the living room out of
fatigue, on shaking legs and an empty stomach? Where was
he when I dangled my feet between the bars that separated
the top story of our apartment from the stretch of parking
lot below, wondering in tears what would happen if I just let
myself fall? Would people mourn me? Would people finally
understand? Would this so-called God finally look down and
pay attention to me?
Where was this new life I was supposed to have in Jesus when
all I wanted was to die?
Where was this God who was supposed to tell me that I was
beautiful when I wanted to throw up whenever I saw myself
in a mirror?
Where was this hope I was supposed to find in Jesus when all I
knew in every waking moment was the agonizing pain of my
heart breaking into smaller and smaller pieces? Where were
these so-called “blessings” that seemed like they would never,
ever come?
If God was real, he clearly didn’t care about me.
****
I used to draft suicide letters. If a day at school was particularly
awful, I sat at the family laptop, opened my Drive, and began
writing a document I would inevitably delete later. “Hi,”
I would write. “If you’re reading this, then I’m not here
anymore.”
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