I spent a little too much time dwelling on morbid thoughts lately. My imagination is a curse sometimes--I started thinking about how it would feel to be dying, to be on the very edges of life, with a void on the other side of me. How horrible it will feel to know I am losing myself--losing everything--as I slip over it, and outside of life forever. For ever. A cold fear went through my veins and I was literally paralyzed with the worse sense of fear I have ever known, and I have known fear on many occasions. It was like being tortured--soul tortured. I don't want to die. I don't want to lose myself. I don't want the ones I love to be gone, just gone. Gone.
This awful feeling has persisted for the last four days. I have sunk down deep into something and I can't see my way out. I feel as though my life has become suddenly cursed. I don't know how I will ever be happy again, with the End of Everything waiting for me, leering at me, down the road. I got a letter from an agent today. She wants to see my manuscript. I felt no joy. James and I are trying for a baby. I feel only fear in the prospect of that. Any happiness I have--any friendships I make--any people I love--won't they all be taken from me, in the end? Won't we all lose each other? Why live, then? How can I live?
This isn't a cry for help in the after-school special sense of the concept. I'm not thinking of doing anything horrible to myself or anything like that. But I do need help, friends. I'm working with my doctor on the physical effects of my fear, but I need a rebirth of hope. I think--I think I want to be saved. Saved, with a capital S. I don't know, though. I can try to love God with my whole heart and soul and mind, but I don't know if I can tear my doubts down enough to follow Christ truly. I want to love God and I want the eternal life that Jesus promises, but I don't know if I will ever be able to believe in His existence with my whole heart. There will always be a skeptic in me that doubts Him. Can I still turn to Him, even if I know that I will doubt him? Will He still hear my cry, if I am turning to him out of pure fear?
I don't know what to do. But I feel as though my soul has hit rock bottom, and I need lifting up. I don't want to be afraid. I want to believe that life goes on for me after my body is finished on the Earth, that it goes on for all of the people I love, for everyone. I want to believe that the world is place for our souls to learn to act out the goodly things, love and generosity and joy and kindness and comfort, to prepare us for a world where we will abound in those things, free from the cumber of our mortality. But--I don't know if I can believe. A verse that my mom always used to quote to me as a skeptical child comes to me now: "Lord, help my unbelief!"
As a smart-assed twenty year old, I thought that religion was one of the childish things I would have to put off with my youth. And now I fear that I will never get back to that place. I want to go there so badly. But I have built up my wall against the divine, the sublime, so high. I held myself out as an unbeliever. I convinced myself that science and logic and reason can explain everything. Now I am not sure, but I have built that wall so high that I don't know if I will ever be able to tear it down.
I find myself cowering on a road, and the only end I see is Death. I want to be on the road to Emmaus. I want to live a live of joy, but find myself mired in fear and pain instead. Lord, can You help my unbelief?
First of all, you would not be seeking Him out, unless He wanted to make you His own. The only unforgivable sin is to lock the door, so to speak, when the Holy Spirit is knocking. I think the Holy Spirit is using a battering ram on the door of your heart right now.
ReplyDeleteRomans 3:23 states that "For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." All of us, and among those sins in each of us is doubt. We all experience it from time to time. It's a side effect of being shackled to these earthly, sinful bodies. Doubt creeps upon me constantly and at the oddest times. There are times when death has been near that I've been afraid to go to sleep, lest I not wake up. Then I am comforted by faith, though and the fear and doubt are banished.
I've been where you are. I've been lost and scared and knew that I only one place to turn, and that was to Jesus. I've wanted to post this some time on my blog, but I want share it with you right now.
AS you know, I grew up in basically in the pews of church. I was also pushed at the age of eight to make a decision for Christ by my misguided mother, because she (and a lot of other people) stopped believing where the Bible states that we will now know the hour or the day and instead believed some man out of Little Rock that Jesus was going to return in September of 1988. I met with my children's minister, I said a prayer they talked me through. I walked the aisle the next Sunday morning and was baptized that night. However, that wasn't me turning to Jesus, myself. It was outside forces pushing me.
Fast forward six years. In the interim my father passed away suddenly from a heart attack when I was ten. Now, I knew that my father was a christian. I had seen the outward signs of an inward change in his life when I was six. I had seen it in so many lives. I told myself that I was saved, because of what I had done when I was eight. Yet doubt, took hold of me.
That wasn't just mere doubt then, though. It was God's Holy Spirit knocking. I don't remember the sermon that night, but when I was at church camp one night, I finally surrendered to it. I knew, not just doubted, that I was not saved. I knew that when I died I was going to hell.
Hell is not what most of us think of it as though. Hell is the total absence of God. When Christ was crucified, God had to turn his back. That was the closest the living have been to Hell. For the saved, this earth is the closest we'll ever get to Hell. For the lost, it's the closest they'll ever get to Heaven.
Back to my testimony though, I knew that if I didn't get saved then, that I would someday experience not having God in my life and know true misery. I also knew that I would never see my Dad again. What carried me through losing him was knowing that some day we would be reunited in Heaven.
I knew by then what I had to do. I had read it over and over in Sunday School quarterlies and such. First, I had to admit that I was a sinner in need of forgiveness - that forgiveness of sin was the only path to salvation, not by works, not by being good, nor aimless tradition.
Secondly, I had to believe that that the Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for me on the cross, rose from the dead, and is Lord. That he would have gone to the cross had I been the only sinner in the world, because He loved me that much. That he bore he weight of my sins - past, present, and future on the cross. That by the shedding of his perfect, blameless blood, I am atoned for. He was my sacrificial lamb, and when He died the veil of the temple was torn in two, because no longer was there any separation between God and man - I need no high priest to go to Him in prayer and petition.
ReplyDeleteLastly, I had to call upon Him to be my Savior. Matthew 7:7-8 says, " 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
That was it. I was saved, and I knew it. It's like that old song Grannie would sing on the Beverly Hillbillies, "I've got the joy, joy, joy,joy down in my heart - down in my heart."
Am I always joyful? No. Am I always faithful? No. Have I failed Him more times than I can count? Definitely. Yet I know that all I have to do is turn to Him, and He will hold me tight. Knowing, Him - knowing the truest love through Him makes me strive to be a better person. It makes me want to be separate from the rest of the world. Knowing Him gives me hope. Knowing Him makes this month and next bearable. Knowing Him gives me faith that some day I'll be with my Dad again, even though he's been gone twenty years Sept. 25. Knowing Him assures me that some day, I'll be able to hold my child who would have been born two weeks from today.
If you need me, just let me know. Email me, message me, Skype me, call me - whatever. I'll pray with you. I'm praying for you now, you're always in my prayers.
http://theromanroad.org/
Adrienne, I thank you so much for sharing this with me tonight, for reaching out to me. I have read it at least four times already and I know I will read it again and again.
ReplyDeleteTonight I reached out to God for the first time in years. Maybe the first time ever. "God, I put my heart in your hands tonight, please hold it for me, so that I can find peace." And the peace that I have experienced all night--like a flash out of that moment--is one of the most amazing, total and complete feelings I have ever experienced. I am not ashamed or scared or hurt or suffering. I think that I am blessed.
I don't know where this new journey might lead me. But for tonight it's one step and that is enough.
Thank you for your prayers and your guidance and your story. Thank you from the bottom of this faulty human heart.
PS: There is so much I want to talk to you about, in this entry and in general. Thank you for the offer--I am going to take you up on it for sure.
ReplyDeleteThere is something indescribable about the Peace that transcends all understanding. Remember Phillipians 4:4-8
ReplyDelete" 4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."
Cathy, I am crying as I read this post - tears of heartache for your sorrows and your fears, but mostly tears of joy for what the Lord is doing in drawing you to him. I don't think I can put anything any better than Adrienne did - but I want to offer a few more examples to maybe help you.
ReplyDeleteThe Apostle Thomas is often spoken of as "Doubting Thomas" in Christian circles, because of his refusal to believe in Jesus' resurrection until he could not only see for himself, but touch as well. The Bible never condemns him for this, though - in fact, he is told that he is blessed because he has seen and believed; even MORE blessed are those who are not able to see, and yet believe. God doesn't ask us to to believe against our judgement, to just squash down and bury our doubts. He works with us, and helps us along the way, and gently answers our doubts and fears.
Gideon, in the Old Testament, is often held up as a paragon of faith - and yet, when the Lord told him what great things he (God) was going to do through Gideon, Gideon could not believe until he had physical evidence twice over. When God told Moses that he was going to use Moses to rescue the children of Israel from Egypt, Moses begged him to use someone else, because Moses didn't think he was fit for such a task.
Hebrews 11 is called the "Hall of Faith" by some, because of the great heroes of the Bible listed therein, all lauded for their faith. And yet, if you read through, almost every one of them struggled with doubt, with fear, with worry.
It is not the strength of our faith that saves us - it is the strength of the One in whom we have faith.
Jesus said that if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, it is enough. He said "Come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The Holy Spirit is called the Great Comforter; Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
1 Corinthians 4: 6-7, 16-18 says, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ... So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
Again, our faith does not have to be perfect, or come from perfect motives. In fact, the more broken and weak we are, the more God's glory shines through our cracks.
I love you, Cathy, and like Adrienne said, if there's anything you want to talk about, just get in touch with me. I am, and will continue to be, praying for you.