…because there’s a difference between looking back to see how much you’ve progressed and looking back only to get stuck in what was…

Like black charcoal dust, the secrets swarmed inside, swelling, threatening to burst out at my seams.  It seemed the harder I tried to succeed at LIFE, the harder I fell.  Even in the simplest things, my life felt like a never-ending arrangement of falling dominoes.  I wanted it out of me, this swirling of secrets and lies, but sometimes it’s just not that easy.

And so, I would pour out just a little of my black dust over a cup of tea, but it never went down right and left me anxious and regretting that I’d ever even let it out.

So, I’d pull it all back in, letting it swirl and poison my insides.  Slowly, parts of me began dying away.  I could feel it eating me alive.  I could feel it sucking my joy dry.  It’s an interesting feeling – wanting to escape this death and wanting to escape by death all at once.

I was crushed.  Drowning in quicksand.  The more I flailed, begging for help, the more I sank.  A message board.  A counselor.  Advice from well-meaning people.  My own thoughts.  – They all told me the same message in different words.  This thing I was trying to save?  USELESS.  (And, some even ventured to tell me that it was me who was useless.)

I laid on my pillow, soaked in my own tears, crying out to God, pleading that He’d just take it all away.  That He’d just tell me what to do.  But, when the tears dried, I busied myself with “concocted plans” of things that *I* could do.  I asked for God’s help, but since it didn’t come immediately, I figured He had left me too.  Who am I, that even my own God doesn’t love me for all of my secrets?

And as much as it made sense for me to quit altogether on paper, something held me back.  I couldn’t see this invisible force that pulled me back, time and time again.  But, the things that made sense on paper just didn’t make sense in the bottom of my soul.

I was in a maze, trapped, every exit was nothing but an illusion.  I wanted out.  I was alone and drowning and it felt like I had nothing but a shore of spectators.  So, I reached out even further, hoping someone would just help me out of this.  The truth is, no matter how much you may think you want to die, when the air begins to leave your lungs, your survival instincts kick in, propelling you towards life.

And thus, someone suggested I just pray.  “JUST pray?”  I asked, incredulously.  Didn’t they get the memo that God didn’t care about me anymore?  Besides, God was great and all, but what was He going to do?  I didn’t need a little help, I needed full-blown resuscitation.  Besides, I wasn’t too sure I hadn’t gotten my answer.  But, who were these crazy Jesus-freaks, thinking that ALL I needed to do was PRAY?  Sure, praying was great…you know, AFTER I had a real plan.  I think I saw prayer more as a complement to a plan of action, rather than the other way around.

Then, there was the issue of God’s plan.  I never really doubted God’s plan, but when people used it as a form of reassurance for me, it made me cringe.  I knew God had a plan, but I didn’t really think it involved much of anything for me that I’d LIKE.  I’d already seen how a good portion had turned out in my personal life, and I wasn’t really impressed.

I looked around and saw all of these people with “normal” lives, people that were happy, and I wondered how the heck I got the short end of the stick.  And, while I knew that someone stuck in the quicksand couldn’t possibly pull another person out, I didn’t really want these “happy” people telling me how to be happy when they could never understand.  But then again, I really wanted that “happy” – I wanted to have “my time” in life where things would stop flying at my face.  And, I really wanted it RIGHT THEN.

(Part Two.)

Welcome back!