Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash
Darkness
and aloneness and foreignness and brokenness.
Those long
days of slow hours which gave way to weeks that morphed into months, and months
that had days that felt like I was right back in the sordid beginning.
Grief recapitulates upon
itself.
How did it undo me five months
after for a single day of hell
that caused me to pace the room
with thought to end it all?
after for a single day of hell
that caused me to pace the room
with thought to end it all?
Those
first dark months undid me day after day, as grief stripped my soul of its
peace, and the anxiety of a lost soul overcame and became me.
It seemed
that every single day, each moment as it were, I was never too far from a fear
that would silence any courage of hope in me. There were whole hours where I
could escape, but the cowering reality of the emptiness of loss was like a
miasma that continually threatened. I had no idea what hit me. Not one hope.
And yet, even in such hopelessness, God was my only hope.
There were
also whole hours where I was blindsided in a tsunami of fear so unlike anything
I’d ever experienced. The unrelenting power of the torrent. Grating confusion
as to why and how I got there. Suffocating for breath. A reality that seemed so
absolutely unreal. Panic attacks were the form of the season. And when you have
no idea what a panic attack even is, they’re frightening experiences to endure.
One such
experience I was fine minutes before midday, and I was a catatonic mess minutes
after the hour. I couldn’t trust the seconds, let alone the minutes. Three days
without sleep didn’t help. I quickly moved into a mental breakdown. My parents
had no idea what to do, the day before my father went into knee surgery that
would have him on crutches for nearly six months. It was a season that
regularly broke us all, but we were there for each other, which steeled us for the
trial we were enduring. The scariest thing amid a breakdown is there’s no
warning; the end was happening, its own event, and I had no capacity to resist
it, shut-in as a spectator in my own skin.
I recall going
for a job interview on a very sad Tuesday, the 14th of October 2003. They were
offering me a very attractive job. But I can still remember the absolute
screaming fear in me as I sat there answering questions with competence yet
questioning my very being! They had no idea who they were dealing with. The
previous day I’d had the worst news possible and Satan continued to berate me.
I had no sense for hope at all, and all faith I had at such moments was
fundamentally extrinsic.
Walking ahead in faith with no
assurance
of the Presence of the Lord is faith supreme.
of the Presence of the Lord is faith supreme.
The season
in focus taught me one of life’s priceless lessons; a truth known at the cross
that preceded the resurrection:
… you must go through hell to truly
crave heaven on the other side.
We must
know that when darkness surrounds and confounds us, God abides closer than
ever. I could not see it at the time, but afterward I saw God’s fingerprints
over everything. I have such fondness of recall for this the darkest days of my
life.
Honestly,
I am convinced that when we ‘consider it pure joy’ as we face ‘trials of many
kinds’ God’s faithfulness cannot disappoint us, and a healing we hoped for
materialises at the proper time (ref. James 1:2-4; Galatians 6:9).
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