Thanks that Rise from the Depth

I worked hard to find the fix.

My life was spent achieving goals and slipping into depression because goals don’t satisfy a soul hungry for comfort.

I spent year after year earning the right, the privilege to be healed. It never came. Never.

I numbed out. I hid in religion. I isolated. And I tried to look like I was ok.

But, my face never lies. It betrayed me daily. Telling a story I never wanted heard.

My anger and rage refused to be bottled. They ravaged everyone around me. Contempt was bent on destroying my soul.

I came to my end a year ago. I read about comfort. Our need for it. And the walls began to crumble. It was a chaotic time. Every ugly brick of my façade began to fall apart. My flimsy walls that I had whitewashed over and over were swept away in a deluge of the messy me that began to spill out.

And in that book I saw something I had not seen before. I cannot do this craziness alone. My life of proving I can cut it was over. Survival of the fittest was never God’s plan for my life. I filled out the application for our prayer ministry. Where at one time I thought I would step into that ministry as part of a prayer team, now I was committing to walk into the church office and admit I was very broken.

For that ten week session and all the months of follow up after, the Lord has dismantled me one defense at a time. Every level of exposure required a deeper level of trust in those loving me back to life. Each layer that was tenderly pulled back revealed more pain and hurt. More bitterness. More anger. The compassion and guidance of those committed to minister to me showed me the path to grief.

Grief. The emotional connection to those events that wounded me. I had always been detached from those dark moment. I recounted the details as if they happened to someone else. To some stranger. Now… grief leaks out of the depth from those wounds. Tears are washing bitterness away. Beauty is beginning to rise from the ashes. Grief is leading me to be human again. Grief is making room for new found empathy.

This Thanksgiving I look back to a year ago. I thought I was going through my season of healing to get fixed. Now, I know I’ll never be “fixed”. I will be loved, I will be comforted and I will not have to experience the pains and joys of my life alone. I was broken in the context of relationship. I will be healed in the context of relationship. I will always need this healing community I’ve become a part of in my church. I will always walk with a limp. And that’s ok. I am learning to do that with as much grace as God puts in my step. 

For that I am so very thankful. 

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