Hope. Such a beautiful crushing feeling.
The feeling that everything might just be okay.
Only problem with hope is it is quickly lost.
And the darkness that sets in after hope leaves is darker than ever before.
Despair. Complete despair.
And depression comes like an ever present lion, here to consume your flesh and leave you bare.
As if you did not have enough to deal with, you are now empty driving with no gas in your engine, not sure when you are going to crash into the next river.
I am praying to a silent God. A God that is missing when I need Him most. A God who seems to be oblivious to my cries and agony.
I am alone. At least I feel alone.
And in pain. Awaiting a doctor's visit next week.
One that I am dreading. Not for what they will tell me but for what they won't tell me. You see, if they can tell me what is wrong I will know that it isn't my fault. But if everything is fine, then something is my fault and I am stuck where I am, with no hope.
It has been four months of excruciating pain during sex. And it has gotten so bad that I cannot even try to push through the pain anymore. The one time in the last month or so that we got anywhere, it hurt so bad for days afterwards and now it hurts when we attempt intercourse at all that I cannot bear it. And I am pretty stubborn when it comes to sex even when it hurts.
I just can't anymore and that thought breaks my spirit.
And what is worse is I had hope. I had hope that things would get better. And yet they are getting worse.
And no matter how much I cry out to God, it continues to get worse and worse.
And I lose hope day after day. And a little bit more of me gets broken after each failed attempt.
I did everything right.
I waited until marriage. I followed what God wanted from me.
And yet I am getting punished still.
How could a God who claims to love me still allow me to be in this much pain?
How could He be silent to my cries?
How could He sit by while my heart is broken by something that I cannot control?
Why is He not healing me?
Everyday things get darker in my little lonely world.
I sleep longer to escape having to deal with how I feel and I watch more television so I can drone out the silent screams of emptiness in my heart.
I do anything to forget how empty I am on the inside.
I can feel the despair setting in.
I can feel the shadows of the valley slowly covering me.
And it is crushing me.
With every breath, it just gets harder to breathe.
And this is the worst point in depression. This is the point that I can no longer mask it. I can no longer pretend that it isn't there or that I am doing alright. It is at the point that it has drained all energy that I have in me and I have nothing left.
So I isolate myself. Not hard to do out here. It isn't hard to be alone when you don't have many friends in your life. And when I am with the few friends I have, I keep the topics light and superficial. Even when I talk to people from home I can't help but wear a mask.
Because I am not strong right now and I can't bear for anyone to see that side of me. I cannot bear the thought of people judging me for my bitterness towards God. I cannot bear the well meaning "God is still there and still cares," b.s. that everyone always tries to tell you. Cause it isn't what I need to hear.
I don't need to hear that God loves me. I don't need to hear that this is His plan.
Me being in pain during something He created as holy and beautiful doesn't sound like a very good plan to me. And I am struggling with hating Him for it.
I never thought I would be someone to say that. Say that I hate God.
Tonight as I was shuffling music on my phone, a worship song came on and I went and got my Bible and opened it randomly to a spot. I didn't know what to read and I didn't think I would find anything useful anyways. It was just kind of a last ditch effort to go to bed without crying for once this week.
Psalms 105:4-5
"Search for the Lord and for His strength; continually seek Him. Remember the wonders that He has performed, his miracles, and the rulings He has given."
Then the Psalms goes on to talk about the commitment that God made to Abraham. How God made a covenant to Abraham for generations...
And I thought about Sarah. How must she have felt, knowing that God made a promise of descendants as many as the stars in the sky, and not being able to conceive. The despair and the feeling that she must not be in God's plan. She must have been the problem, the failure... Not being able to give her husband something that was important to him and what God said was their future. The depression that must have followed her every attempt to conceive a child and the disappointment every month when she receive something other than God's master plan.
It drove her to push her husband into the arms of another woman. Imagine the way she must have felt in her heart, the desolation that she must have been experiencing. To completely give up on herself and force her husband to father a child with another woman. Imagine the nights that he was in the tent with Hagar... Feel the way that her heart must have been breaking into a million pieces.
She must have completely hated God, despised Him.
He promised something to her and then withheld it.
For years, and years, and years...
The desert causes women to give up hope on themselves and fall into despair.
When Sarah lost faith, her enemy was born.
A son that from his first breath on would torment and seek to destroy her family.
Yet even in Sarah's weakness, God still came through with His promise. He was true to His word, despite her despair and poor choices.
It took years. And lost hope. And failure. And sin. And an unwanted child.
But God still showed up in her desert. He still met her even after she had given up hope. He still gave birth to His chosen people through her. He fulfilled His covenant even though it took longer than she thought it should.
Remember the miracles that He has performed in the past. Remember the moments that He brought us out of our despair.
And know that He will do it again. He will fulfill His promises. He will come through.
He will answer us.
And in the silence until then, we must not give birth to our enemy. We must not choose another path because we are tired of waiting for Him. We must not abandon Him, even when we are in despair in the desert.
This season will pass eventually. And until the drought is overcome with the rain, I will not give up.
I may not have hope tonight, but in the morning there is a new day to try again.
