* The days in between *
I’m rarely at a loss for words… but right now they all feel fleeting, inadequate, and far too trivial to give language to this day.
One year ago, I left my dream job. Well… to be honest… I fled from a nightmare that started as a dream.
Maybe there will come a day when I’ll feel released to share the details of the events that lead me to the decision to run from my job, but for now… I want to talk about that final day, this day, and the days in between.
On that final day, I woke up with Pain and Fear as my closest companions. They often brought their close friends, Depression and Suicidal Thoughts, to come and hang out as well. I tried desperately to push past them and listen only to Holy Spirit but they were constantly by my side, and had been for months.
I got ready for my final Sunday service with the knowledge that I was doing what I had to do… but what I never wanted to do. I had dreamed of getting married and raising babies at my sweet church. I imagined leading worship with my children on that altar and recording albums with my precious worship team that I had loved with all of my heart.
But the church I moved across the country for was gone and had been for a while.
Arriving at church that day, I knew I had become the villain in several people’s stories who once called me family.
I teared up several times during rehearsal that morning- I had loved my worship team with everything I had. They were a dream come true. I had also fallen desperately in love with a boy on my band and I knew that day was the last time I’d lead with him for a while (Little did I know that that was the last time I’d ever see him. No, he didn’t die but he essentially acted like I did from that day forward.)
I remember crying to that boy before service began. I remember anxiety coursing through my body and I remember asking him if I was making the right choice. He assured me that I was… but my heart and mind couldn’t wrap themselves around the pain in my soul as the service began- how was this happening?
I remember getting into my car, blasting, ‘Wide Open Spaces’ by the Dixie Chicks and breathing a sigh of relief. It felt like I had been in a terrible war- I had fought with all my heart and had lost… I wasn’t sure how broken, battered and bruised I was.. I wasn’t even sure if I was fully alive… but the war was over.
Remember my friends from that morning? Pain, Fear, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts? They presumptuously took the role of post war recovery nurses. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the recovery was as brutal as the battle.
In January, Jesus asked me to lay down everything I had busied myself with. Depression and Anxiety had come in a way I had never known and Productivity was my drug of choice to numb myself from the storm they were causing deep inside of me. When I finally stopped everything, I finally went under HIS knife. The knife of the Great Physician. The only One who could fix what had gone terribly wrong. The only One who could take away the trauma that was ricocheting through every fiber of my being.
There were moments when I wasn’t sure if I was going to survive and didn’t know if I wanted to.
Jesus was so close in those moments. Panic attacks would come in like a tidal wave and the only way I could ride it was to turn on worship music and just. keep. breathing.
One song carried something that felt like a blanket of protection and peace- it invited me to stop fighting for as long as I could keep it on repeat. It was a song that Sean Feucht had written and sung at a ‘Let Us Worship’ event in Texas. When I first heard it, I felt the oil of warfare all over it. Sean was singing it from a place of victory- it was my glimmer of victory in a season that felt like hopeless defeat.
As panic attacks would rage, whether in bed or in a grocery store, I’d begin to sing or listen to this simple song- my 911 call to Heaven.
“Jesus, my Redeemer
Jesus, my Provider
Jesus, when I sing Your name
Everything changes
Jesus, my Defender
Jesus, my strong tower
Jesus, when I sing Your name
Everything changes”
EVERYTHING. CHANGES.
That didn’t feel true. But it was and still is. It’s more true and more real than anything in this world.
Jesus had to show me all the lies I had believed in the previous season. He had to show me that I had allowed the enemy to have a stronghold in my heart when it came to suicide. I had believed that death was a protector somehow… like a backdoor exit in my mind that I needed to keep just in case the Lord didn’t come through. I had to shatter that lie and repent for it. I had drank deeply of the proverbial cool-aid and there was a lot that needed to be eradicated out of my soul. There were hours of inner healing, deep and painful deliverance moments, counseling, and more weeping in prayer than I can say.
It was by far one of the hardest seasons I’ve known… but I wouldn’t trade it.
Why?
I learned HIS voice all over again.
I learned how to linger in His presence all over again.
I learned who I am IN HIM all over again.
I memorized the look in His eyes.
I soaked in the feeling of His strong carpenter hands wrapping around my heart- holding every broken piece and keeping it beating.
I re-learned the Gospel from the simple smile of the Savior.
And now, here we are. One full year later.
I’ve traveled more than I ever have and have seen a move of God like I’ve only ever dreamed I’d see. I just got back to Las Vegas after a weekend in San Diego for a Burn24-7 Global Summit and two Let Us Worship events. This month alone, I’ve been able to be on the ministry team for 5 Let Us Worship events and a few nights ago I even got to babysit the Feucht kiddos after a night of seeing hundreds saved and set free! WHAT!?!?!
Jesus walked with me through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and now, on the other side of it, I am more free and more alive now than I’ve ever been before. Fear, Pain, and Depression, sometimes still sit at my front door, sometimes they try to go on a run with me… but they know they’ve been evicted.
I have no idea what the future holds… but I know it’s more and more and more of Him. And no matter how I get more of Him, He’s worth it.
Oh, He is so so worth it all.
Maranatha.
