Significant Events

I haven’t written in a long time.

Like most, my intentions were good and ambitions strong.

Before the New Year I was going to reflect upon 2015 in its trials and surprises, woes and joys. However, with the commencement of 2016 there was heartache and shame, and the urge to share diminished. With the progression of the year, and the dependable passage of time, heartache and shame themselves diminish and the urge to share again grows. As the past month and a half have been particularly emotionally active for me, I considered posting about these forays—delightful and heartbreaking.

However last night I was working on applications for internships after my year-long stint in Korea is finished (possibly for good), and was writing of “experiences which have significantly impacted” my life.

This topic is maddeningly broad without any pale by which to measure length or depth, but I did my best, attempting to write briefly (is this possible?) of some of the most poignant moments in Haiti, both because the internship is in Haiti, and because the majority of my most memorable, impactful experiences have indeed occurred in Haiti.

From among those painful joys there came another experience far from Haiti and not really about me at all. I was merely a witness.

It was my brother Peter’s baptism. Many people were there to witness him and a number of other believers be lowered into the water and raised again, proclaiming boldly their repentance and commitment to Christ. However, of the many raised from the water to cheers and amens, few shared their testimony before the rather daunting audience (the large Durham Evangelical Church was packed, with standing room only). Peter was one who shared.

Up there in that tank he spoke out in his booming voice, baring his soul. He told of his descent into addiction, the miserable mess of lies and deceit that brought him to despair. But there at the bottom he finally accepted help. Pete said he started attending a group with other strugglers, began hanging around good-timing people who didn’t need substances to party, whose joy was constant because of Christ. He began to change.

Months later here he was, on stage before a crowded body, proclaiming he was finished with that old life and old self and ready to live for God. “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free,” he agreed. He was lowered into the tank and pulled up again, shaking water from his hair like a dog.

In the audience of witnesses, many cried. I did, too.

Actually I sobbed.

I had to exit the sanctuary and sit on the stairwell for a few minutes before I could breathe well enough to reenter the crowd.  

The miracle of Pete’s redemption was made all the more potent because of his contrast to another young man I’d heard of. This was also a military man. A good older brother who loved and harassed his sister, hung out with some questionable folks but was universally liked, popular and able to draw a crowd wherever he went. He was also an addict. Not a serious one, perhaps, not wasted away or always shut up. But he used and it was risky.

One night he used too much.

The friends he was with were too high to comprehend how serious the situation, too scared to risk calling an ambulance for their unresponsive buddy when they would all get busted.

By the time they dared make the call it was too late.

He died.

His parents and sister and crowd of friends, classmates and buddies were left behind, wondering why someone so young, so loved, so full of life and good humor had to die.

When my friend told me this story, the story of her older brother, I wondered too.

I cried, looking at her across the table from me with tears in her eyes.

“I don’t understand why my brother got to live when yours didn’t,” I said.

I still don’t.

Life isn’t fair. Death isn’t either.

I don’t know why God saved Peter. But I can thank Him every day that he did.

Recently I saw one of those posts: “Stop thinking about how stressed you are and start thinking about how blessed you are.”

I don’t care for these kinds of cutesy sayings because they are flippant and shallow. Often people have very valid reasons for stress and in fact remain impressively positive, positive inspirations of tranquility in the midst of strife, and they need the chance to vent as much as anyone. We all need to express our stress sometimes, whether it be through conversation or meditation or exercise. Repressing stress results only in implosion.

So I mentally snorted at the post and continued the habitual facebook scroll.

Yet I’ve been subconsciously considering that adage these past few days, reassessing my own formidable woes.

I suffer from depression. I have depression. I am depressed. Depression is real and it sucks.

It is like your skin. You don’t always feel it, aren’t always conscious of its presence. But then it gets irritated, and suddenly you can’t stop the itch. The rash spreads and infects your entire body. Nothing matters but ridding yourself of that terrible itch. Eventually you can soothe it, lend some balm to calm the irritation, and slowly your skin becomes livable again. But it’s there. It will always be there. So will depression, whether dormant or raging.

For the past few weeks I was depressed. I lost interest in everything and only wanted to curl up in bed, safe from everyone’s eyes and even from consciousness. Intense Netflix drama and sleep were the only solace from the misery of existence. I didn’t have the heart to draw, write, read, research future options, study Korean, or even reach out to anyone.

Wednesday I was jarred awake from that wretched stupor through a vicious stomach flu attack. I was awoken by pain in my stomach and spent the remainder of the night alternately dozing and retching. To spare you the lurid details I was extremely sick. I was so sick I was scared. Living alone can be truly disenchanting when you are sick.

Blessedly, I do have friends. Blessedly, someone who cares for me more than I deserve took me to the hospital and stayed with me through hours of waiting, testing, and translating, then brought me home again.

Blessedly, my co-workers absorbed my schedule and did not complain of my absence.

Blessedly, the flu shook me up. As my body began to recover so did my mentality.

The next day I was cleaning, drawing, and writing answers to applications. I was reading the Bible, studying, praying, writing and thinking.

I was recognizing again how blessed I am.

Life is ceaselessly difficult. It is wrought with loneliness and disappointment. There is so much heartache, so many choices we must make and then wonder if we made them rightly. As Christians endeavoring to follow God’s will, there are many choices we make that seem unfair, that seem to leave us behind while others frolic carefree.

However, as Christians, we experience peace, blessed assurance, that non-believers do not. They pray sometimes to a God they’re not certain they believe in, seeking guidance and aid in desperation, overwhelmed by the impossibility of life.

We pray to God who we know holds the future, although we’re not often certain we like the future He’s planned.

We try to make our own way; we rush in, cut corners, and stumble like fools. Then we fall, get caught in a hole, plummet into addiction or doomed romances, face consequences far more serious than we’d considered.

Blessedly, God calls after us. Blessedly, He maintains His promises.

One of the songs our music team at church will sing tomorrow is called “Your Promises” by Elevation Worship. The Bridge says: “Nothing’s gonna stop the plans you’ve made. Nothing’s gonna take your love away.”

Praise God, His plans are in motion and if we let Him carry them to fruition, if we stand before the crowds and praise His name, declare our old lives forfeit and our new selves ready to begin, we will see how blessed we can be.

“What a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ or Lord…through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death…the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”

~Romans 7:24-25, 8:1-2,6