It's no secret to anyone who has had any interaction with me that this past month has been INTENSE. I've written about some of it, but there is SO much more that I haven't shared here. Some of it I probably will at some point, other parts of it are more personal things that I will keep to myself. I've written about some of the external struggles, like the physical aspects of a late first trimester miscarriage and the hormone wreckage that happens afterwards and the below the belt attacks directly from the enemy who is trying to steal, kill and destroy me.
But I haven't talked a lot about the internal struggle that goes along with the outer struggles. This is partly because most of the time I have felt as if I don't even have any idea what's going on within my own mind, heart and spirit, so how could I possibly communicate anything to those around me, even to my closest family and friends? There is so much I'm still working through, so what I will share now is limited. After 4 weeks of total fog and darkness in every sense of the word, I finally feel like I'm starting to see some light. I wrote in my last post (read it here) about how the Lord has been teaching me what it means to abide with Him, especially in those moments when there is literally nothing else I can do. I've been learning that there is something that believers sometimes experience called the "dark night of the soul." (*Not to be confused with the mystic "darkest night of the soul." That's something else entirely.) Some of the most well-known believers in the Bible, like David and Jeremiah, went through this dark night of the soul. Essentially, it is coming to a place of reconciling everything you believe, everything you are, with the truth of God. It is a place of utter perplexity and, I think, wrestling with God until the break of day, like Jacob did. Jacob came out of his night of wrestling with God a changed man. God even changed his name and gave him a new identity - Israel. He was never the same after that encounter with the living God.
I think Paul described it well in 2 Corinthians 4 when he said, "For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh." While the feelings of depression, oppression and anxiety may be great, we know that there is a limit to this temporary suffering. We may be hard pressed, but we will not be crushed, struck down but not destroyed. And we are never, ever alone. I must die so that He might manifest His life through me.
I've been reading a book called "A Grace Disguised," written by Jerry Sittser. Sittser is a man who has known catastrophic loss. Years ago, he was in an accident that took the life of his mother, his wife and his 4 year old daughter, leaving him alone to raise his other two young children. In his book, he describes some of his grief process. He talks about his own dark night of the soul saying this:
I wanted to pray but had no idea what to say, as if struck dumb by my own pain. Groans became the only language I could use, if even that, but I believed it was language enough for God to understand. I remember reading what the apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans - that sometimes, when overcome by suffering, we do not know how to pray. But, Paul said, our dumbness before God is not offensive to him or indicative of a lack of faith. Instead, it is an invitation for God to draw near and to intercede for us "with groans that words cannot express," like a good mother does when holding a distraught child on her lap.
He goes on to say this:
I discovered in that moment that I had the power to choose the direction my life would head, even if the only choice open to me, at least initially, was either to run from the loss or to face it as best I could. Since I knew that darkness was inevitable and unavoidable, I decided from that point on to walk into the darkness rather than try to outrun it, to let my experience of loss take me on a journey wherever it would lead, and to allow myself to be transformed by my suffering rather than to think I could somehow avoid it.
I feel like that adequately describes a lot of my thought process over the past week. There is not a lot of choice when it comes to child loss. It's something that happens TO you. It can leave you feeling "trapped" in this existence that you never would have chosen for yourself. At least I have felt that way a number of times. But even at some of the lowest points of feeling hard pressed from literally EVERY side, God has still been here. He is still good. He is still faithful to guide and teach me, even through my own dark night of the soul. For more information on the dark night of the soul, read this article. I've realized that none of this has to make any sense to me. I keep thinking that if I can just understand what's wrong with my hormones, what is wrong with whatever that is making me suffer from the anxiety and depression, then all will be well again. How in the world can I say it is well with my soul when I'm in such turmoil trying to make sense of literally everything in my life?
But the truth is that I don't have to make sense of any of it. All of my own mind game of trying to figure things out is just that. It's a mind game that is distracting me from the truth. His ways are higher than my ways, and this side of heaven, I'll never be able to understand the bigger picture. But all He wants, all He has wanted all along, is my heart and for me to trust Him. I have no idea what He's doing, but He does. He's not making any mistakes. He is redeeming my pain, and that redemption will be oh so beautiful in His time. Much like I tell my children to do things they don't understand because I want to protect them, God is doing the same for me. That leaves me with a choice. Like Sittser said, I can either choose to embrace the pain, embrace the darkness during this season and lean into God, allowing Him to refine me through this fire and that I will come out on the other side transformed, or I can try to avoid it. I choose to embrace it.As I was listening to my worship playlist this afternoon, I was struck by a song that seemed like sort of an odd choice that it was even there. Again, it was just one of those God things that I knew I should add the song to the list even though it didn't totally make sense at the time. It's a song that has intrigued me for some time - it's actually on the same Selah album that the song, "Lord, I Trust You," the song that really inspired me to start writing months ago, is on. Much like I had with the other song months ago, today I heard this song with new ears.
You never ask me to be king
To build my tower up to the sky
So why do I try
You never ask me to be rich
Buy the things that gold can buy
So why do I try
All You ever wanted was my heart
My heart, my simple heart
To You that’s all that really matters
Why do I feel I have to reach
Believe I have to rise
When You never said I had to climb
These broken ladders
You never ask me to be complete
By myself find all I need
So why do I try?
You never ask me to stand alone
Face struggles on my own
So why do I try?
All You ever wanted was my heart
My heart, my simple heart
To You that’s all that really matters
Why do I feel I have to reach
Believe I have to rise
When You never said I had to climb
These broken ladders
‘Cause all they do is take my eyes off of You
Make me forget the truth
First of all, Amy Perry seriously is one of the most amazing and most anointed singers on the face of the planet. I literally could listen to her sing all day long. As Jennifer Lopez used to say on American Idol, I totally get "goosies" when I hear Amy sing. 😂 But seriously, I realized when hearing this song today, even in the midst of all the pain, all of the mental and emotional turmoil, the ONLY thing He's asking for is my heart. That's it. He never asked me to do this on my own. He never said I have to be strong enough. So what am I doing? Spending time stressing about all the things going wrong or trying to figure things out is just a distraction. Like the song says, "'Cause all they do is take my eyes off of You, make me forget the truth..." So instead of trying to climb these broken ladders, I choose to lean into Him and allow Him to do His work. I got a shirt in the mail today that says, "The struggle is real, but so is Jesus." If there's one thing I have learned throughout the last several months, it's that the Truth is still the Truth, no matter how I feel. He is real. He is present in the struggle. He is still God. He is still good. And He is still enough. To Him be ALL the glory.
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