The Furnace

Heads up: This one's long and kinda heavy. (Sarah writing.)

I'm constantly trying to be a positive person. To focus on the good. Be the girl that sees the glass half full. Put on the happy face and find the good in everything because no one wants to hear about the bad. But what happens when your glass is drained completely empty and you're so desperately dehydrated that the glass starts messing with your head?  

I prayed to the Lord to bring me closer to him this year. I begged him for this. I expected him to do this via sunshine and roses. (Ironically I have seen neither of those things for weeks now.) But he knows me better than I know myself, and he knew the best way to bring me to my knees--to allow me not only to know him better but to show me how much I truly need him. "My" intentions for this year were and remain to be to serve him fully and to accept whatever he hands me. This is the reason I'm sharing the negative right now. I am his servant, and this morning in the shower, I had a very clear push to write this down so that somehow this could be a blessing to whomever reads it. Here are my thoughts the best I can sort and write them, some being repetitive…

Anxiety and depression have always lurked threateningly in my brain, but I've always had a routine or comfort to distract myself from dealing with it. I'm certain a large percentage of people reading this have battled this at some point; some batting harder and longer than others. This internal battle came on rather quickly and intensely for me after moving to the other side of the world (shocker). But those who know me well know that I'm a fairly new believer. I have been a "Christian" my whole life but have really known Jesus as my actual Lord the last two years or so. Before really knowing the Lord, anxiety was an easy concept. It was simply a chemical imbalance in the brain easily treated by anti-depressants and problem solved.

But things are different now. I am not just a Christian, I am God's child. I am his servant. I do my best to listen and obey, going where he leads me. So when I began to experience morbid, depressing thoughts about whether this messy life is worth struggling through, thoughts of darkness and evil seeping into my mind that began to devour me… This time it's different. I'm supposed to have the Lord in my corner fighting for me and this time, it's evil pulling at me. 

I've experienced anxiety before, but never like this. It's terrifying how little control I have of my anxiety/mind when it causes me to hyperventilate, panic, my hands and face go numb, and my heartbeat is so irregular that I lose consciousness repeatedly… all because of a feeling of extreme fear from… What? Seemingly nothing when I think through it logically. (Ugh, I'm getting anxiety just writing about it.) How is this possible? How is it that my brain can wreak so much havoc on my body? When this happens, my mind controls my body but I have no control of my mind. The human body and brain are so complex; it's baffling to me there are not more things that go wrong with our bodies, let alone our minds.

One night after an argument with Craig about a month ago, my mind went berserk. I tried to sleep on the couch and alone, in the middle of the night, I hit rock bottom. The evil and morbid thoughts began devouring me. And when I realized where my thoughts had gone, I felt guilt and anger. I felt abandoned. God had stopped fighting for me. I screamed at him through tears, "How could you do this to me? I sacrificed everything to truly be your daughter and to serve you. I have nothing. I left Lola, my family, my church, friends, my comforts, now Craig has left me alone, and now you're not even fighting for me. How? How could you forsake me? Where are you to start battling these dark thoughts and demons for me? Fight for me!" I grabbed my Bible and cracked it open directly to Psalm 6, to verse 6: "I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes." 

My first thought: "Whoa, wait. They had couches back when the Psalms were written?" And then, "Whoa. I'm on a couch crying and I'm also drenching it with tears." And then it hit me. The Lord chose David, the shepherd boy, to be his child. He called David to be his servant and to be his anointed one. Did this mean he was clear of sin or that his life was easy? Far from it. David spent 4 years hiding in caves while Saul hunted him to kill him when the Lord had promised David he’d make him king. So yea, David was a little angry with the Lord when he wrote Psalms because it was definitely not the life he expected to have as God's child, but it's the way the Lord knew best to bring David to his knees in need of a savior.

That was a rough night for me, and that night I was truly brought to my knees in need of my Lord. A new friend of Craig's and mine, Daniel, had some words of wisdom when we both opened up to him about the anxiety Craig and I experience. He explained it so well… Sometimes God chooses to hold you in the furnace for a while during your walk with him. Sometimes we don't know why. This is the way he chose to show me I needed to really depend on him, and that even though I felt like he wasn't fighting for me, he had everything completely under control. And when God holds me in the furnace, Jesus is walking right there with me in it. He is sovereign and in control of everything.

The old me from a couple years ago would have read this on a blog and thought, "This is just bunk." (Love using my dad's words. "Bunk.") When I heard Christians talk like this, it used to sound so corny, like they had been drinking the spiritual juice too much. "The Lord is sovereign." "There's a purpose for my suffering." It was such bologna to me. Before I had true faith in God, anxiety was a simple medical problem. You take some medicine and when you get better, that's the medicine working. There may be a God but it's not him who's helping you get better, it's the medicine. Christians who think God "blesses" them through a trial are just kooky, yada yada.

Old Sarah was not a true believer. I was hopeful there was a God back then, and kinda believed in him and that he was my savior when I’d die, but he definitely wasn't my Lord or my priority. Now, I feel him more. All the time. He's not just a "hopeful" now. He's my priority. I feel him now in the good times and in the bad. I was waiting for some miraculous proof of him before I was going to go through the motions of changing my life and basing my faith on a God I couldn't see or feel for sure. It does happen that way for some people, but for me, I really had to have faith the last couple years and trust that the ways he was working in my life was actually him working and not just circumstance. And he's the one who works to change my life, not me.

Now that I have allowed myself to listen for him and truly trust that he's there, it's incredible how much I feel him. This isn't just some kooky Christian thing I'm saying. This is REAL. I have called on him, been angry with him, trusted him. I feel him. I see him working and answering prayers. And not just in me, but in ways no human could manage to move in this dark world. I have always wanted proof, and I was the last person who would have been saying this a couple years ago… But I have my own proof now. I have SEEN his sovereignty. I am grateful for him holding me to the furnace right now because I have seen the blessing in it. Maybe he's using this trial of mine related to medicine and the mind/body to be able to have tougher conversations with non-believers, with my very medically-savvy family, with friends.

I'm not a drunk on some spiritual juice… This is Sarah. This is God's child, a sinner in a dark place who is experiencing our very real God maybe if only to write this post and tell someone about his love.

Trust him. Give your life to him. If you haven't already, find a community of people who love him and serve him so you can begin to see how to live a holier, selfless life and so you can see how he has worked in other peoples' lives. Testimonies like this one are out there so you can begin to trust him and grow in your faith and love for him. The Lord wants you to seek him. He won't force himself on you if that's the "proof" you're looking for. True love is a choice, not forced. He wants you to come to him on your own, and you’re never going to know him if you’re not truly seeking him with all your heart.

I am still so young in my walk with Christ but do have a little wisdom now I can share. It's this: I look at pictures on Instagram, etc. and long to experience the most beautiful places on earth. Central Park in autumn, lavender fields in France, the Amalfi Coast, Greece. But now I know that even better than experiencing those beautiful places is to know and experience when God is doing something in my life to talk directly to me. Me! The maker of the world and universe, the guy who makes the whole world turn is talking to me directly and loving me in a way he knows is best for me. 

Heaven on earth, even when I'm suffering, is the realization that he knows and loves me. 

Something helpful if you’re in the furnace: Flip to Psalm 91. (Remember this verse by thinking of 911.)