God Meets Us in the Ache

http://www.ransomedheart.com/daily-reading/god-meets-us-ache

HELP ME

Right when I think I finally have my shit together, I am kicked in the back of the legs and brought to my knees begging God to just GET ME THROUGH THE DAY. I feel this gravity pulling against me, a resistance forcing me off my path. I can’t visibly see it or make sense of it, all I can do is keep going. I keep fighting my suffering. I keep resenting my brokenness. I keep trying to force strength upon my weaknesses. I keep trying to present myself as an upright, Christian woman who practices what she preaches perfectly without fail. I keep drowning myself in what I think will make me holy. The truth of the matter is… I am not happy. I have lost my joy. I am not man made fully alive, as a matter of fact I feel like I am just trying to keep afloat most of the time.

I”ll be honest, I am frustrated with the cards that I have been dealt. I am bitter with the wounds and the struggles that have shaped me and haunted me everyday. I do take pride in the glory God has revealed through my pain but that doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to hurt.

As many of you know, I struggle with severe anxiety and depression. I usually throw my hands in the air out of frustration for this inconvenience and burden keeping me in a constant state of misery and fear. I am so quick to despair and hopelessness, and very seldom do I maintain a state of true peace and joy.

My friend Maggie brought to me this brilliant little phrase that briefly unbound my angry, clenched fists: “Befriend your Brokenness”. Treat your brokenness the way you treat your loved ones. Care for your brokenness, forgive your brokenness, unconditionally love your brokenness, and most of all thank your brokenness for being a place in your heart where Jesus can reveal his healing and intimacy all the more. Sounds pretty poetic right? But what does this actually look like?

Throughout my college career, I have also been trying to make sense of the “little way” of St. Therese, which you would think sounds pretty easy and simple, but IT IS NOT. She was so confident that God loved her, not despite of her weakness, brokenness, and poverty but precisely because of it. I never knew what she was talking about, but I think I caught a glimpse of her message in April of this year when I was hospitalized for my mental illness. Yup. To say I was frustrated with God was an understatement. The only prayer I could utter was,

“Help me.”

And, the only question I had for God was,

“Why did you make me this way?”

Once I finally caught my breath and ran out of tears, I closed my eyes and remembered what Mary told us in the apparitions of Our Lady of All Nations… Jesus is carrying his cross all alone. He is inviting us to walk along side him but we keep turning away and leave him literally hanging there on the cross by himself. My immediate response when I heard this was anguish for my sweet Jesus and zeal to accept his invitation. Then I realized that the only way I can accompany Jesus up the hill of Calvary was by accepting my own crosses… not by creating more in an attempt to be “holy” and “pious”. To stop fighting these struggles and to face them head on with acceptance and confidence.

Matthew 16:24 says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” If I really do love him, I will take up my OWN cross and FOLLOW HIM up that hill. Yes, small sacrifices and acts of charity are so needed and oh so good for us, but there is something heroic about merely surviving our afflictions, smiling through the pain, saying thank you for the things we don’t get and being grateful for the things we are given that we don’t necessarily want. There is something honorable about getting up in the morning when my anxiety tells me to surrender to the day even though I just opened my eyes. Honestly, I think I have been making it harder on myself by fighting this current and storm of sacrificial love.

I was watching my new favorite Disney movie, Moana (don’t judge me), and for those of you who haven’t seen it, I will give you the run-down. Moana takes off on this heroic pursuit to save her homeland. The ocean called her out to sea to get to where she was going. Then a huge storm knocked her off her boat and wrecked her onto a little island. She immediately got so frustrated with the ocean for letting her get caught up in a huge storm. But then she looked up and realized she was exactly where she was heading the whole time… Sometimes storms and shipwrecks get us to where we are heading, even though it may not be ideal, and YES, it is painful. It is hard to be tossed about the waves but it is much easier to ride them out than to fight against the current. 1 Peter 5:10 says, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” After we have suffered just a little, God brings us safely to shore where we can finally lay on the sand and catch our breaths, much stronger than we were before.