A friend put up a post on Facebook this morning that had a quote on it I've probably seen and heard a hundred times without ever really thinking about it, but today it really sat in my heart. Partly because when I read it I knew I had let her down in the past when I should have been by her side, and partly because twice in that situation, I was alone. The quote said that 'when trouble comes and you're at your worst you find out who your real friends are by the ones who stick around.' Her response to this quote is she was left with one true friend, and it stung because when we were teens it was me, but that isn't so true anymore. I wanted to respond to this post but chose not to, I wanted to tell her she's lucky to have that one friend because going through it all alone is so much harder, but I didn't because I didn't want to make her think I was angry with her.
8-9 years ago I took advantage of her friendship and picked the wrong friend when I was really confused about everything. Near the end of that friendship with the wrong choice I was completely broke, in debt up to my eyeballs, nearly homeless, averaging 2-3 panic attacks a day, severely depressed, and living on coffee, toast, and the kindness of others. I had no one to turn to, and my life just kept getting worse. I was making bad decision after bad decision, and I could no longer stand the person I saw in the mirror. My parents and my whole family were angry with me for the choices I was making, I couldn't go home without feeling like they were coming down on me. I had no friends I could trust, and my boyfriend at the time cheated on me and flaunted the relationships in my face. I was left with no one but God to turn to.
Day after day I called out to my heavenly Father in desperation, begging Him to take me out of my circumstances. I begged Him to change my life. Then one evening I met my husband in a Hollywood rom-com circumstance and my life began to change. Nick not only picked me up off the sidewalk after I blacked out from a sugar crash, he helped picked me up out of desperation and set my feet back onto the narrow path. He was the tool that God used to literally lift me up again.
4 years later though, as a new bride living with my husband in a house we rented together and planned to start a life in, I would find myself alone again, battling anxiety and suicidal depression worse than I had experienced ever before, needless to say it wasn't the happy fairy tale I had imagined. Shortly after moving in my husband's world crashed around him and he pulled away from me, he shut down and withdrew inside himself. I no longer knew the man I was living with, he was someone totally different from the man I had fallen for and I was crushed. I had mistakenly centered my life on Nick and not God, so when he pulled away because of the emotional trauma he was going through I was left completely alone and unable to get by, I had unwittingly made him my savior instead of Jesus and losing him quite literally almost killed me.
For about a year we lived together battling our own demons separately, quietly, and had a more superficial relationship in comparison to the deep bond we had before. I felt completely isolated. I cried myself to sleep most nights waiting until I heard him snoring and then burying my face in a pillow to muffle the sound so I wouldn't wake him. Everyday I battled thoughts of suicide, divorce, and hopelessness. My depression worsened and I started to lose all control of myself, lashing out at random, and crying every time it got quiet, I had no control. Finally I hit bottom and I started to call out to God again. I begged Him to fix my life and promised I would give Him the rest of my life if He just got me out of this mess I was in. Again He answered my heart's plea and slowly things got better for me. I started to go to counseling, I got a new job, two really, and I started making God the center of my life.
As I learned scripture and applied it to life, as I talked to Him daily and read His word my life changed and I discovered my identity was in Him. I discovered my truest friend died for my sins and the sins of this world. I discovered that while people are certainly important, and necessary to our walk, life, and happiness we can't put our faith in man. I found that as I served God, I began to feel free not only from my past, the depression, and the anxiety but the pressure to fit in and please man. I found that in those troubled times, man had abandoned me and cut me down, but God had walked beside me. My friend's quote today was about people, but when I read it I was reminded that people had disappointed me, that people had left me alone when I needed them most, and that God was my truest friend, He is the one who will never forsake me, or you. Be blessed brothers and sisters and know that wherever you go, Yeshua is with you.
Psalm 107:28
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress
Psalm 116:3-6
3 The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow. 4 Then I called on the name of the Lord: “Lord, save me!” 5 The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. 6 The Lord protects the unwary; when I was brought low, he saved me
Galatians 1:4
Who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father
Colossians 1:13
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son
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