When you shut my mouth two years ago and took me to a place where all my resources and influence were exhausted, a place that would confound me and hurt me so bad that I would finally turn to you, I did indeed try to turn to you with a sincere heart.
You know, even if no one else does, how much agony I endured there and you also know that I didn't pray as much as I could have and I sinned still in other ways than substance abuse.
But I surely prayed more than I ever have and I fought sin more vigorously and consistently than I ever have, all due to your grace and even though I didn't really know how.
You made me an extreme reader, writer, dreamer and zealot there? I wanted you sincerely but largely had mixed motives, seeking not just purity, but also to move you to give me selfish desires and a purpose that I had defined for myself.
I stayed sober - except for that 4 beer surprise - for a whole year, the longest stretch since I was 14, and I really did believe for the most part that somehow someway you were going to make big moves in my life due to what I was enduring in pursuit of pleasing you.
Even though many of my ambitions and prayers were still selfish, even though I pridefully performed and “tried to help everybody else” when I so desperately needed help myself, I do remember some really raw, honest moments of godly sorrow, activation of reverent faith and a stirring in my heart to be righteous, to live my life for you. I tried to put my trust in you but was not very good at it…
In those last weeks there, I remember the extreme anxiety. I remember feeling so unsure if I was even right with you. I remember the disappointment, feeling like you had a abandoned me. I remember the self-loathing, the loneliness, the desire for vindication.
I know you saw everything I went through there. It was extreme. I believe few people could have endured what I went through in the physical, the spiritual and in my mind. I was so sure there at the end that I would not be able to stand strong at home, but the pain had gotten to overwhelming and I just wanted to get out and to be with my kids daily again. But I took no sustainable liberty with me when I left that heavy place...
You know what I have experienced in my life. How deep and long and cold the night has been. I know I am not the only one who has experienced such severe trauma, and I'm sure some people have endured far worse. If I'm honest, sometimes I believe that I got what I deserved in this life, what I deserved because of my choices.
But God, I have cried out to you honestly, I have tried at times to give you my all, even to destroy myself to somehow meet you. I have wrestled you, shouted both beautiful and profane things at you, but have continued to knowingly and unknowingly hold on to lies about you in an attempt to survive. But now I am afraid to break again. Now I am afraid of surrender again. I am afraid to say “your will be done.” I'm afraid that I can do drugs and defend a false righteousness simultaneously. I want to feel your presence. I want my pain to go.
I want to be right with you. I want you to respond because I'm in a rare honest moment. You know how I strongly cling to control. You know how desperately I seek euphoria. You know I have much darkness still within. And you know it is very hard for me to wait for you to do something about it. How can I go forward? When I want to do good, evil lies close at hand. So while earth crumbles, reach me in the rubble.