Have you ever been in a place where you felt like God wasn’t reachable?
You know he’s there. You’ve felt him before, but you just cannot connect. This happened to me. I caused the disconnect. Not purposely at all, but slowly over time, my decisions and actions left me wandering a bit. I think we can often wander for a while without even realizing it. I did. Here is my story of how my actions caused my emotions to come crashing down around me and how I went running back to the one who loves me most.
In January of 2017, I went to work on a Monday. I was not normally there on Mondays. I was filling in, because my boss, Brian, had just had surgery the week before. He came in for a bit that morning, though, with his mom to get some things ordered. None of us expected the turnaround that day was going to bring. You see, Brian left that morning in an ambulance, having passed out at our warehouse. And he didn’t come back. A blood clot took Brian’s life that Monday morning.
This was the beginning of a new season for me.
The beginning of a season that I can look back on now and recognize as depression. I didn’t know what it was at the time. I knew that I had been affected by that day, those moments, and the trauma of it, but I didn’t realize the extent of it. And now, in hindsight, I can see how that day and the following season were actually going to push me to realize something I had been missing for far too long.
For me, depression wasn’t super blatant. I was mostly functioning. Everywhere but at home. I was meeting the felt expectations of everyone outside of my family of four. I was still leading in our church. I was going to work. I was going to my Crossfit class. I was going to all the functions. And I was laughing. I was smiling. I appeared fine. But all I dreamed of doing was going home and going to sleep. And I slept a lot in that season. And read a lot of mindless fiction books. So many books.
And then about 4 months after Brian died I was angry. I was angry at everyone. I was so. Freaking. Mad. And no one would just let me be alone. Everyone, my husband, my kids, my job, my family, my friends, my church, my workout, had expectations for me and I was sick of it. I was over it. I was aching, and I felt alone even though I wasn’t, and I was mad. I was tired of feeling exhausted by life, and literally just going through the motions of what everyone else expected me to do.
Thankfully, I have a husband who was aware but wasn’t sure how to help me, because I’m a bit stubborn. (Just a little bit.) I finally remember breaking down and telling Wade, that I felt dead inside. I was just empty. I was just going about my days, meeting everyone else’s expectations for me. He asked me what I was missing, and I knew at that moment what I was missing. I missed God. I knew he was there, that he was present. I just missed feeling connected to him.
Honestly, for a while, I had been out of a rhythm that I had established when my babes were little, 6 am coffee dates with my Bible and a Bible study or book that helped me in my relationship with God. When my babes were little, I knew that in order to be able to spend time with God, I had to get up before them. Since my girl was a sleeper, but my son wasn’t, once he could recognize a 7 on an alarm clock, if he woke up before, he had to play quietly in his room until he saw that 7. That way I got to spend some time in my Bible.
I quit that rhythm. I was very rarely able to spend some good, un-rushed time with my Bible, coffee, and my thoughts. I missed it. My soul felt it. I had given up that rhythm to go to a 6 am Crossfit class three days a week. And then I slept the other mornings. Can I just say that I loved Crossfit. Like loved, loved. Until I didn’t. I literally hated going, but it was an expectation. One that was put on me mostly by myself, honestly, because at one point I loved it. I loved the way it made me feel, I loved lifting weights. I loved the people that I worked out with, but I just didn’t want to be there anymore.
With that, I didn’t stop reading my Bible or doing Bible studies. No. I know better than that. I’m a church girl. I graduated from Bible school. I have been in ministry since before I got married. Reading my Bible is another expectation. I do it no matter what. So I quickly did what I felt like I needed to do to meet that expectation. I would read a chapter in my Bible. I might even write out some prayers. I would do whatever study my girls were doing at that point. (My girls: AKA, my church girls, my Bible study girls.) But I was NOT CONNECTING to God . And I was aching.
That morning that I was sitting down with Wade he said to me, “Maybe you need to quit Crossfit.” I knew I did. As I said, I hated it. I knew that I needed to quit, and the thought had crossed my mind, but him saying those words helped me accept it. I never went back. The next day I woke up at 6 am and picked up my Bible, my notebook, and with a yummy cup of coffee by my side, I found my place again. And, oh my word, I had missed being in that place.
That place was where I was able to catch my breath again. That place was where I could sit down with my Bible and I could pray for a few minutes. I could pull out a notebook and I could write out a Bible verse that stuck out to me as I read that morning. That place was just for me and God, the place where I thanked him, where I remembered his goodness. This was what I had missed.
That is the story of my “come-back”.
Are you feeling that disconnect in your soul? If you are, I want to encourage to go back. Go back to where you know you meet with God best. It might not look like my rhythm or my space, but you know what it looks like for you. And if you don’t, reach out to me, or to someone who loves Jesus and loves you. Let us show you the tools we use to know God better and to follow him closer. He loves you so much!
Current Faves
Food: Cabbage (Sometimes I forget how much I love cabbage!)
What I’m listening to: Speak Your Name by Laney Rene
Movie: Tall Girl on Netflix