I hope I can get this across like I want to. I said a while back that while I would never wish this experience, or even my life, on anyone else – I wish you could feel the force of it.
Because if you could, then you could really understand what I’m about to write about. I’ll do my best so that you can have a taste of it. It’s important that you do. I know it won’t fully translate, but I have to try.
From the second the woman’s voice over the hospital intercom said “code blue”, I’ve been tormented. I remember pulling IV lines out of my arms and ripping the straps from whatever that thing was over my legs.
When I say tormented, I mean constantly afflicted and plagued by sights and sounds no one should ever have to witness – especially when you’re a friend, a brother, a sister, a wife. Torment turns to numbness, numbness to sorrow, and sorrow to rage.
You can rage against a lot of things.
The Night.
The Machine.
Yourself.
God.
Not realizing until now, I chose the latter. It wasn’t overt, it wasn’t on purpose. But I see it now looking back through insinuations and undertones.
Here’s the part that’s hard to explain.
If I’ve gotten one question more than any other, it’s been ‘how have you kept your faith’? But I think the real question here is, “when did you receive your faith?”. There’s a hope that says, ‘Though I can’t see, still I trust”. There’s a conviction that says, “Though I suffer, still I trust”. Then there’s a desperate faith that says, “No matter what, I NEED you”.
This applies to any relationship, not just God. True repose is only found in complete faith. You can’t conjure it up. It’s there, or sadly, it isn’t. Passionate love is birthed from the memory of how that person made or makes you feel – complete serenity in the face of pain, fear or danger. Once you have a taste for it, you’ll do anything to feel it again. There’s nothing wrong in that. In fact, it’s a very beautiful thing to behold.
None of this is new to you. There is nothing here that you do not already know.
But what I think blindsides me is that I’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. I’ve heard about the ‘presence of God’ my whole life. And it usually comes with a handy playlist and a nice devotional booklet.
I’ve LIVED through a literal hell and I’m back where I started, staring at the Son. Only this time, there are details I didn’t notice before. And this God who many would put on trial or curse or denounce [and who I doubted during my lowest points] reveals through words and a world that seemed hidden before how much He really cares for me. Deeply cares, with blood and tears.
I’m not talking about humanity right now. I’m talking about me. Despite me, still me. Still you, despite you.
What more is there to God? If He can heal THIS scar, what kind of God is this? What more can He do? How much more can I do with Him holding me up? What can you become?
I desperately want to know.