Blast from the Past

I'm getting ready to move in a little less than a month, so tonight I started going through some old papers to throw out as much as I can. I was reading through an old notebook from when I was in school for massage therapy- it had random notes from school, vocabulary stuff, and some kind of like... diary entries, for lack of better word.

I started MT school at the end of August 2007, and finished the beginning of June 2008. Between September 22 and April 3, I got in a car accident, my house burned down, I went through the breakup from hell, had a falling out with my sister, and one of my old friends I had grown up with passed away- and that's just the big stuff that happened. It was the absolute most difficult year of my life so far. And to top it off, I was just 18 years old- 17 when the car accident happened. I've struggled with suicidal depression since I was 11. Adding all this on top of it was just too much. After my car accident, my body went into hardcore fight-or-flight mode, and I got trapped in a never-ending panic attack. My anxiety was so intense, I truly think I went insane for a time. Sometimes late at night, when I was at school or at home and couldn't sleep, I would try to write out my feelings, sort them out. I never was able to keep up a real diary or journal, but every once in awhile my emotions would get so overwhelming I would just have to get them out somehow.

The journal entry I just came across was this:

"I just feel like I'm being stoned to death. Through life you occasionally get hit by pebbles, and every once in awhile a big rock falls in your path and you have to work your way around it. But the last year of my life I just feel like there's been a huge rock slide, and all these big boulders keep knocking me down.

They're crushing me, and I can't breathe.

I'm screaming for help, but no one's there to hear my cries.

I'm wishing for it to end, but the rocks only get bigger.

I'm wishing for death, but I'm still here, with the crushing weight of the world bearing down upon me...

And I am alone."

At the time, I was so alone. I went to school at night, and my friends went to school during the day. My parents both worked, so they would leave before I woke up in the morning, I would leave before they got home, and I wouldn't get home til after they had gone to bed at night. It was so lonely. The only thing that kept me going was my unwavering faith in Jesus Christ. Even when everyone else was gone, God was always with me. He never left me, He never forsook me. My faith in Him kept me going, even when I was literally living breath to breath. He met me where I was, in such a deep, dark place.

That's the amazing thing about God. He meets you were you are. It doesn't matter to Him where you are at, no matter how dark of a place it may be. "[His] light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." There is nothing you have done or will do that God hasn't already forgiven. That was the whole reason Jesus died on the cross; it was for OUR sins. God thought of you when He created the universe. Jesus thought of you as He died on the cross. No matter where you are or what you've done, or even what you are doing right this very moment, you are loved more deeply than you can possibly comprehend. You are forgiven. You have been equipped to live the blessed, rich, fulfilling life you have always imagined. All you have to do it go for it. Go out on a limb. Yes, there will be sacrifice. Probably a lot of sacrifices. And yes, there will probably be pain, and even maybe some loss along the way. The world may give you a thousand reasons why you can't live the life you've always imagined, but all you need is one reason why you can. Cling to that one reason. Don't let anything stop you from what God has planned for you. YOU CAN DO IT!