Back to Basics

As all of us are aware, there is a global pandemic.  It has touched all of our daily lives in some way or another.  People are working from home, homeschooling their children, churches have gone totally online; life is different.  One of the biggest changes for many people, myself included, is how we have gotten closer to God during this crisis.  We have become more in-tune with His voice, we have been reading Scripture more, tuning into online services, listening to podcasts.  In the stillness that now is life, we have opened our ears to hear Him.

Before the pandemic hit my area, God had already started dealing with me in one particular area that needed His attention and His touch: performance.  Performance in the sense of doing tasks with the focus of pleasing others and gaining their approval.

I hadn’t realized how much I was operating under performance until God pointed it out to me.  Performance can be a tricky thing.  I like doing a good job, the best job I can.  I thrive on doing a job well.  There is nothing wrong with doing a task well.  The issue comes when the reason you’re doing the task becomes more about pleasing others than pleasing God. And that is where I had unknowingly slipped into.

The problem with performing to please others is that when you make a mistake, and you will because you’re not perfect, your self-worth can take a huge hit.  This happened to me more than I care to admit, but one particular situation floored me for over a week.  I couldn’t stop replaying the scenario in my head.  I started overthinking everything, every conversation, everything that came before and after.  I immediately felt worthless.  I began to believe that God was wrong about me.  I wasn’t gifted.  I wasn’t talented.  I had nothing to offer.  In short: I spiraled.  And God, in the only way that He can, reached down and pulled me out before I drowned in a sea of self-pity and self-doubt.

One particular day when I was in the darkest place in my thoughts, and I just couldn’t stop crying, God spoke to me: “If you stopped doing everything in this moment and never served again, I would still love you.”

That sentence wrecked me.  With those words, God showed me His heart. He loved me just because. There is nothing I can do or could ever do to earn His love. Even if I never accepted Jesus as my Savior, God would still love me. God loves the saint and the sinner alike. He loves me just because He does. Period. No and, if or but about it. He just loves me.  He just LOVES ME. Even if I make a critical mistake: He loves me. Even if I just sat in a chair Sunday after Sunday: He loves me. Even if I never did another task for anyone else ever again: He loves me.

I wanted to sit in that moment forever, bask in His love and never leave it.  I was looking forward to the rest the stay-at-home order promised when the pandemic hit my city.  I had a Bible picked out, several books, blocks of time I could just sit and be with God.  I was eager to just be still.

It didn’t quite work out that way, though.  In the crisis, other people were grasping for the same thing I was. People were flocking to find hope and comfort in the crisis.  As such, the work of  the global church vamped up.  We had to adapt to church online and produce like we had never produced before.

In this moment, I had a choice: do I sit or do I serve? God would love me the same if I chose to sit and just bask in His presence.  He had told me so.  And it was in that moment that I realized something heart changing: because of His love for me, I wanted to serve.

In the serving, in the increase of responsibility and tasks, I found the core of why I ever started serving to begin with. Because HE loves ME. Because He loves me the way He does and doesn’t demand for me to do to earn His love, I wanted to serve HIM.  Because there wasn’t anything I could do to make Him love me more, I wanted to serve Him. Because there isn’t a mistake I could make that would make Him love me less, I wanted to serve Him.

I realized that I had unintentionally placed the focus on my serving in earning His love and in the validation of others.  There is no way to earn His love.  There is nothing we can do to earn it, because He loves us just because He does.  Just the same, the validation of others is nice, and it’s needed, but it cannot be the source of why we serve. It cannot be what propels us to keep going, to keep pushing, to keep doing, because one day it won’t be enough. That validation won’t be there and your self-worth will falter and you will crumble.

The source of why we serve must be rooted in His love for us and our love for Him.  We have to remember why we serve. We don’t serve to earn His love, or validation from others, or self-worth. We serve simply because He loves us, and when we bask in His love, accept it and believe it, there is nothing we wouldn’t do for Him.

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance…I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary, but I have this against you: that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember where you have fallen, and repent.” Revelation 2:1-29.

In this Scripture, we see a people who are doing the work. They are being faithful, enduring, holding onto God’s truths and doing the work that needs to be done without fail, but they lost what was most important: the love they first had.

Serving during this pandemic has renewed me. It has reminded me of what HE says about me. It has brought me back to my first love.  Now that I have remembered the love I first had in serving, I never want to serve any other way again.   I wanted rest, but God wanted to renew and refresh me through serving with a pure heart, a heart aligned with His.  That is the rest I needed and my heart craved.

A heart willing to serve not for any other reason but one: Love.

How Depression and Suicide lost

I didn’t know I was struggling with depression.  When I would hit emotional lows, I thought my feelings were what every normal person felt. When I would tell myself what a horrible person I was, I truly believed everyone felt that way about themselves.  When I convinced myself that the world would be better off without me, I thought everyone had those thoughts.

I had no reason to be depressed. People who struggled with depression had a traumatic past. They have been abused physically and/or emotionally. They were neglected as children.  They had a violent or unstable home life.  They didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.

That wasn’t me.

I came from an intact home, in a good neighborhood. My family attended church regularly. I had faith in God. Someone like me couldn’t possibly be struggling with depression.

But I was struggling with depression. Whenever conflict arose in my life, whatever it could be, I knew I was to blame. It was my fault. I was the cause. There wouldn’t be that problem if I were different, if I weren’t the way I was….if I didn’t exist. If I could be like everyone else, things would be better. I would be better if I just weren’t…me.

Self defeating thoughts came more often, they became louder with even the most insignificant problems and my self hate grew.

Then one day, it hit the boiling point.  I felt alone. I felt unloved. I felt worthless.

I stood in front of my bathroom mirror and I kept repeating to myself over and over again, “No one loves you. No one likes you. Everyone would be better off if you were dead.” And then I reached into my medicine cabinet, pulled out a brand new bottle of Excedrin pills, the really big one of like 300 pills more or less, and I began swallowing. Handful after handful, until the bottle was gone and only a few spilled pills scattered around the sink and floor.

Then I walked into my living room towards my couch, sat down, and waited.

Then God intervened.

To make a long story short, my then boyfriend, now husband, came to my apartment, discovered what I had done, called 911 and I was taken to the nearest hospital where my stomach was pumped with charcoal.

That experience changed me. I would never attempt suicide ever again. But the depression didn’t just go away after that. The self hating thoughts didn’t just vanish after that. The extreme emotional lows didn’t just stop happening after that. I simply got better at hiding them from people and self treating my pain, which was not the best nor healthiest way.

God doesn’t want you to pretend to be okay. God doesn’t want you to mask your pain. He wants to talk about it. He wants to bring it out of the darkness into the light and deal with it.

So I took the step to seek professional help with a licensed therapist.

I truly belived that because my childhood and adult life were normal and void of any trauma, that there was no way I could ever be dealing with depression. But depression doesn’t afflict only people who have a sordid past. It makes no exception of persons. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t just attack people who have a traumatic past. It can afflict any of us, rich or poor, healthy or sick, good childhood or bad childhood, healthy marriage or unhealthy marriage.

You can look at your life and see all the blessings you have and think, “I should feel happy,” but yet you don’t. You could have an unwavering faith in God, and still be battling depression

If you are struggling with depression: Seek professional help.

If you are having suicidal thoughts: “Everything is my fault.” “No one loves me.” “I am a burden to everyone.” “My kids would be better off without me.” “My spouse will find a better partner if I died.” “The world would be a better place if I no longer existed.” “Everything I touch fails.” “I am the worst person ever born.” “I wish I weren’t the way that I am.”

Seek professional help.

These thoughts and these feelings are not coming from God.  If you need to get on medication, get on it.

Do not be ashamed. Shame will keep you in darkness, isolation and hopelessness.

There is hope. Jesus is the hope and freedom from those thoughts that shackle us.

I look at myself now and I can see how far God has brought me from my darkest day where I almost allowed depression to snuff out my life.

I love myself. I love my life. I see myself the way God sees me. My thoughts are now renewed.

And when those self defeating thoughts try to sneak back in and take my down, I fight them with God’s love and His word and the tools I’ve learned in therapy.

I thank God for intervening. I thank God for my husband that refused to leave my apartment door that night and for encouraging me to get help.  I thank God for giving me the courage to speak up and seek help. I thank God for the people He surrounded me with that have encouraged me to continue pressing towards wholeness and healing.

And I thank God for professional therapists who give us tools to conquer these self defeating thoughts.

I am not the girl I once was.

I am whole. I am healed. I am free.

And I will continue proclaiming that and walking in His freedom.

You can too.

With love,

Cinder

“It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand steadfast, therefore, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.