It’s 3:30 am on Saturday morning and I pitter-patter on my ancient college Dell. My thoughts are racing and memories of college screech back into my brain. What a time for me. What a time for any individual. It is a time of excessive searching and wondering about who am I, where am I going, who will I be with, am I accepted, am I good enough? Believe me, I don’t miss it.
I have memories from that time I don’t like to revisit. Times when my search for self was so erratic that I feel like a did irreparable damage to others. It is one thing to make yourself suffer, but to put others in that line of confusion is such an embarrassment for me…and I am still ashamed.
I would like to say I couldn’t help it. I wish I could say that it was out of my control, but that would be passing the blame to who? Those individuals? Passing the blame to God? Of course I had control. Of course I could have dealt with my issues better, but I didn’t. I chose to float along and try to make human sense of my circumstances.
I think I would have to say those years were the closest I had ever been to a mental illness or breakdown. Disorderly eating would definitely be a base of any chaos in that time, but so did my search for what my purpose truly was. Inadequacy. Striving to be someone and something I was never created to be. Never being satisfied. Desperate to find love and acceptance and just someone to say, “You will be just fine. Everything is going to be okay.” I didn’t get that. I was searching for those words, unfortunately, from all the wrong people.
While my family would have been the first to offer a shoulder of peace for me, they didn’t know the turmoil within, the days of sobbing in my room, the journals and journals of my eating disorder battle, the hours on the treadmill, and even my obsessive thought pattern about food, calories, exercise, fitting in, and getting to that never attainable size.
Someone would have been there if I would have asked. Someone would have been there if I would have ripped off my mask for just a moment and let them see the scared, little girl beneath the big girl makeup and double major at Northwestern College. But pride and shame loomed and kept me in my safe, grown-up, pulled-together facade.
But I guess when stopping and trying to look deeper…I guess someone was there. In the blackness and cobwebbed crevices of my memory, I see a light that was steady and stable. It wasn’t all that bright, but it was there. I’m not sure if I tried to snuff it out because I didn’t want to see anything for what it truly was or if I just wouldn’t let it burn in the wildness it wanted to, but there was light.
When I visit this place, I feel a sense of desolation. I feel humiliated. Alone. Dead. Not just dead, but double dead…if there’s such a thing. I feel desperate. I feel inferior. I am surprised I can feel anything at all concerning these years, but then during that time I felt utterly numb so I guess any feeling at this point is an improvement.
I feel enough darkness from that time that it makes me very aware that I never want to return to it. Never.
Those dark days can either torture or set me up for freedom. Choosing to chew on the unfixable only destroys, which is exactly what the god of darkness wants. He already stole the past, of course he wants to steal the present and future too. But letting go and thrusting all these emotions, even the vilest, murkiest gut emotion in God’s hands is freeing.
When I pour it into His hands, no matter how many times I take it back and throw it again to Him, He takes it. He takes it and I feel like the cuffs and chains have been dropped and I can finally walk, run, jump, dance.
Freedom. It means nothing to you until you have been a slave. Freedom. You cannot understand the release and ecstasy until that master is not only removed, but destroyed.
And maybe today can be new. Maybe today, I am brave enough to put down my scrub brush of washing my own pains away and finally give it to the God of Freedom. He won’t only peel the cobwebs off the walls, but He’ll make everything new.
I could really use new.
Joel 2:21-27 (NLT)
Don’t be afraid, my people. Be glad now and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things. Don’t be afraid, you animals of the field, for the wilderness pastures will soon be green. The trees will again be filled with fruit, fig trees and grapevines will be loaded down once more.
Rejoice, you people of Jerusalem! Rejoice in the LORD your God! For the rain he sends demonstrates his faithfulness. Once more the autumn rains will come, as well as the rains of spring. The threshing floors will again be piled high with grain and the presses will overflow with new wine and olive oil.
The LORD says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you. Once again you will have all the food you want, and you will praise the LORD your God, who does these miracles for you. Never again will my people be disgraced. Then you will know that I am among my people Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and there is no other.”
Praise God and Amen!
Rediscovering Simplicity 
Hmmm, sounds kind of like my college years. Glad we can put those days behind us and claim God’s newness of life! Thank you, Jesus!