First written Feb. 2018
Disclaimer: This was written during a really difficult time in my life. It was my first time really grappling with long-lasting depression, as well as needing to deal with accountability and self reflection. I experienced a lot of growth, but it was really hard as well. It was a time when my life was changing, my communities were changing, my faith was challenged, and an intersection of personal growth and reckoning meant there was a lot of confusion, hurt, and questions. The words I wrote during that time are a reflection of both the pain and the growth I experienced, the wisdom given to me by some very dear and trusted friends and mentors, and so much more.
Adrift
I feel adrift
Like my anchor has been cut
I am at the mercy of the wind and the waves
Drifting…
Like a ship with no direction
Or bearing
With only a memory of where I’ve left
And the hope of where I might arrive.
When there seems to be no clear direction
Take a long, hard look inside
And then dive deeper.
While peace beyond the boat is outside my control
There can be peace within
So look inside
And dive deeper.
These seasons are the most challenging. When we are led to places where everything solid in our lives seems to fall away. The structures we placed trust in fail. The people we placed hope in let us down. And everything that once made sense is foreign and strange. Where we once felt direction and purpose, there is only fear and confusion. There is so much fear. And so many questions.
Sometimes it feels like I’m in a boat, a boat that had purpose, a boat that had direction and hope for its journey. A boat that had prepared, with practice, with wisdom and hope in the winds and the waves. And an anchor, that when all else failed, did not. When everything failed, the anchor held strong. An anchor that could hold my hope even when everything else was stripped away.
And now, adrift, with no direction, the anchor is gone.
The one thing that was solid, the one thing to fall back on time and time again when things were at their lowest, their most desperate… is now gone.
And now the seas swell around me. On the horizon there is a light, still within sight but so far out of reach, so far away. There is no direction, as the dark waters around me only seem to reflect the darkness I feel inside me. Deep. Unknown. Something to be afraid of. Something that I cannot see the bottom of, and I am afraid to see what dwells in its deepest reaches.
This feels like being drawn into the desert. To a place where nothing else matters, where nothing else has meaning, or purpose. Where I am called to have everything stripped away. To have everything and everyone I hold dear pulled away so that nothing remains. So that all that is left is whatever I am when all those things are taken away. Because they will all be taken away. And they are not me.
I have to continue to step into the wilderness. To step into the places of hurt, of betrayal, of abandonment, of heartbreak. To be in the midst of my history that shaped me into the person I am today. The person who uses distance and walls and masks to keep people away, but more than anything longs to belong, to be told he matters, to be told that he is loved and he is worthy and that he will never be abandoned. The person that can justify the darkness within, only as a way to continue to push people away. To allow himself to believe that he is unlovable, because if anyone saw what’s inside, how could he ever be loved. Because that’s all he’s ever been told. Either they leave or he pushes them away. That’s his story, and that’s all he’s ever known. So why keep trying. It would be easier to lie, to keep them at a distance, to let them see a little, but never his heart. Because he knows he deserves love, but he can’t believe it. His heart has been hurt too many times. He’s tried so hard to let them in, to trust someone with the hope that they could see him, and they could care. That they wouldn’t leave. But they do. One way or another they all leave.
So in this desert, in this boat, there is nowhere else to go. Nowhere but within. To have all the things he trusted and hoped, all the things he feared and hated, taken away. And now he has only himself. All his brokenness, his insecurities, his failures. His hopes, his dreams. His heart, hardened and yet broken. Within nowhere else to place his hope, no one else to listen to. His soul is wracked with grief, his heart is in anguish. The one who denied what he had always felt cannot get away from what he feels now. He felt joy, he felt such hope that he had never felt before. And then he felt pain, brokenness, shame, doubt, anguish and heartbreak unlike anything before. He can feel again. He has nothing left. No walls. No lies. Nothing else.
At the deepest part of the pit, he has found there is nothing left. His foundation has been found wanting. And unless the foundation can be built on something greater than anything within him, then it will fail again.
So here in the desert he waits. And he listens. He is ready to build.
There is a shadow within each of us. The mark of the Fall, an imprint on our souls that will be there until the day we are called home. We are unfinished works, made of gold, with flaws and imperfections. Made by the One who wants us to be whole, to be blameless in His sight, yet on this journey together. Seeking this shadow is perhaps one of the hardest, yet most profound aspects of truly knowing ourselves. Of being able to see ourselves in the light our Father does. To see the gold, but to also name the shadow. And to seek out the flame, the light within even the darkest shadow within ourselves.
The Writer in White 