Coming to Peace

I’m not exactly sure how to begin. I guess…let me start with this. This past Sunday, I taught a lesson on “Persevering for the Purpose of Godliness”. When I was asked to teach, my initial plan was to expound on Romans 5 and Paul’s own suffering. However, in my preparation I was taken back to a season of my suffering where the reality of our broken world and God’s amazing grace met. In my remembrance, I was compelled to expound on God’s Truth in the midst of my own suffering and perseverance. It was never my intentions to share my suffering so deeply, let alone allow myself to reflect on the details of it. As I cried and choked on snot through my lesson, I realized that I never came to peace with my suffering. 

You see…in late 2017, I became very stressed with a personal matter occurring in my life. It ate me away and before I knew it, my stress allowed a way for Satan to step in and exaggerate my emotions. As 2018 approach, depression was at the doorsteps welcoming me. During my phase of depression, I cried in any place that was private. In my car, in the shower, in my kitchen. I can still see myself trying to hold it all together because I didn’t want my husband to know the rainstorm circulating within me. I can still remember the silent tears that my pillow drank on nights I felt overwhelmed for no reason. It was no longer about the initial personal matter that caused my feelings to spiral downwards. There are really no words for how I truly felt. I felt helpless; I felt hopeless. For some reason, I just always felt a sense of gloom over me. My emotions began to impact my physical well-being as time went on. I was tired often and didn’t have the desire to eat much either. I became thin, in which I received many compliments from my mom for “keeping it together”. However, everything was just falling apart. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t realize I was depressed because I held the belief that my faith would not allow me to. It wasn’t until a couple months into 2018 that I came to a place where I acknowledged my depression. But I questioned myself, how could a faith-filled woman become depressed?

Then suddenly in April 2018, the violent waves of anxiety crashed over me…seeking to devour me. It hit me fast and hard. The rainstorm circulating within conjured into a hurricane I couldn’t escape, and anxiety was in the eye of the storm. Anxiety is not momentary. It isn’t when your heartbeats fast before you take a test, or make your way up to sing in front of an audience. Anxiety isn’t when you’re nervous for your kids first day of school, nor is it the feeling you get before a job interview. Those events may cause you to be anxious—being anxious is a normal emotion everyone feels every now and then. But it is not anxiety. Anxiety is something you feel 24/7; from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep, though even in your sleep…you are restless. Anxiety is the excessive and all-consuming emotion of deep, inescapable fear. It was strange, because I didn’t know exactly what I was fearful of. I just knew that I lived in an intense amount of fear every second of every day. I was unable to stay calm inside. My heart felt tight all the time and I no longer felt like myself. Due to this, my performance at work and my patience at home dwindled. I had lost control of my well-being, work performance, and my responsibilities at home.

As my depression and anxiety raged on, I experienced severe depersonalization, also known as derealization. You will find that most people who suffer from anxiety have/has experienced depersonalization. It’s hard to describe it, but I often felt detached from my body and unable to grasp reality or my current situation(s). I felt as if I no longer existed in the world. In short, I was on autopilot because my body was unable to feel anything else other than the fear that was spread within me. I acted as human as I could to ensure nobody knew what I was going through. My husband whom I shared a bed with was oblivious; I wanted to keep it that way. I continued feeling irreparable, disabled, everything remorseful and yet nothing. I felt a sorrow so dark that I believed no one would ever understand.

Satan took this opportunity to drown me in many lies about myself and God. I began to believe that I was never a child of God. Everything that I’ve ever done in my Christian life was all for pride. Salvation was no gift of mine and God was no friend to me. God was a liar and did not love me. Ending my life would be significantly better than living in fear. 

I thought I had experienced the worst of it all as I battled through the spiritual warfare. Then it happened. Within the last two weeks of May 2018, I experienced my first of 3 major panic attacks. This was the cherry on top for me. Everything that I have been feeling for the past few months was exemplified by 100. I can still recall what happened that night as if it were yesterday. I sat up quickly in my bed as everything around me was tunneling in. I was afraid to shut my eyes because I was sure death was to follow. I heard my heart beat outside of my chest. My heart rate increased dramatically, which caused me to think I was having a heart attack. In between the pounding of my heart and the rapid beating of my heart, I was trembling as if an earthquake had just come through. My body continued to spiral around with breathlessness, chills, and excessive sweat. After the dramatic symptoms passed, my chest was struck with a tightness so severe that it turned my stomach inside out. Before the panic attack ended, my head became as light as a cloud while my body experienced a deep sense of detachment. My panic attack lasted approximately 3 minutes. I knew because Jay had taken Hazel out to use the restroom, in which it typically took 3 minutes. This was my first panic attack and I was determined to make it my last.

The moment I heard Jay shut the screen door of our home, I laid in bed as quickly as I was able and turned away to make him think I was sleeping. But in reality, I was thinking about ending my life. As I laid in my bed inside the love-filled home my husband and I shared, I cried to myself, “God, I can’t handle this anymore. If I have to deal with this for the rest of my life…I won’t.” That dreary night in May I began to think about ways to end my life to escape the eye of the storm. It didn’t feel like a big deal to me because I already felt like I didn’t exist. The only difference would be that I would no longer physically exist. Throughout the night I envisioned two possible ways for me to escape. My tired body forced itself to doze off into a deep sleep while I silently drenched my pillow in tears.

Depression. Anxiety. Depersonalization. These were all very raw emotions, and they are all very serious mental illnesses. By the power of God, a lot has been done to remediate the suffering except the trauma. In full transparency, I still struggle with anxiety [and depersonalization]. I’ve wrestled with the question, “why am I still struggling when my faith has been refined to be stronger than before?” But the fact is that we live in a broken world filled with sin. Anxiety is the proof of sin, in which some experience the reality of how sin has tainted the world. Will the deep cuts of fear engraved in anxiety ever be eradicated? With a joyful heart, I exclaim with a yes! “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17).” 

I can’t speak for everyone who has gone through this type of suffering. But this is my story; the story of a faith-filled woman who was brought to a place of suffering so agonizing that taking her own life was the only way to have peace. I know sometimes it may be hard to understand why anyone would have the will power to end their life, but know this…the enemy works hard to try and destroy anything that brings glory to God. The solid foundation of God’s Truth was the only thing standing between my life and death. It’s taken a few beloved people and over thousands of words to fight for the peace of knowing this Truth: though I have suffered a little while [and will continue to], the God of all grace, who has called me to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish me (1 Peter 5:10). 

My peace now rests on the Truth that one day, God our Creator will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).  

CY