In Quietness and Trust

I stumbled upon a verse last night, while researching, and it struck me, since I don't really remember ever reading it before.

It's Isaiah 30:15, which reads,

"For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength..."(NASB)

The last phrase stood out to me, in particular, though.

"In quietness and trust is your strength"

The ESV reads, "In quietness and trust shall be your strength"

My strength - our strength - doesn't come from how much we can accomplish on our own. It comes from quieting our souls before the Lord, trusting completely in His sovereign hand, in His loving heart.

Now, I don't know about you, but one thing I hate almost more than anything else is inaction, especially forced inaction.

I abhor feeling useless, unneeded, and as though there is nothing for me to do. Ask anyone, I show up places, and within three minutes I am asking 'What can I do? What do you need? Give me a job to do.'. And not even because I'm always just that willing to serve, but I hate just sitting there doing nothing.

It drives me crazy.

Apart from the specific times in which I have either set aside time to rest, or when I have been forced to take time to rest, I cannot stand just sitting by, doing not a blessed thing.

And to come across this verse, in which God says that everything I do, all my hurrying and rushing and working, and "move, God, move!" isn't even strength...blew me away, but I can see why it would be so.

The world measures strength as a matter of physical ability, mental achievement, or difficulties overcome. The emphasis is placed solely on your own ability.

And God says, "no".

True strength isn't outward, isn't easy. It is doing the one thing you find so difficult, which is doing nothing - relinquishing control of your own life, and quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord, all the while trusting that He will do what He has promised. He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion.

It's not puzzling over things, or working them all out in my head. It's not trying harder, in my own strength. It's not micromanaging, over analyzing, or "God helps those who help themselves". It's not striking out on my own. It's not any or all of those.

It is simply waiting quietly, trustingly. It is being still and seeing the salvation of the Lord. It is remembering that the Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.

That is true strength.

That is what I cannot learn enough, yet find so hard to keep in mind.

To wait patiently on God, in quietness and trust.

In quietness and trust.

To be Wanted

I don't quite know why, but lately I've been feeling...for lack of a better word....unwanted.

It's an awful feeling, akin to an absolute conviction that no one would care/it wouldn't matter if you disappeared, and everyone who calls themselves your friends don't really and truly care for you, they just feel responsible and obligated to look after you.

And it's not as though you can just text or call a friend and say, "Hey, do you still.....want me?" Not only does that sound strange, but, how are they supposed to reply? If you say yes, you do still want me as a friend, I will assume that you're just trying to make me feel better or falsely reassuring me because you don't wish to hurt me. Plus, you'd have to be a fairly hard person to be able to say "no" without caring.

I'm pretty certain that one of my best friends just puts up with me because they cared at one point and now just feels responsible and wishes I didn't annoy them anymore. And unfortunately, I'm sensitive to the point where I can tell when someone distances themselves, or loses interest, or is just plumb irritated, annoyed, and wishes I would shut up. Which is what I'm pretty sure is happening in this case.

I have been so so good about not cutting, but the people I thought I could turn to when I crave it - the people who ought to understand, having been through the same thing - have all unanimously declared that 'you need help' (aka...leave me alone I can't/don't want to deal with you). And I don't understand how I'm expected to be there for them, yet, it never goes both ways and our friendship is on the fritz.

And I truly love my friends, but if I call you crying, I don't need you to tell me I need help... I need a hug, and I need you to reassure me that you love me no matter what.

But, my God, why is it that every single time I think I have finally found someone who genuinely cares, genuinely understands, they get fed up and either distance themselves completely, or drop me?

As Anais Nin once said, "I despise my own hypersensitiveness, which requires so much reassurance. It is certainly abnormal to crave so much to be loved and understood."

And I wholeheartedly agree.

In So Many Words, I Finally Read Prozac Nation.

My mother didn't want me to read Prozac Nation.

She didn't outright forbid it, but I could tell she wasn't pleased. 

It was the same reason she objected to Wintergirls and Little Bee and Speak. 

After all, letting her daughter read books about depression didn't quite jive with her firm belief that I was over mine, and could now just get on with life. 

The thought that maybe my illness was more than temporary didn't seem to have occurred to her, or, if it did, it seemed to have been speedily relegated to the category of 'binding Satan in the life of my daughter'. Never as something which was an integral part of me, something that begged to be accepted and loved just as deeply as the rest of me. 

And since, to quote Cassandra Clare, 'it was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone', I found myself sitting crosslegged on my bed, of a Saturday afternoon, Prozac Nation in my hands. 

Two pages into it, I am physically doubled over and gasping for air. Somehow she took the deepest essence of how I felt on a daily basis, and condensed it in such a perfect way that it felt like a sucker punch to the stomach, knocking all the breath out of my lungs.

"And then there are my friends, and they have their own lives. While they like to talk everything through, to analyze and hypothesize, what I really need, what I'm really looking for, is not something I can articulate. It's nonverbal. I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it's around me somewhere, I just can't feel it"

Sixty pages in, and I am curled up in a fetal position, in the corner of my bed, tears streaming down my face, while small gasping whimpers escape my mouth, much against my will. I am covering my mouth with both hands, trying to hold back the screams.

"He loves her so much. The whole song is about how he's come to take her to the hospital, to rescue her from suicide. I start as if on cue to cry. I am so caught up in the idea that nobody would actually try to save me if I were to slit my wrists or hang myself from one of the rafters in the bunk. I can't believe anyone might care enough to try to keep me alive. And then I realize that, yes, of course they would, but only because it is the thing to do. It's not about true caring. It's about not wanting to live with the guilt, the insult, the ugly knowledge that a suicide took place and you did nothing" 

I really don't remember the last time I had such a strong visceral response to a book. If I had to say, I would pick Ender's Game, and being in tears, shaking, because of his nightmare which was mine, and how does the author know that? 

I spent half the book in tears because "oh my gosh, how does this woman know me better than I know myself?!" and the other half literally pounding my head against my bedpost, wondering aloud, "What on earth is wrong with this woman?!"

Because, if I'm honest, while she sheds a good deal of light on what it's like to live with depression, half the time, hers just sounded like she was doing it for attention. The book seemed to imply that, to a degree at least, she believed that her depression at least in part, was not organic. It began as an attempt at a different persona, and then changed her brain chemistry over time. And while I admired certain aspects of the story, and am deeply in awe of her writing skills, I have little patience with attention-seekers, or those who use depression as an excuse - the ultimate catch all for why their personality is so difficult.

Perhaps this is because my life is a constant struggle to never become like that. Perhaps because the few times I have opened up or told someone how I was feeling, I was dismissed as attention seeking, weak, and overdramatic.

And while I am not dismissing, and never would dismiss, her problems as illegitimate, truth be told, she seems like she has a whole lot more than just depression wrong with her. For instance, she seems, manipulative, narcissistic, and borderline. And I don't say that to judge. At all. I only say that because it highlights some of my frustrations with the book, because not all people who are depressed are like her, and depression is not at all fundamentally selfish.

I only say she sounds attention seeking, because I would never ever ever tell anyone that if I died, my blood was on their hands, especially if that person was doing all they could to keep me alive, which is exactly what she said to her therapist.

I would never use my depression as manipulation - as a tool to be wielded at will, depending on my mood, and especially not against my friends. I would never use it as an excuse, a punchline, a get out of jail free card. An, 'I'll kill myself if you don't - '

And I would definitely not tell just anyone if I was feeling suicidal, which she seems to have no compunctions about doing.

But this book gives me mixed feelings, because I can relate to her so much, on so many things, in so many ways, on so many levels.....

"Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt to my voice that demands love"

It's true. I admit it. I want so badly to be wanted, to be loved for simply me.

Sometimes I wish I could walk around with a huge HANDLE WITH CARE sign stuck to my forehead" 

Literally. All the time. And the fear that 'my heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broken' is real. I am terrified that if I do not need the ones I love, they will cease to love me anymore because they will feel un-needed and walk away

But I also strongly disagreed with some of her conclusions, the big ideas of the book, what you walk away with.

"That's the problem with reality; that's the fallacy of therapy. It assumes that you will have a series of revelations, or even just one little one, and that these various truths will come to you and will change your life completely...but the truth is that it doesn't work that way"

But what if it does work that way. What if, in actuality, the truth will set you free, and does set you free. That doesn't mean we never struggle again, because Lord knows that isn't true. But the truth does change everything.

She also says that,

"If you were to find a shattered mirror, find all the pieces, all the shards and tiny chips, and have whatever patience and skill it took to put all that broken glass back together so that it was complete again, the restored version would still be spiderwebbed with cracks, it would still be a useless, glued version of its former self, which could show only fragmented reflections of anyone looking into it. Some things are beyond repair."

And I lean my head back against the headboard with a sigh, because all I can think is "no". Because I used to believe that, and still struggle not to believe that. I used to believe that once we are destroyed and broken in certain ways, we cannot be fixed. That we never again can be the person we were before. And in a sense, no. I will never go back to the wide eyed innocent I was before.

But I have learned, and grown, and loved and lost, and gained deeper understanding and insight, and God has shown Himself oh-so-powerful on my behalf, and in His hands I am not broken.

In His hands, we are not broken.

The world  may break and damage and wound. But He heals. And He makes better than before.

The book concludes with the author heavily medicated for some sense of normalcy, unable to maintain a steady relationship, and, ultimately, I came away with a dark sense of hopelessness. A sense of, 'well this is what it is, and it isn't getting any better, so, I'll just deal with it as best as I can', and an indictment against the American medical system of pill-pushing.

And while I am under no false illusions about the nature of depression, I refuse to accept that that is how my story will end. I refuse to believe that I will live a wasted, wasteful life, manipulating those around me, absolutely devoid of self control, and seemingly proud of aiding the glorification and romanticization of 'difficult women'..or the romanticization of depression, for that matter.

I know the future will be hard. It has been hard already. But, instead of resigning myself to it, I am resolved to fight harder.

I want to live and love and grow and learn and fall deeper in love with Jesus and marry someone wonderful and have lots of children and climb mountains and watch sunsets and swim in deep waters and sail on stormy seas and I want a beautiful, rich, and full life.

And I absolutely refuse to believe that I am broken beyond repair, because my God makes all things new.

I refuse to believe that this is as good as it gets, because He has promised better, if not in this life, then in the life to come.

I do not want a life like hers.

I will fight to the bitter end, but I refuse to end up like her.

And so help me God, I never will. 

The Present Crisis On Politics

Watching the GOP debate last night, and mulling over the future of America, this poem came to mind, and since it was just that good, I felt it deserved to be shared - and remembered - in the upcoming Presidential race! 

The Present Crisis 

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stems of Time.

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, 
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; 
At the birth of each new Era, with recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation standing with mute lips apart, 
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, 
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame; - 
In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, 
Part the goats upon the lefthand, and the sheep upon the right 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone is strong
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng 
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Backward look across the ages and the beacon--monuments see, 
That, like peaks of some sunk continent jut through Oblivion's sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low, foreboding cry
Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; 
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death struggle in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word. 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne - 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own. 

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, 
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within, 
------
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin"...

'T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, 
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime 
------
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?
Turn those tracks toward past or future that made Plymouth Rock sublime?

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by ax or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; 
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free, 
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. 

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires 
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, 
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr-(fires) round the prophets of today?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of truth; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be;
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-stained key. 
 - James Russell Lowell 

The Suicide Note

Hello.

My name is Sibyl Vane. I am 17 years old, and by the time you read this, I will be dead by my own hand.

In the days ahead, those of you who knew me while I was still alive will come to my funeral, cry, some of you will pretend to be sad, and all of you will bemoan my death with words such as these:

"But..she was always so happy!"

"How could someone be so selfish?"

"We never saw it coming!"

And in a way, that's the point.....Of course you didn't see it coming. When you take your own life, no one ever "sees it coming". And, then, they all have the nerve to ask the classic question.

"WHY?"

"Why did you do it? Why did you swallow those pills? Or tie that noose? Or pull the trigger? Why?"

Well. Let me tell you.

You see, most of you know me as the girl who you never paid much attention to, but who was always around. Always there for you. Always had a smile on my face, a cheerful word for you. The strong one, the one who never fell. The happy one. The anchor. The one you'd call when you needed something, but otherwise ignored her.

What you don't know is that that's all a lie. See, behind the happy fairy mask, is a girl who's depressed, cuts, starves, overdoses, purges, is hurt and hurting and heartbroken and falling apart. And no one notices. No one cares. The few times I've attempted to broach the subject, I've been told that I "have a good life" and I have no reason to be depressed. Or, I'm told I need professional help...which is just your nice way of telling me I'm too messed up for you, therefore I ought to be shunted off to others. Trust me, I learned early on that no one really understands what I'm going through. Even my own family....and on that note....

Mom and Dad, I am so sorry. Sorry that you'll be the one to wake up and find your baby girl dead. I truly am sorry.... But, in a way, I'm not. Because you never noticed either. All those times you asked how I was, and I said "I'm fine, just tired", and you actually bought it! Or the times I came out of my bedroom at midnight with bloodstained wrists hidden behind long sleeves and you never thought to question me. Even after you found out I cut, it never  occurred to you that maybe everything wasn't always well. You claim you love me, but, if I'm honest, you've an awful funny way of showing it. There's so much I can't tell you, can't say. Like, that I'm not the pretty perfect little girl you wanted. I'm just not. He broke my heart and I broke my soul, and I am damaged and he took what wasn't his to take and I can't handle all the pressure and this is the only way I know to cope! But I'm still sorry. Sorry you don't like my friends, my clothes, my music...who I am. I disappoint you, I know. But..can't you also see how hard I try to be good and make you proud of me? You're my parents, for crying out loud! You're supposed to know me better than anyone else! Do you not see my fake smile? My forced laugh? You expect so much from me. Perfection. And I'm not perfect. I can never be perfect. I am destroying myself slowly, mind, body, and soul, trying to keep your impossible standard. It's better that I go now.

To everyone at my school, you, of all people, have no right to even be at my funeral. The stares, the whispers, the mean comments both behind my back, and to my face. The way you stare right through me as if I don't even exist. What did I do to deserve your hatred? I know, believe me, I know I'm no beauty, but does that give you the right to call me names? To viciously cut me down the way you do? "Ugly" "Fat" "Worthless" "You'll never be loved" I've come to define myself by your definition of me. Just because you're pretty, popular, and have a boyfriend doesn't mean that I'm less than human! Just because you're a size zero doesn't mean you have a kind heart! I know I'm fat, I know he doesn't want me, I know I'm not the prettiest, or popular, or fashionable...you don't have to remind me every single day! You told me to kill myself, anyway. You should be happy.

And to all my friends, I love you, more than you'll ever know, but please, please, please don't promise to "always be there" when you're really not! You may know me better than anyone else, but you don't apply what you know of me to your daily interactions with me. You've let me skip meals. You've seen fresh cuts on my arms and completely ignored them. When will you learn that "fine" means "I need you to just love me because I am breaking and I can no longer hold myself together with my own tiny hands". But I'll never tell you that because I don't want to seem attention seeking, weak , and dramatic. I don't need to be told yet again that I should "get professional help" or I "just need to pray more" or "suck it up, Buttercup". I will never tell you this, but I need you. I need your love. Realize that I will hardly (if ever) ask for your help directly. But that I'm also never "just curious". If I ask you a series of seemingly unrelated questions about pill popping or some other dangerous behavior such as "how many (insert drug name here) would it take to kill someone", chances are, I already know the answer. My asking you is my way of asking for help; begging you to notice I'm drowning right in front of your eyes and you could save me just by opening them!

But, while this is my goodbye note to the world, it is also a plea of sorts. Please. Everyone. Open your ears. Open your eyes. Open your hearts! If someone says they're fine, or okay, or alright, or just tired....don't always accept it! Don't take everything people say at face value, especially if you already know they're struggling! Dig deeper and actually care to know the real answer. Listen to understand! Not just to reply! I've used the phrase "Oh, I'm just tired" more times than I can count. Not once has anyone come back with "tired of what?" No one asks if I'm actually fine when I say I am. You're all so busy rushing on with your own lives that you forget you could have saved a life just by reaching out, paying attention when people talk, and actually being there when you promise to.

It's too late for me now, but please. Next time someone says "I'm fine", ask them "are you really?" and then listen! Prove your trustworthiness. The next time someone says they're "just tired", ask them "tired of what?". The next time you see that boy who always sits alone at lunch sitting alone again, go sit with him! The next time you bump into that girl in the hallway and she winces and pulls her sleeves down, go befriend her! The next time you're sitting with your little sister at breakfast, and she thinks coffee constitutes a meal, get up, get her a plate of food, then, tell her you love her, give her the food, and don't get up until she finishes her meal!

The next time someone asks you about a harmful behavior or the effects of such-and-such drug, grab them by the shoulders and force them to meet your eyes and tell you the truth! The next time you pass that kid in the hallway that you always see but don't know, say hi! The next time his shorts slip up and you notice his scars, promise me you'll love him just a little harder because of them. The outcasts, the broken, the off the cuff kids, the ones who put on a good little girl mask, the party kids, heck, even the potheads. Everyone. My God, everyone. Brokenness doesn't discriminate!

If you love someone, if you care, tell them you love them! Tell them how much you care! Tell them that they are beautiful and worthy and loved and important and special, and everything that would have kept me here, but you didn't know.

And, really, all it could take is something as small as just a few minutes out of your day, a smile, a touch, a "hello", a kind word, a generous impulse acted upon, an 'I love you and you are special to me' and you could save someone's life without even realizing it!

But on that note...

I must go.

Farewell.


( While this letter is fictional and I wrote it in honor of National Suicide Prevention Week, too often we underestimate our own responsibility in preventing suicide. We can save life. Let's do it.)