New year’s day 2016 I sat on my living room couch, face red-stained and eyes puffy from hours of crying, my voice half-strained from screaming – at God – in particularly colorful language at times.
Why?
Because it was New Year’s Day and as I sat down to reflect on the previous year and craft my plans and goals for the next, I realized 2015…..Well…..sucked.
Sure there were good things in 2015. In fact, on the outside it looked like a GREAT year:
We bought our first house.
Barry left his job where he was miserable and went into business with his Dad.
We took my my mom on an incredible trip to Hawaii for her 60th birthday.
I finished the last chapter of my book
Started a blog and author social media pages
Began my public speaking career…..
But behind the scenes:
The first two months in our new house Barry and I fought more than we had in the first five years of our relationship – combined.
Barry’s new arrangement with his dad happened a little prematurely than they planned and put a lot of pressure on both of them. Which caused Barry to be tense and irritable and led to us fighting more.
The second day of our incredible Hawaii trip, I got a call that my high school best friend overdosed on heroin and died and I spent most the trip bouncing back and forth between laughing and enjoying the present moment and crying after being blindsided by another memory of him.
I was told blogging and creating a social media following was necessary for building a platform for a book release. But once I started, they only added extra work and mental energy to my already overflowing plate. Which caused me to feel exhausted and (you guessed it) led to us fighting more.
My new speaking career was also happening earlier than I anticipated – it felt overwhelming and intimidating to me, like I was in over my head. I constantly questioned if I was ready or qualified for the task at hand, leaving me feeling insecure and vulnerable.
The fact that all of these things happened within a three month timespan caused so much stress, tension, and anxiety in my life – and my body- it literally almost broke my gallbladder.
I experienced excruciating pain that resulted getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night, for months. It was so bad I almost went to the emergency room on more than one occasion. I lived in fear of every meal I ate because I never knew what was going to hurt me and what wasn’t. For about a month, I ate nothing but rotisserie chicken and apples, since I knew those were two things that would not cause pain.
Sure, there were good things that came as a result of the bad things:
My alarming health challenge caused Barry and I to stop fighting. I had never felt his love as tangibly as I did in those months, as he cared for me, sat up with me, rubbed the soreness out of my back from being hunched over for hours, stayed up with me, and prayed for me.
He took over as the spiritual leader in our home, standing in the gap for me as I struggled with doubt, uncertainty and fear.
These things aroused a great respect and admiration in me for him, and caused me to fall more deeply in love with him than I ever had been.
Days leading up to New Year’s, I couldn’t stop reminding myself that the ONE thing I did want to get accomplished in 2015 – publishing my book – didn’t happen.
I literally had a single goal, a single dream, a single resolution for two-thousand-fifteen: to put my book on physical (and digital) bookshelves and into hands of people who so desperately need it.
And it. didn’t. happen.
I felt like a total failure. Like I had wasted an entire year of my life.
And, in the midst of aaaaallllll that, God was completely, and utterly, silent. He had been for months at that point.
For countless nights I sat up in hours of pain, I had been pleading with God to show Himself to me. To show me the purpose in any of this.
I had reasoned if the manifestation of my healing wasn’t happening physically immediately, then there must be something I was supposed to be learning in the meantime. Something God wanted to teach me in this place of waiting.
I began asking Him what that was and let Him know I was fully open and joyfully on-board with learning whatever the lesson. Honestly.
Awaiting a reply, I got: NOTHING.
Not a peep.
Nada.
Zilch.
Not a single word
And then, our basement flooded.
That’s when the crying started.
It was New Year’s Eve. As we sat at home, instead of out ringing in the new year with our friends, dismantling drywall and sucking water out with a carpet shampooer, the weight of everything just hit me. I reached my breaking point. And enough tears to fill our basement a second time came spilling out of me.
I began crying out to God again.
If you’re going to make me go through all of this, at least tell me what I’m supposed to be learning! What I’m supposed to be getting out of it!! I shouted at Him.
Still nothing.
I don’t deserve this! I am being so faithful. Do you not see me? Are you not paying attention? Look at me!! What more do you want from me?!
[I began to feel a little like the bi-polar David in Psalms: “I love you Lord, your eyes are always upon me, you have blessed me abundantly.” Very next verse, “God, why do you hate me? My enemies are about to destroy me, why aren’t you watching?!”]
More silence.
And that’s when I got angry.
By New Year’s day, I was yelling most of the same things – just use your imagination to insert expletives in the middle of every sentence. (I guess I had moved on to a little bit of Job at that point….)
Now, what would make this story really great is if this is the part where I tell you, “and then God’s voice boomed audibly into my living room and said, ‘Rachel, oh ye of little faith, I Am still right here.’”
But that’s not what happened.
In fact, I had to sit on this blog for several months because my prayers for a Word and an understanding remained unanswered.
This was the first time since becoming a Christian – really becoming a Christian, since God had pursued me and I met Him in a real and intimate way five years ago – that I wasn’t hearing from Him, that I couldn’t feel Him close to me.
I had relegated myself to the thought that I was just in spiritual dry/desert season and would have to wait it out. (You can read about the desert season here: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/deserts)
But Now…..The Rest of the Story
A couple months prior to my New Year’s Day meltdown, a friend reached out to me asking me if I could recommend any specific scripture to help her through a current rough season. I told her, “That’s not really the way my relationship with God works – I hear from Him in songs, and books about Him, or books about the Bible, or even from Him directly (in my mind).” I recommended some songs that really helped me when I was in the same place, and a couple books she could read. And went on about my day.
See, I had tried reading the Bible all the way through, more than once, without success. And anytime I was dealing with something specific, I tried flipping to the concordance to find verses that applied to my own situation, but I always turned up empty – the verses would feel disconnected from what I was going through, so I gave up on that.
Whenever I needed an answer about something, I picked up a Christian book on the topic or found a preacher teaching a message about it to get my answer.
In those weeks of silence while battling my gallbladder symptoms, I began reading a book a friend had recommended to me. It was a topical study Bible called, “The Complete Personalized Promise Bible for Women”. I planned on using it for reference to find healing scriptures to meditate on, but I started with page 1 of the introduction and I’m glad I did. It hooked me, and I started reading it as a daily devotional of sorts.
For each section/topic, there is a promise, a faith confession for that promise, then scriptures backing up the confession.
While studying there, I came across this verse in 2nd Thessalonians: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold on to the teachings passed on to you, whether by word of mouth OR BY LETTER.”
I started laughing as it occurred to me Paul was writing to the early church in Thessalonica; those people were getting their messages from God in written letters, via Paul.
And in that moment Paul’s letter was to me saying: “God has written a letter to you. Stand firm and hold on to the things He wrote down 2,000 years ago.”
The next day as I sat writing in my prayer journal, praising God for using that verse to speak to me, I started laughing again as another revelation came: The Bible is called “God’s Word” – literally God’s Words. The Words He spoke to the people He loved. He had already said plenty to me, and it was all written down and recorded, preserved in time, so I could revisit it anytime I wanted or needed.
I was humbled. How arrogant of me to expect Him to talk to me, when I want, in the manner I want?
All that time I was in the desert, He was talking to me right in those pages, but I wasn’t receiving it. I wasn’t even looking in the right place!
How many tears (and angry words), how much stress and heartache, would I have saved myself if I had only looked there earlier? How different could the year 2015 have been?
God – thanks for never leaving us, and never forsaking us. Thanks for loving us enough to send and leave Your Word for us. And thanks for your everlasting and unconditional grace that we can never ever use up, because we need it – big time.
