This past year has been anything but easy. It has been off the chart in regards to how I have felt physically, emotionally and also...spiritually. There were many times when I had no clue what I needed, much less what I wanted. I experienced days when I didn't know if I had anything left to give this journey, and with those thoughts came moments when I was ready to just give up.
But life is funny...and as messy as the battlefield can become, there are those fleeting moments when I'm able to catch a glimpse of life's possibilities...IF...I continue to put in the work, enduring the blood, sweat and tears that come from it...and...rise one more time than I fall.
I have struggled so much with my faith this time around. Wondering how I could possibly be forgiven for things in my past...the pain, the regrets, the anger, the memories of traumatic events, the pushing away of people I cared about...the situations I caused, sometimes more than once...and the ones I didn't mean to hurt, yet did.
The darkness and the pain kept me spiraling...while my thoughts continued to pile more nonsense into my already tired body. Those thoughts kept telling me I wasn't loved...that I wasn't good enough and I would never amount to anything...and like an obedient child, I listened to them.
I have been so fortunate to have an amazing tribe in my corner. These are the warriors, who day in and day out, walk with me, challenge me and who continue to remind me of Jesus' love...reminders to seek Him out and take everything to Him. I thought I was doing a pretty decent job of that for a while, but I was just kidding myself and I soon found that I kept returning to those same familiar intrusive thoughts...like an old friend standing around the street corner waiting for me.
This past week has been a tough one...it's been a difficult road to navigate, to say the least. I carried two significant events from the prior week into last Monday's session at the Barnabas Horse Foundation with Sue, Jenn, Tiffany and Tanya...and my Friday session with my therapist, Gina. I blogged about one of those events last week, the loss of a long time friend and former EMS partner. The other event, I didn't speak of until four days later in my session with Gina. My thoughts and emotions from those two situations sent me back into anger, sadness and self doubt. I found myself isolating...
On Saturday, my roommate organized a litter cleanup. He did an amazing job with this, by the way. It was great to get outside and out of my head for a while...and in the process of that cleanup, six of us collected twelve bags of litter and a few larger items. Between the heat and the work itself, I was tired, but it was that good kind of tired feeling...the one you experience when you've done something for, not only yourself, but for everyone who enjoys walking the path through the woods along the Intercoastal Waterway and by Arrowhead Lake.
However, by Sunday, I felt caged in again...that feeling of being trapped with nowhere to run was once again, overwhelming...the anger began to creep in. I gathered some things and made my way to the little beach area along the Intercoastal. There, I sat along the bank and began to journal...the words flowing faster than I could get them out of my head and onto the paper.
On the walk home, the anger continued to build until finally, I felt I needed to reset my system and take a nap. However, God had a little unfinished business with me before my head even hit the pillow...it was in that moment, I lashed out at how much I had lost over the years...possessions, friends, patients, family members and on and on.... I asked Him, "How much more do YOU want from me? How much more do YOU need from me? I have given YOU all I have. I have been falling for months...I have hit rock bottom...I have NOTHING left to give YOU."
In actuality, I had not given Him all I had. I knew it and He certainly knew it. It was then these thoughts popped in my head..., "If it is true that you have nothing left, then why do you continue to hold onto it and control it? If you have nothing left, then it should be easy for you to let it go and give it to me." In that moment, while shaking my head, not only did calmness come over me but so did a little smirk. In typical fashion, I had tried to give only a small portion of my past, and my mess, to Him...and in my attempt to hold onto that "control," I had not fully bought into taking everything to Him.
In my stubbornness, I had attempted to control every aspect of my life...and it wasn't working out for me. I have either been losing things that held special meaning to me or I have been losing time running in complete circles for things, career opportunities and people I thought I wanted in my life. Gradually, everything was being taken away from me right before my eyes. My life was being dismantled. I could see it happening but I couldn't stop it. I could only let anger take over....I was being picked apart by bad decision after bad decision. And so, for the past year, I have attempted to tie myself to the last notch on the rope and hold on...I've been treading water, but never really going anywhere. In fact, it's now safe to say, I've been drowning...
Since Sunday evening, my life has taken a turn. It was true, I had been holding onto control, which had gotten me into deeper trouble and...all I really had left was...nothing. As competitive as I am, I was not about to give up the nothingness. I had fought too long and too hard to just give it away. That control thing was getting in my way again and I was now going down with my own ship...
The last thing I was holding onto in my life was the feeling I had nothing left...everything I have worked for my entire life is mostly gone...just like that. And so, in that moment of complete brokenness, I turned the last of what I had been holding onto over to Him. I let go of the "nothing."
The healing journey has taken another turn. I pray this second chance at life will allow me the opportunity to learn from my past, but not live there...and that these experiences will lead me to my own forgiveness, as well as growth. My life isn't going to change overnight and honestly, I don't want it to. There will be more struggles to come...ones which will raise questions, where darkness will hover and tears will again flow. But with the journey, and the healing, comes grace, redemption and freedom...
It's a beginning...and all it took for me to find my way back into a relationship with my Savior, was for me to let go of the nothing I had left...
~Parker
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