From the East

Almost exactly one year ago I woke up at three in the morning in the Vista House with some kind of panic attack.  I had fallen asleep in fear, sometime around 10, after trying to read the Bible and or pray for an hour or so on the downstairs sofa.  I finally laid back on the cushions, and closed my eyes, unable to read or pray.  I was paralyzed with fear, and clutched the Bible to my chest.  I heard a friend in the other room joking, ‘There goes Drew again, holding on to that Bible.”  My lips turned up faintly, briefly, and I thought, oh, you have no idea.

It had been a year of struggle, a year of fear, a year of doubt and uncertainty.  I never struggled with sharing my fears with my friends- most knew.  Still I lived in a fear that I would get it wrong, that I didn’t know the truth, that I had believed a lie.  My life, my path, my plan had been founded solely on my understanding of God, and if I was wrong, I would lose the kind of relationship I have with my friends, my family, my self, and my future.  And I was scared because I was more fearful of losing those relationships than I was of losing my relationship with God.  Because, deep down, I didn’t feel like I had one.

I had spent hours in prayer, reading, waiting (though with little diligence).  I had taken Sabbath days (though fewer and fewer as the year wore on).  I had stepped into leadership, I was mentoring younger men, I was encouraging sisters in the faith, leading worship, reaching out to the outcast, living in community.  And I felt like God had become silent.  Scripture tasted dry, dusty.  Prayer echoed like an empty cave.  I was looked up to- I could tell.  When some of the freshmen saw me, I knew they thought I was mature in my walk, that I was dying to self, obedient, open and humble.  Inside I felt like my spirit was dying, I was unsteady, seemingly deaf to any command I could obey, open and humble because I was desperate for help.  I appeared virtuous and felt hollow.

I woke at three in the morning and felt tempted towards several things, including self-harm (which had never seriously crossed my mind in a moment of desperation), and, as crazy as this sounds, even seeking solace from temptation and fear by walking away from God and to the enemy.   I could not pray, I could not read.  I texted those I knew loved me and would pray for me and begged them to, then waited.  Eventually, so scared that I would do something rash, I got up, wrapped a blanket around myself, and sat out in a rocking chair on the front porch.  I brought the Bible, and my phone, in case someone texted me back.

My dad texted back quickly, actually, and said that he and my mom were praying.  That meant the world.  After a few minutes he asked if I wanted to talk.  Misery loves company, the text read.   We talked from 3:30 until 6:30 or so.  In the morning.

The house got up to pray, and found me on the sofa.  I told them about the night, and cried.  We were all pretty broken up at that point.  It had been a hard year for most of us.  All of us.

The next few weeks were survival at best.  I was near tears constantly.  At one point I was reading a short story on a picnic table outside of the dining hall.  In it a son dies of AIDS, and I had just finished when a friend I was to meet for lunch hopped up joyfully and asked ‘How’s it going?’  I lost it, to my friends great confusion, and passed the story to her.  It’s called ‘In the Gloaming’, by Alice Elliot Dark, I believe.  I’ll loan it to you, if you’d like.

I wrestled with fear, dark, dark temptation, and doubt for months, from April until August.  I met a genuinely demonic man in downtown Greenville and felt the sickly temptation to join him.  I experienced almost daily ‘catastrophic spirals’, in which I would collapse into various fears of confusion and uncertainty. I would literally get on my bicycle and ride for hours, trying to cleanse my mind with constant, feverish thanksgiving to blot the thoughts of what if and what else, literally thanking God for everything I thought of or saw.  I remember one particular ride in which I thanked God for telephone poles.

I spent days doing construction at the Radius building to take my mind off things.  I wrote a few blogs, though many I never posted.  I was participating in community, challenging those around me, though I was not listening to their calls to choose faith, to walk.  I loved eating together, hated sitting under teaching together.  I felt condemned by every mark of the Christian, of every desire we ought to have.  Because I felt fear, and confusion.  Did I love God?  Did I want to?  Did He love me?  Was I saved?  Did I love at all?  What did it matter?

I threw myself into the study of the role of pastor, attempting to work my way out of the pit.  In some ways it worked- in order to effectively love and guide and care for others I had to set aside my mental struggles.  But, because it was momentary and not a perspective change, it did not transform my heart.

My Timotheos community eventually trapped me in a car ride, and one of the leaders chewed me out for not believing the words of my community and of scripture.  He said there was nothing else I could get-  what else did I want?  And he challenged ('ordered' would not by far from accurate) to not do a thing that night before I worshipped God and thanked Him for what He had revealed.  And he said he'd ask me about it tomorrow.

I was driving.  Probably not the best time to be told that kind of thing.

Yet it was timed perfectly.

I didn’t know whether to get angry or cry.  I was so frustrated, because I felt as though God had defaulted on something, but I couldn’t say what that something was.  And I was so frustrated because I was being told to worship.  Worship?  All I wanted to do was blame God, yell at Him, confront Him.  Why haven’t you directed me?  Why haven’t you established the works of my hands?  Why don’t you answer me?

But my friend said, very clearly, that if I don’t do that, there would be nothing else to be done for me.  He said the community had done it’s part, God had done His part, repent and believe.  And he said he’d ask me if I had done it the next day.

I didn’t want to.  I thought about going to the radius building, but it was dark and I didn’t really want to.  I wanted to go home.  I stopped at Waffle House to write, planning on worship/reading there, but the Juke Box was blaring and it wasn’t the right place.  I got in my car and could only bring myself to gratitude yelling.  I was so frustrated that I yelled my thanksgivings to God.  As I yelled, driving around, I figured I’d go yell them off Paris mountain, because that would be manly and poetic.  So, I yelled all the way up, got to the top, and found several cars of folks making out.  So, I yelled all the way back down.  Imaging these in angry tones.  THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING ME. THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING, FOR BEING A GOOD GOD, FOR THE COMMUNITY YOU HAVE PUT ME IN.  THANK YOU FOR LOVING ME.  If you can’t figure out how to say these in an angry tone, try yelling ‘dang it’ in between each clause-  that’s how it sounded.

I figured if not the mountain I’d go yell over Furman lake.  Less manly, still poetic.  But, at 9:30 on a Sunday night there were parents walking with their kids.  I could yell at them, so I parked illegally by maintenance and ran onto the golf course and yelled over that instead.  THANK YOU FOR BEING GOD, EVEN THOUGH I DON’T FEEL ANYTHING EVER.  THANK YOU FOR PUTTING COMMUNITY AROUND ME TO TELL ME THE THINGS THAT MY FEELINGS DISAGREE WITH.  THANK YOU FOR YOUR SON, WHO DIED FOR ME, EVEN THOUGH I FEEL LIKE HE’S A MILLION MILES AWAY RIGHT NOW.  THANK YOU.

I didn’t feel a lot better that night.  Maybe a little.  But it set a course for me, a course for worship and belief over feelings.  Claiming bigger truths over little ones, even if they contradict.  It's opened me into freedom, into a more steady faith, and given me hope.  It's still hard, but there is less chance of wavering now, because, after having made the choice to follow yet again, God has continued to reveal Himself.

Thursday, I hope to post more about that very thing.  What has God revealed to me in the past year, and how have I been responding to it?

In short, that is from whence I've come, in the past year..