I was re-reading an old journal entry that I had written when I was in Cambodia. It was funny... It was how i was in this 'wilderness' and this hard spot in my life. Looking back, man, what a piece of cake compared to the wilderness I'm experiencing now. But the thing that struck me was I wrote how we are able to do 2 things when we are in the wild.
1) Make it longer then it has to be. The Israelites were only supposed to be in the wilderness for 40 days... but their lack of trust in God prolonged it for 40 years! aggg!!
2) Be content with the wild and the unknown...trust the father to guide you when you can't see a way and accept that the wild is not a bad place to be...that God doesn't want to keep you in there (in fact, he's trying to get you to that promised land fast!) but sometimes there are seasons where you MUST go through the valley to end up standing on the mountain of God.
I've always struggled with depression. I haven't hidden that fact and I'm not going to be ashamed of it either. But for the past year it has almost overwhelmed me. The only way I can explain it to someone who doesn't struggle with it, is that it feels like my body is just oozing out tears day and night and the pain is so great that you'd rather die then deal with the hurt....and you have no idea why you feel this way. I think I did a really good job with hiding it until someone uncovered everything...made my ground shake and everything about my soul was exposed. It was really ugly. I didn't know how to deal with my hurt so I kept trying to cover it up with more lies, more hurts, more pain and I kept getting deeper into this blackness.
It's so hard when you grow up in this perfect christian household and this brother that has seemingly beaten his inner demons and is this perfect missionary to cambodia. It's so hard to have gone through 5 years of mission training, yet feel worse then I did 5 years back. It is so hard to get your heart broken when I already have depression. Its hard to be almost 24, unemployed, single and living at home with my parents. Its so hard to not feel like a failure. To get up in the morning. It is so hard to keep my eyes dry. It's hard to feel so much pain and you know that Jesus is the one to remove it, but that means I have to trust someone...or something. And everytime i've allowed myself to trust...to "GO THERE" I've always been let down. My soul aches. It physically hurts.
