“And my heart is yours. And what a broken place it’s in. But you’re what I’m running for. And I want to feel the wind at my back again.” Switchfoot – Back to the Beginning Again
How does it feel to live in a land where the worst enemy you face is yourself? The enemy knows every weakness and can cut you down at the knees with a thought. Outwitting this enemy takes grit, but not the kind that comes from within. For there is no weapon known to man that can defeat this sickness of soul. Not will power, not self-control, not determination or even fortitude. The grit of which I speak is grace and it’s a gift, one I all too often refuse.
I find myself in desperate need of grit via grace lately. Waves of depression and anxiety have scrambled my brain. I find my perspective and thinking aren’t clear or even accurate at times. I am paranoid, distrustful, resentful and bitter. I try to control my impulses only to find myself slipping and stumbling down another binge-eating hill. My journey to learn discipline seems to stop entirely while I nurse my wounds and try to gather enough courage to take another step. I won’t sidestep the truth, it’s daunting.
Today I feel like I’m suffocating beneath the weight of these burdens. The crushing weight of despair is a black veil twined round my face. In these moments I am ugly to those around me—thinking and sometimes speaking the darkness to life. I am guilty of trying to distract away the darkness, but no amount of television or food or wishful dreaming removes the veil. So I’ve been thoughtfully sorting through books that might shed light on my affliction, but the only book that seems to offer any comfort at all is the Bible, and even that is faint.
I feel like I’m back at the beginning again. I’m clinging to an old and tattered piece of cloth and praying that God will make it new. I’m praying for peace—that the pain will relent—and for hope for a future free of depression. And I’m cognizant it may never come in my lifetime. I’m standing at the bottom of the well with only a pinprick of light and praying for someone to throw me a rope and pull me out. Grace is all I’ve got left….
but He is more than enough.
On the days when I find myself back at the beginning, I consider that the beginning is a good place to start. At the beginning I realize just how desperately I need God’s grace and that He is capable to abundantly provide it. At the beginning I realize I have no strength in myself to take a single step forward, but He loves me anyway. Love isn’t a sentiment of affection from afar, but an actionable event He is holding me and telling me I am precious and dearly loved. My darkness doesn’t scare Him. He doesn’t flinch at my tears or push me away to wipe the snot from his shoulder. He loves me in all my messiness.
Today if you are struggling with something, whether it is the crippling pangs of food-addiction or alcoholism, or drug addiction, or anxiety, or depression or wayward child syndrome, or fill-in-the-blank, you are not alone. The God of the universe is closer than you imagine. Before you gasp the words, “Help me!” he is there.
I can’t see the light yet, but I know that light exists. I can’t feel the hope yet, but I know his arms are wrapped around my chest. I feel like the waters are closing over my nostrils but I know He is breathing through me. He is for me. He loves me. And so I hope in the God of grit and grace and I rejoice. Let these dead bones dance. I am His and He is mine. Hallelujah! Hosanna!
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