Entering the Dark

I have prayed over the next few blog posts. They were hard to write. I ask for your patience as I share very private, very hurtful events in my life. Not to moan about what was, but to share what Christ has done through those events to restore who I am in Him.

I’m not the first one who has been ashamed of their inner turmoil. Instead of speaking out about hurt, brokenness, isolation, abandonment, fear, and depression, I’ve kept them harbored in silence. 

In 2009, I attended the Emmaus Walk. I heard fellow believers get real and honest about running away from God and stepping into unimaginable pain, loss, depression, and sin. More than speaking out about their challenges, they were praising God for their sufferings because their sufferings had brought them closer to Jesus.

I love Jesus more than anything, but at that time in my life, I was just beginning to go deeper in my faith. Suffering with someone seemed like a strange concept until God had me remember my own experiences, and the experiences of those He had put in my path. I thank God for the women and men who serve at the Emmaus Walk. They are encouragers who create a safe environment for those seeking a closer walk with Jesus.

In the blogs, I talk about demons or “the uglies” as I called them. They are crippling emotional traumas that I incurred as a young child. I didn’t understand; so, I tried to make sense out of things that made no sense at all. Words said. Or worst yet, words left unsaid and left to the imagination of the one haunted by them. And a child’s imagination can conjure up words as physical cripplers. And sometimes they are, manifesting themselves as headaches, chronic stomach issues, and withdrawal.

Have patience with me. The beginning is hard. The end is victory in Christ. I pray what Jesus has taught me might help you or someone you know who battles with low self-confidence, depression, addiction, unacceptance, brokenness, hurt, isolation, divorce, loss . . . and the list goes on. 

Thank you for letting me share. Blessings, Angela

My Story: Entering the Dark

For months I have felt an inner disturbance. It’s one of those recognizable times when you know something is brewing, and it’s about to overflow. I tried to ignore all the symptoms to no avail. So, I began to pray, “Jesus, please don’t leave me alone. I’m terrified to face another battle.”

Demons. That’s what I’ve called them since I was a child. Demons. I’m sure I got that word off some Bela Lugosi, better known as Count Dracula, movie. Later in life I called them “the uglies”. They’d rush in unexpected and uninvited to cripple emotionally.

My natural recourse to deal with “the uglies” was to turn inward and hide. They found me when I was seven years old. That’s when my life went from an innocent child, loved and cared for to a solitary being. It’s the recurring nightmare. Screaming. Screaming and running to the door, watching our navy Desoto and my parents speeding up the road, leaving me behind. The only thing that kept me from escaping was a pair of strong hands that gripped me from behind, barring my escape.

That day, I found out that my parents were really my grandparents, and the young couple facing me were my biological parents. I folded inward and went into a grief of such magnitude that I felt dead.

I remember being ushered into a bedroom and hearing the door close. I crawled onto the bed and curled-up into a ball. I slammed my eyes shut. It would become my new technique, my survival mode. In the presence of fear, I shut down everything but the breath. Later I referred to this safety mechanism as “no thinking”. I tried to disappear from everything. Life stalled and darkened.

“The enemy can camp at your doorstep

 for an indefinite period of time

and it won’t matter to you.”

(David Jeremiah, Sanctuary, June 2)

That’s true. And the enemy is ruthless. He will storm your life until you are on the edge of giving up, and then he will retreat, and slink away laughing at ripping you open from the inside out. This went on for years. It was my secret. My “uglies”. I thought I knew how to deal with them. I would just shut down and refuse to give them notice. In my silence, I buried them deep into dark recesses, hiding each of “the uglies”. Finally, they’d retreat into the graves I dug for them.

As a child the aftermath of these times were lower grades, poor concentration. My grades never got so low a teacher had to call my parents, and they never asked about grades; so, I forged their signature on my report cards. I figured they didn’t care to get messed up with the ghost of a child who rarely spoke and was withdrawn. Then again, they seemed to have their own battles. I heard them at night, struggling with their own demons. I stayed clear. I had enough issues of my own.

“No thinking” is not the best technique to fight “the uglies”. They’d figure out a way to disturb even silence. Depression usually followed. When “the uglies” taunting got unbearable, I wondered what would happen if I just disappeared from life forever. Would anyone notice? Maybe it would kill “the uglies” for good. Getting rid of them might be worth going into a permanent silence.

Jesus had His work cut out for Him. He didn’t just have to work on a broken child, He had to heal and mend wounds that were deep, suffocating, and fear based.

Abandonment is a crippler. You always have your guard up. Trust was suspect. Love demanded proof. It never seemed real. People tossed the word around like a ball in a tennis match. It flowed too freely into valleys of deception and lies. Love seemed minimized by frivolity and half-truths.

Trust and love go together. I’m always in protection mode. Always. Walls erect quickly.

My husband chides me because I don’t ask questions. I don’t ask a lot of questions for a lot of reasons. Whys set up more anxiety, a feeding frenzy for “the uglies”. Whys don’t change circumstances. My life would have still been the same. I would have been abandoned. “The uglies” would have settled inside me. It was the way it was supposed to be. 

As I got older, after I met Jesus, there were hard questions that haunted me like, “Why didn’t You find me?” “Why couldn’t You save me?”

Had I known Jesus earlier, I would have had precious verses and childhood songs to rock me to sleep instead of pretending I didn’t exist, didn’t matter.

I would like to share my journey with you. This is extremely hard. I am peeling myself open and exposing fears, demons. They are real. The enemy is real. He’s after your faith, hope, and joy.

Recently “the uglies” returned. God asked me to venture into the silence with Him to face these new demons, these emotions or feelings that were begging for attention.

Demons come in many forms—depression, abuse, addiction, brokenness, hurt, loss, divorce, suicide, discouragement, abandonment, and much more. These words and their stories fill our newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio. Are we listening? Are our hearts breaking? Or have we become anesthetized to human suffering? Do we truly understand that we have a national crisis? It’s not a “them” problem; it’s an “us” problem.

I pray hearing my story will help you see clearer with eyes like Jesus. The rest of the story follows. Please hang in and read until the end. I want you to see how great our God is!

In Jesus’s holy name I pray,

Angela