By Val
Pain, intense, dark, screaming, lonely, empty, mournful...
Sitting in the grass, weeping.
Head bowed in defeat.
Heart crushed and mulled.
Bombarded with dark thoughts, voices, screaming. Loud piercing yells.
Make it stop. Anything. Make the pain go away. Anything.
Dark thoughts envelope me. Hopelessness encompasses me. Alone, all alone.
Brokeness is everywhere. WE are broken. The world is broken. I am broken.
College for me was a hard time. A time of despair, pain and hurt. Many late nights I would lay by the pool wondering if I could just slip away into the darkness. Wishing it would engulf me and sleep would would overtake me and I would never have to wake-up again.
I was so broken, it stared me in the eyes every morning. Never did I have the energy to fight it. It dragged me down like the swift tide of the black oceans. Every night, tears pouring, heart breaking, loneliness embracing.
I covered it with sin after sin. Hiding from who I was. Hiding from who I should be. Hiding from the only one who could help. A spiraling hole I dug myself. Self-destructive decision after another overlapping themselves.
I was down. I could travel no lower. Broken pieces of myself scattered like china across the cold steel floor. Dark, without any hope of light.
But that was exactly where I needed to be.
Psalm 147:3
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.Over a long, arduous, and painful process the healing was allowed to begin. I faced the truth of of who I was by reading of the truth of who HE is. Hiding is just a facade. I cannot hide. I was never alone. I cannot fix myself. I had to let Him fix me through His word, prayer, worship, community and time.
This is why I feel so deeply for the college ladies God puts in my life. I want to comfort others, because He comforted me.
2 Cor 1:3-7 3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. I hear so many stories of brokeness, of pain and despair.I hurt for so many women. My heart breaks for these precious jewels of God. I get so angry at Satan and sin. Tempting, lying and seeking to destroy these wonderful crowns of beauty. Worst of all, is when he maims them and whispers in their ears dark stabs of hopelessness. They are left as cripples. Hanging onto cliffs by their fingertips when they should be dancing on hills of joy.
I cry for these ladies. Cry that they are shackled to their pain. I want to scream on the mountain tops:
"Yes, it is hard to face the truth. To face the pain. I know, I've been there. But you are not alone, you were never alone, you will never be alone. It is done. You are free. You are forgiven. Believe it, and it is so. Walk in His love. Roll in His blessings. And wrap yourself in his warm peace and hope."
The world is dark. We are not of the world. We of His world. We are strangers and aliens. We have been hurt, lied to, deceived and beat up. I pray that they will stop listening to their fears. To the lies that crippled them. I pray that He would show them truth. I pray for these girls. I pray that would run to him, drink from his well, lie in his green pastures and listen. Listen to the one that can "bind up the broken hearted."
"Dear God,
My heart hurts for her. So much pain. She whispers to me her past and tears sting my eyes. I see who she could be, but she refuses to believe. She lives in lies I am too familiar with. Crippled by her own fears. I don't know what to do. I pray for her everyday. My heart breaks everyday. I want her to experience the joy you have given me. The hope you have instilled in me. The vision you have shown me. How? What can I do? You've called me away. Yet I see the pain. I see it in her eyes. Dark, empty and confused. I love her so much. Don't let her go. Strengthen her. Show her the way. "Sanctify her by the truth; your word is truth." Guide her steps. Love her. Love her deeply. Unshackle her so she can walk in the identity you have called her into. The identity you have created for her since the beginning of time. Refine her, so that she too can have a heart that breaks for you. So that one day her heart will brim over with compassion, over the girls you have put in HER life."
