When Seeing (Still) Isn't Believing

"I'm afraid that I am me and I have no say in it. I dare to be self-aware when ignorance is bliss." 

-Showbread

I have a confession to make.

Perhaps it's a natural byproduct of depression, but I'm a doubter. I doubt other people's abilities to follow through on their promises and my ability to follow through on my own. I doubt the truth and sincerity of things people say. I doubt my resolve in following Christ and the persistence of His love for me. I doubt the things I've studied for three years. I doubt the so-called relentless "grace" that the evangelical Christian subculture often seems to over-hype. I cock my head and raise an eyebrow when someone justifies a choice or an action by saying, "I felt peace about it." 

I've seen enough experiential "evidence" in my own life to justify my longing to have faith in God but often question my reasons for believing. I find myself trembling on the edge of disbelief more often than not, "searching" more than "certain," asking for answers that I'll probably never receive in this lifetime. I sometimes avoid talking to certain people simply because they talk so arrogantly about their beliefs and why they "know" that they're right. Sometimes my stomach just can't handle another debate about creation vs. evolution, free will vs. predestination, cessation vs. continuation, or any of the numerous other topics that people dance in circles around. Because when it comes down to it, I'm skeptical by nature and cannot hide it anymore.

I'm skeptical.

I grow tired of people assuming they know me when their presumptions regarding my faith and resolve are probably wrong. The truth is, I don't believe in a God who satisfies the emotions or the intellect. I don't believe in a God who fits into a box of understanding. I can't justify it when there are so many Christians with so many different conclusions that they come to by the same word. Each will claim to have the (or a) correct interpretation of scripture, but it only leaves me skeptical. Who, if anyone, is right? Augustine? Luther? Calvin? Piper? Wright? Lewis? Sproul? Moody? Chan? Cottrell? Driscoll? Reese? Moore? I shake my head and walk away from the table.

I grow tired of sitting in chapel and listening to the same words repeated over and over. I grow tired of being asked to agree to lifestyle guidelines that I don't agree with. When I see content and formatting being changed to satisfy the donors who fund this college, my mind flashes to Galatians 1:10 and I question the motives of those on the board of directors. And when I'm urged not to question but to "simply trust", I question the person urging me. Perhaps life was just easier when I was more naive, but I cannot pretend as though I can't see what's going on. 

I question everything around me.

I'm not one to intentionally step on toes, but I'm not here to please anybody. I can't pretend that just because I'm a bible college senior I have it all together. The truth is, I don't. I don't have the passionate zeal that I used to and half the time I wonder why I follow Jesus at all. Just as much as I question why I follow Jesus, I question the Jesus I'm following. Am I following the real Jesus, or am I following some 21st century idea of Jesus diluted by two millennia of theologians, polluted by postmodern philosophical ideals and catered to those with the funds to line the preacher's pockets and fill the institution's coffers? More importantly, how am I to know the difference?

I've abandoned the Jesus I was handed in youth groups under the conclusion that what I was given was really just a fluffy idea under the label of Jesus designed for the purpose of behavior modification. I've left the image-obsessed tabernacle of name-it-and-claim-it, feel-good preaching designed solely for the purpose of keeping the business of the church economically stable. I grew tired of seeing demonic activity passed off as workings of the Holy Spirit. I grew tired of false teachers forcing and coercing false phenomena and passing them off as genuine miracles.

I grew tired of this so-called "Christianity."

But ultimately I'm concerned. There is a longing inside every person for something more, and I'm no exception. I want to follow Christ, but I'm afraid of subscribing to yet another idea that will only lead me to live again by what I see. If I am to walk by faith and not by sight, am I to trust that what I see is not what is? Or am I to have faith that what is is not what will be? Too often I forget that the hope Jesus promised to his followers is not for this life. I find myself looking for an anesthetic when Jesus promised that this life will bring troubles and pain. 

Perhaps I'm too self-aware for my own good, delving deep into parts of my mind that I suspect may be best left untouched. But what I've discovered is that once something is known, it cannot be un-known. Each new thing I discover affects the rest of my being in ways that I can't entirely explain. It leaves me trying to reconcile fact with faith and once in a while I come up short. Sometimes I need to question and re-assess things I had previously accepted as true in hopes that I'm not just believing blindly. Sometimes, I find myself doubting, trembling on the edge of disbelief, searching, asking for answers that I'll probably never receive in this lifetime. Sometimes, I find it hard to believe.

I'm not afraid to admit that.

Cutter

My teenage years could be summed up in the scars which adorn my body.

I can feel them when I fold my arms. I see them in the mirror every time I take off my shirt. There's a reason why I prefer to wear jeans instead of shorts. I look down and see exactly where and how I slashed my left arm open in the bathtub, the way the lines start thin on one side and become thicker toward the other. The story continues in the white dots flanking alongside two of them, telling of how my arm was sewn back together. Another scar, near the bigger of the two, tells its own story of a morning before school. I remember resting the box cutter against my arm and flicking it downward, watching for the first time as my skin split open. Another scar on top of my forearm stands as witness to a week spent scratching myself with a blade I had removed from a pencil sharpener. The stories could continue on for pages.

Each scar contains a memory, some of which still cause me to cringe upon remembering. Admittedly, some memories are clearer than others, while some I no longer remember at all; for the most part, though, I'm still able to recall when, how, and even why most of them came to be. Each scar had its own reason for coming to be; some were placed out of boredom while others were conceived in depression or anger. Each stands as a reminder of a life once lived, loathed, and nearly ended. Each scar reminds me who I used to be.

Cutter.

That was the label given to me during my junior year of high school by the powers that were in what seemed a pitiful, if concerted, effort to objectify my need for help. Dangerous, Unpredictable, Unstable, and Untrustworthy were other names I frequently heard used to fill in the blank after "Ben is…" I was surrounded by teachers, counselors, a therapist, and a social worker. Each had their own two cents to throw in about what I should or shouldn't be doing and who I should or shouldn't be spending time around. Ironically, it was in the company of those I was told not to be around where I found acceptance while those who were put in place to help me didn't seem to want to be around any more than I wanted them around.

The school board placed me under continuous supervision after finding razor blades in my backpack so they could make sure I wouldn't hurt myself "or others". This meant I couldn't be anywhere on school grounds alone. I had to go straight to the office every morning upon my arrival at school, where I would sit and wait for a teacher to come and escort me to my first class. At the end of each class, while all the students filed out of the room, I had to wait for that same teacher to come and escort me to my next period. I was told it was for "protection." When I inquired, "Whose?", they said "Ours." When I asked, "From whom?", I was told, "From you." Shortly after, I was expelled because I was labeled as a liability.

Cutter: that is what they called me.

It was in the isolation of my bedroom that the depression grew deeper and the cutting more frequent. I developed a staunch preference for jeans and dark shirts because they hid fresh wounds. I became an avid internet-dweller as well, and it was during this time that my penchant for online forums came into being. I developed "online" friendships with people all over the world (some of whom I still talk to today) and spent a lot of time talking to people from behind a keyboard. Since I wasn't going to school, I spent several hours a day playing guitar while my dad was at work, and my musical abilities grew. If I wasn't playing guitar or tooling around on forums, I was writing and publishing short stories, poems, and songs.
 

I had plenty of positive, constructive outlets through which I could vent emotions, yet the cutting continued. There was plenty to keep myself occupied with and people from multiple time zones to talk to at any time I wanted, but I still spent the vast majority of my time trapped in self-loathing. Ironically, it was a place I came to feel comfortable in, with walls that I built myself and carefully maintained. I spent so much time in my room that it felt like a prison and I had to get out. I spent so much time in my mind that it felt like a casket, one I didn't want to leave because it had a nice pillow. At one point, the lines between abstract and concrete blurred, I lost all sense of time, and I didn’t even leave my room; simply going to the kitchen became a frightening endeavor, and the back yard exhausted my energy.

I had cut myself off from the real world.

Eventually, thanks to my dad and my therapist, I was somewhat forced to get out. This presented itself in the form of a job. Still, the cutting continued and it was during the summer of 2008 that the two most prominent scars on my arm came to be while I laid in a bathtub. I only attempted suicide one time; I couldn't bring myself to do it again. I couldn't even bring myself to cut again after that. It took a long time to forget what the inside of my arm looks like, but I still remember watching my blood literally pour out. It was a very gruesome experience, and one that I will spare you the disgusting details of. Nevertheless, my days of self-mutilation were over.

I began to change after that. Christ began to slowly work in my heart, gradually drawing me toward salvation. It wouldn't be for another six or seven months that I'd finally respond to that prompting, but when I did, my thinking began to transform. I was still primarily focused on negativity like I was before, but this time I began to see an alternative to what I was doing. I knew I didn't have to stay stuck in the same cycle; I could choose to pray and ask God for help. This simple knowledge would save my life on numerous dark occasions during subsequent years. To some it may seem like a crutch, and frankly, it was.

It still is.

I'm not ashamed to admit that there are times when I have to use Jesus as a crutch. I'm not perfect; I fall down, and I need help getting back up. To say anything different would be a downright lie. Sometimes I sustain an injury and I need help walking afterward until it heals; sometimes, I need a crutch. And it's during those times that I'm reminded how blessed and loved I am that the King of the universe would want to be that crutch for me. It's just as humbling as it is helpful, but that's what my Father does for His kids (1 John 3:1).

Yet the cutting continued.

Wait, what? But, the cutting had ended, right? Ben, you're not making any sense here.

Though I wasn't cutting myself physically, I was doing so in other ways. I would look at my scars and say things like, "If I wasn't so stupid, I wouldn't have these scars. If I had done it right the first time, I wouldn't be alive to see where I was sewn back together." I traded razors for damaging relationships, broken pieces of glass for the bottles they came from, doubt for drugs, and dove deeper into self-loathing. I wasn't cutting myself physically, but I was still a cutter at heart. The only difference was that I had traded immediate, short-term self-harm for progressive, long-term self-harm. Though I knew of better alternatives, I was still convinced of the idea that what I was doing was all I deserved. I longed for better, but I couldn't bring myself to accept anything more than what was right in front of me.
 

This "cutter" mentality, as I'll call it, blinded me to anything beyond a moment in time. I clung desperately to anything and everything that I could immediately take hold of. I felt like my life was spinning out of control. To an extent, it was; to another extent, it had always been spinning out of control and I was finally realizing it. I can't pinpoint exactly when things began to change, because the truth is that coming out of the "cutter" mentality was a long, slow, and painful process. I had listened to stories of people who had virtually "changed overnight", as if something clicked in their sleep and they woke up with a totally new outlook on life. All these stories told me was, "If so many people are experiencing this, what's so wrong with me that I can't break out of this?" It all made me feel worthless.

I wasn't cutting anymore, but I was still a cutter.

Even today, it can be difficult. There are times where I have to slow down, get away from everything and everyone, stop, and listen for that still small voice that speaks light into my darkness. There are still times where I have to humble myself and listen to God reminding me that I am His child. There are still times where I want to cut myself off. I'm not sure if this desire is fed by my introversion or the desire feeds my introversion, but I do know that if I'm not careful, I can get trapped in a cycle where both become true simultaneously; at that point, it takes somebody stepping in and pulling me out. This actually happened just last semester. It took pneumonia to slow me down enough for two good friends to intervene.

I don't think I'm alone in this. The cutter mentality is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. There are some that I can see it in just as clearly as I can see my face in a mirror. It's one thing to know what the Bible says about how God sees us, but it's another thing entirely to believe it. I confess that my number one struggle is believing that the words recorded in Scripture which speak of who I am in Christ are actually true. Even as a fourth-semester advanced Greek student who is able to dissect the original texts and see what the English language is incapable of expressing (which, by the way, blows my mind every single time), there are times where it feels like nothing more than words on a page. Just like my past sometimes feels like nothing more than scars on my arm.

It's true: my past could be summed up in the scars which adorn my body.

It very well could be, but that's not the end of the story. Yes, there are scars on my body that speak of a life once lived, loathed, and nearly ended, but that's not all that they speak of. They speak of a kind of grace which can only come from God. Anyone who has heard my testimony has heard me say this: Jesus found me in a bathtub full of my own blood. And it's true; that's the day when He started to stir in my heart. But Jesus isn't the only one who found me there; it was my dad who pulled me out of the tub and took me to the hospital. I can't even imagine what that felt like; how much more does Jesus agonize over us while interceding on our behalf to God?

When I look at old photos of myself, I scarcely recognize who I'm looking at; not because of what I looked like, but because of who I was. I'm sure many of you can relate. Who I am is nothing like who I was, and that is by the grace of God. If you're like me and find yourself sometimes stuck in that "cutter" mentality that says "I don’t deserve anything more than this," then I have 20 things that have been shared with me which I would like to share with you.

 

1.   You are a new creation in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

2.   Your new self is righteous and holy. (Ephesians 4:24)

3.   You are a friend with God. (John 15:15)

4.   You are a child of God. (John1:12; 1 John 3:1)

5.   You are an heir with Christ. (Romans 8:17)

6.   You are justified and redeemed by Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:24)

7.   You are not condemned by God. (Romans 8:1)

8.   You are chosen to be holy and blameless before God. (Ephesians 1:4)

9.   You have been accepted by Christ. (Romans 15:7)

10.  You have been set free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

11.  You are redeemed and forgiven by the grace of God. (Ephesians 1:7)

12.  You are a member of Christ's body and a partake of His promise. (Ephesians 3:6)

13.  You have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption in Christ. (1Corinthians 1:30)

14.  You are the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

15.  You are no longer a slave. (Galatians 4:7)

16.  You have been set free. (Galatians 5:1)

17.  You have access to God through faith in Christ. (Ephesians 3:12)

18.  You are one who overcomes in Christ. (1 John 5:4)

19.  You are chosen and loved by God. (1 Thessalonians 1:4)

20.  You have been made complete in Christ. (Colossians 2:10)

I am not who I used to be, and if you are in Christ, neither are you. I may have to remind myself of this on an almost-daily basis, and I may sometimes need other people to step in and remind me of it, but it is true nonetheless. There will always be the voice from my past which whispers names that I used to be labeled with: "Cutter, unstable, unpredictable, untrustworthy, untrustworthy, dangerous, depressed…" The list could go on. I can choose to listen to that voice, or I can choose to listen to the only Voice that really matters, which speaks names like, "Loved, Worthwhile, Made New, Redeemed, Chosen, Complete, Accepted, Free, Heir, Partaker, Righteous, Friend, Son, Forgiven…"

I know which voice I choose to listen to.

What about you?

One Little Lie

When I was 8 years old, I told a lie.

I had just moved in with my dad after living with my mom. We had driven to my mom and stepdad's house to pick up my older brother for the weekend. While we were waiting in the car for him to come outside, I watched my stepdad walk between the house and his minivan, loading rifles into the van for hunting (or so I had assumed). I didn't like my stepdad, and my dad liked him even less; but I loved my dad and pictured him as this superhero. I noticed my dad's hands clenching as he watched my stepdad. Then an idea crept into my already-corrupted young mind: what would happen if my stepdad were to point one of those rifles at us? I bet it would make my dad like me even more (8-year-old logic). So I looked at my dad and told a little lie.

One little lie seemed so innocent.

By the time we reached the police station to file an official statement, my mind had already grown that little lie into a full-blown mental fantasy, and my young mind had a difficult time differentiating fantasy from reality. Moreover, I didn't understand situational gravity or the concept of ramifications. So, I told the police the same thing that I had told my dad. They believed it, and so did my dad. At that point, I believed it myself because I was so immersed in the mental fantasy I had created around that one little idea. And so I believed it for years after.

One little lie had become my reality.

The last memory I have of my stepdad comes from when I was 10. I was visiting my mom's house one weekend; it was my first time seeing her in months. I recall cowering in a corner while he towered over me screaming "I hate liars! I hate liars!" I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just sat there quietly cowered over in a ball; but the words stuck in my mind. That was the last time I ever saw my stepdad. I wouldn't hear from my mom for the next decade. I didn't know it at the time, but my stepdad had made it clear to my mom that I wasn't allowed to be a part of their family. His reason was valid enough: I had lied about him, and refused to admit it. That lie almost ruined his life and his own family. One little lie had wounded him beyond what he was willing to forgive.

One little lie destroyed my family.

It wasn't until I was 12 that I realized I had lied about my stepdad pointing the gun. I would sit, night after night, playing through that memory in my mind, allowing myself to see it objectively. Over and over, I watched him simply walk from the house to the van, the rifle in his right hand, pointed slightly at the ground and away from people and vehicles, until he put it in the back of that blue Ford Aerostar. I tried convincing myself again and again that I just wasn't remembering it correctly, but the more I played it back in my mind, the clearer and clearer it became. I wanted to tell my dad, but I couldn't; I was too afraid to speak up, and so the reality of that one little lie began to slowly eat away at me.

One little lie was eroding my sanity.

As self-esteem gave way to self-loathing, I began to hide away in my mind, creating fantasies based on memories, in which I would tweak one thing here, another thing there, until I felt more comfortable in isolation than I did in the company of other people. I developed social anxiety and a horrid stutter that made it so I couldn't even utter a single word. People laughed at me, I lost any semblance of friendship I had with anybody, and I became the outcast that the outcasts didn't even talk to. I dreamed of having friends, but I was the outcast, so instead I created friends in my mind that I would talk to out loud in public. I would walk to and from school taking strange routes, just so I wouldn't see other people. At home, I would retreat to my bedroom. When my older brother stopped coming over on weekends, I would just sit by myself and build things out of Legos. When I would get stir crazy, I would go out and get myself into trouble. I developed sticky fingers and started getting arrested for theft quite a bit. By the time I was 15, I found myself incarcerated for 13 1/2 months in a maximum-security juvenile corrections facility in northern Wisconsin.

Granted, there were numerous other factors involved in the whole decline, and several other things were going on during all that time which contributed to my strange state. However, (the reality of) that 'one little lie' was quite possibly the primary catalyst, the first thing that got the stone rolling.

For years I dreamed of having a relationship with my mom, and I would always wait in hopes that she might call. Of course, the call never came. Eventually, I started to hate my mom just as much as I was hating my dad (another story in itself), which caused me to simply hate myself even more. When people would ask about my mom, I would just tell them "If she died tomorrow, I wouldn't care." For a small part, it was true. I believed it, even though I was lying to myself. Though the main cause for my downward spiral into suicidal depression around 16/17 was stress and anxiety, that 'one little lie' certainly played a substantial role. One of the main reasons why I cut myself was because of that 'one little lie'.

One little lie was ruining my life.
 

The shortest route home from my high school took me right past my mom's house, but seeing the house just brought more pain in knowing I wasn't welcome there. Even on the coldest days (and Wisconsin gets pretty cold), I would walk the long way around to get home. My dad continually blamed my mom for not letting me go and visit her, saying that if she really loved me she would call me. As always, he blamed it all on her. In hindsight, I don't blame him. After all, though I knew that 'one little lie' to be what it was, he still believed it to be reality. I couldn't handle it. I was falling apart (well, more than I already was) and I reached a breaking point.

Finally I came clean. I told my dad about that 'one little lie' and what really happened all those years ago. Of course, he didn't believe me. In hindsight, I don't blame him for not believing me. What parent would believe that their 8-year-old child would (or even could) tell such a heinous lie? This drove me further away from my dad, and what was left of our relationship at that point plummeted to the brink of nonexistence. I would leave home for days at a time to avoid him. I distracted myself from thinking about my dad with just about anything I could. Mostly, this consisted of girls and cutting. I ended up getting expelled from school during this period, and that was when other things began to temporarily take over my thinking.

One. Little. Lie.

Fast forward from spring 2008 to November 16th 2011. I was 20. Things between my dad and I had improved, and Christ had gotten hold of me (which is another story in itself). It was my first semester of Bible college, and I had just recently told my dad I wasn't going to be returning home for Thanksgiving break. It had been over a decade since I had last seen my mom, and I had come to a point of accepting the consequences of that 'one little lie' as being permanent and irreparable. I was sitting out in the lobby between classes, and decided to pull my phone out of my pocket to check my text messages. I noticed I had four missed calls, so I decided to check them. All four said "mom" (because, for some reason, I elected to have her number stored in my phone despite not even remembering what her voice sounded like). I did a double-take to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Four missed calls within a ten-minute period, all from mom.

Time stood still.

I called her back. She answered. There was no awkward introduction; there was no "Hey, it's been a long time." I simply asked "Hey, you called?" The reply came.

"There's been an accident. Brian's dead."

Blur.

My stepdad. Dead.

In an instant, 'one little lie' didn't even matter anymore. An impenetrable wall which stood firm for a decade through my adolescent and teenage years suddenly came crashing to the ground. My entire world was flipped upside-down. I called my dad back to tell him what had happened, and that I would be driving home for break so I could see my mom. I was offered a free pass to leave school a few days early for the family emergency, but I declined, electing to stay and finish out the week of classes before returning home. I needed time to process through the phone call and its implications before I just jumped up and left.

The drive home seemed longer than the initial drive down to Missouri. I stopped at my dad's house for ten minutes and immediately drove over to my mom's house. Walking in for the first time, I turned and saw a middle-aged woman curled up on the corner of a couch. I knew it was my mom, but I barely recognized her. I knew she had just lost her husband, but I was overwhelmed in the moment by anger. How could this woman go an entire decade without trying to contact her son? I had to ask her. So, in all my selfishness and anger, I asked her why she never once called me. Her response, which I will not disclose here, had the effect of a wrecking ball that destroyed my fortress of anger. As if my world could not have been flipped any more, it was in that moment. I had a mom again, and at that point, that was the only thing in my life which mattered to me.

Oh, there's one little thing I forgot to mention.

I didn't just have a mom again. I suddenly had a little brother. He was 15 at the time, the son of my mom and my stepdad, and he had just lost his dad forever. I wished to empathize, but I couldn't. He had loved his dad while I had spent a decade hating him. Water met fire in my mind. I don't remember speaking to him even once during the entire break. Through the ten days of being home, I was too stunned, too overwhelmed by new information, to interact. I wasn't the only one, though. We were all stunned by everything that was going on. Our lives (mine, my mom's, and each of my three brothers) were changed permanently.

Over the last couple years now, I've been incredibly blessed to be able to build relationships with my mom and little brother, and to rebuild with my older brothers. I remember a conversation with my mom in which I told her I wished for years that we (her, my stepdad, and I) could have simply let go of the past and started over on a clean slate. She told me she had presented the same idea to my stepdad a couple times, but he wouldn't go for it. There was a wound in his heart from my 'one little lie' that he only saw one cure for, and that cure was justice and truth. He wanted his name cleared. He wanted the mark on his record blotted out. In a way, I can empathize with him.

To this day, my dad still does not believe me when I tell him that I had, in fact, lied as a child. Again, I really don't blame him for not believing me, no matter how frustrating it can be. But at this point, it doesn't even matter anymore. What matters is that I learned, in the most difficult way possible and over a 12-year period, how much 'one little lie' can wound and destroy. One little lie cost me my family and from that point, I never knew what family could be besides broken. It wasn't until I recently got pneumonia that I was able to see, even briefly, what family could be.

Throughout the writing of this post, God has reminded me of a few things that I'd like to share with you. The first is that one's past does not dictate or determine one's future, though choices always have consequences. The second is that I have been made new in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), and I am not who I used to be. The third is that the past is irreparable, but the future is left to choice. Nothing can change what has already taken place, and the only way out is forward, but the path laid out before me is never set in stone. I always have a choice. The fourth is that no matter how foreboding or insurmountable something may seem, nothing is too great for God to handle. The thought of having a relationship with my mom had become something I had written off as impossible by the time I was 19. Yet (this brings me to the fifth thing) just because I had written it off and was done with it, doesn't mean God had written it off and was done with it. He's always working, and He's always there, even in the darkest of times.

When I was 8 years old, I told a lie that cost me everything, and there is no happy ending to this story. There is only solace in knowing that in the ashes of death, life was able to spring forth in the form of renewed relationships with my mom and siblings. There is always beauty to be found in tragedy, though. Where I expected my mom and little brother to harbor resentment toward me, I found only love and acceptance. This reality became clear over this last Thanksgiving break when my little brother hugged me and said "I love you!" Building relationships with my mom's side of the family has shown me that nothing is impossible to God, and the story now is far from over. 

The story is never finished until Christ calls us home.

The purpose of me writing this is so that hopefully something in this will catch your attention and turn your focus toward that reality.

Pneumonia

For Christmas, I got pneumonia, and it ended up being the best gift I could have gotten.

Wait. What?

Keep reading.

Ordinarily, being sick wouldn't bother me one bit. It could happen on any day of the year, at any time (even Christmas), and I wouldn't be very bothered by it. This time around, however, things were different. For some reason I could not initially explain, I was incredibly bothered that I was stuck in the hospital, alone, with pneumonia, on Christmas. It wasn't that I was stuck in the hospital; it turned out to be a rather pleasant place to be and the staff were very friendly. It wasn't that I was sick; I could have cared less about that. It wasn't that I couldn't financially afford to go home and spend the holiday with my family, either--even knowing it would probably by my grandmother's last Christmas being able to recognize any of us. It wasn't even knowing that I wouldn't be able to afford this hospital bill. Yet I found myself bothered. Going back to my journal from December 27th, here is what I wrote:

"So what bothers me? It is the fact that I didn't even want to go home in the first place. It's that even had I been well, I still only wanted to be left alone, despite my nagging desire for company. It was that, even had I never gotten sick or gone to the hospital, I still needed help."

Without going into a great deal of detail, the general backstory behind this post is that for a year and a half, I was stuck in a vacuum of loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, and doubt. By the end of last semester, I was drowning in an ocean of 'what if'. I found myself losing sleep because my mind would not settle down until it had tired itself out from exploring every last 'what if' it could think of--and being an abstract thinker, there's a whole lot of 'what if' to be explored. I'm fairly confident that I would have done better on a couple finals had I not spent so much time pondering things I knew better than to think about.

About a month before Christmas break hit, I had a feeling I would not have the money to make the drive back to Wisconsin, live there for a month (without income), and return to Missouri. A couple weeks later, this knowledge solidified itself into clear reality, so I started exploring various options for where I might stay for break. I landed on house-sitting for a friend who would be going to visit his own family for break. Well, the house turned out to be a garage that was in the process of being converted to a small apartment. It was thinly insulated with a roof that leaked water whenever the ice melted, and heated by a woodstove that leaked smoke. It was fun at first (woodstoves make guys feel manly), but the excitement quickly faded. Within a few days I started feeling sick and within a week I could hardly get out of bed without feeling like the world was spinning around me.
 

Enter family and friends. My friend would come over almost every day to keep me company and simply started taking care of me. I didn't have much say in the matter, either; I could barely take care of myself as it was. In hindsight, I find it ironic that although I wanted to be left alone to sit and sift through my thoughts for a month, I physically needed somebody to be there to take care of me. By Christmas Eve, I could barely look at a screen. I had messaged my dad that I was sick, and his fiancé (yay for a soon-to-be stepmom!) managed to coax me into going to the hospital. Two chest x-rays later, I was told "yeah, you're not going anywhere tonight." From then until waking up the next morning, I don't remember too much.

As I was getting ready to leave the hospital the next day, my friend showed up and invited (more like told) me to stay with her family at least for the night until I could find another place to stay for the remainder of break. One night turned into two, two nights turned into three, and by the third I was invited to simply stay for the remainder of break. If I remember correctly, the wording my friend's mom used was a little bit closer to "well, we figured you'd just be staying here for the rest of break anyway." I was humbled and a little overwhelmed.

For the next two-and-a-half weeks, I experienced something I had never really experienced before: family. Sure, I have family at home, but for along as I can remember, it's always been broken. I've never known what family could be besides broken. This family blew my mind. The parents had been together for 22 years, loved each other deeply, and loved their kids like no tomorrow, and had good relationships with them. More than that, they took me in and loved me like one of their own. To some, this may not seem significant. To me, it was mind-blowing. It was so overwhelming that some nights I retreated to my headphones just so I could try to process through what I was experiencing.

But there's more to the story.

Enter two dear friends from home. They had left their own home in east-central Wisconsin three weeks previously under the assumption they would be gone only three days to speak at a festival in Iowa. God had other plans and told them to keep going, to keep driving. They had no money, and only a few days' worth of clothes each, but they trusted God to take care of them. Three weeks later, they found themselves in Kansas City with a completely dead car battery that wouldn't charge enough to start their vehicle and no money to even fill their tank, let alone buy a new battery.

I didn't actually find out from them that they were stuck there. A mutual friend had made a post on Facebook asking people to donate to their Google Wallet account. I recognized the email and messaged my friend who was stuck asking if he was still in Kansas City. He said yes. Knowing I had little money of my own but also knowing I was the only person they knew in Missouri, I started asking around to see if anyone I knew could donate money to help him out. Of all people, it was my college's interim president who gave me $100 to take to them. I drove to Kansas City, they used the money to buy a new car battery, and, after a phone call to make sure it would be okay, I convinced them to come stay with the family I was staying with at least for a night. One night turned into two, and then they were on their way.

I am completely convinced that the reason God left them 'stranded' in Kansas City is because I needed to see them. During the two days that they stayed with us, somewhere in the midst of our talks, I reached a breaking point in which all of the loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, and doubt I talked about earlier was relieved. I can't pinpoint when, or how, but I know that by the time they left, my faith had been rekindled, the blindfold had fallen away from my eyes, and my heart had started beating again. Even the family I was staying with said they felt blessed by these two 'strangers' they had taken in. But God had further plans for my two friends, and they were back on their way--this time, with a full tank of gas, extra cash in their wallet, and a new battery in their car. And my spirit was filled with peace. For once, I wasn't worried, anxious, or scared. More than that, I found myself eager to return to Bible college for a sixth semester and keep pressing on toward my goals.

So what makes pneumonia the best Christmas present I could have gotten?

I was sick even before I got pneumonia. There was a deeper sickness that needed to be addressed. I knew it was there, but I was too busy running to slow down and deal with it. That sickness presented itself in many ways (symptoms), which I described earlier on in this post. I was too busy trying to hide the symptoms than to stop and address the root cause. Pneumonia forced me to a standstill. Not only that, but pneumonia set the stage for healing to begin. Because of pneumonia, I was able to experience family for the first time. Because of the place I was staying due to pneumonia, I was able to help my friends who were stuck in Kansas City and they were able to have a warm place to stay for two nights. We were able to fellowship together again, and they were able to encourage me in ways I desperately needed. And God worked through all of it. I confidently believe that He worked it all together, and for the good of all of us involved. And for once, I feel alive again.