The Storm

There you are...on your beautiful little sailboat, gliding across the sparkling turquoise sea.. diamonds of light dancing off the sun-filled waves. The horizon is brimming with the promise of golden sunshine. You imagine the few passing clouds as your friends, puffy and white. They disappear quickly while the water passes effortlessly by your boat. Seagulls and pelicans fill their gullets every sunrise and sunset. It's a joy and privilege to behold! Family and friends cheer you on as the shoreline always remains in sight. You bask in the life you've built and come to love, with the help and blessing of God...

Every now and then you lean down to let the warm water caress your fingers...You close your eyes. Mmmmmmmmm...This boat practically sails itself. The breeze is steady. Your sails stay full and you just keep moving along, as if on air. Comfort, security, love. This is the only boat you've ever sailed...the only boat you have ever needed. It's your boat and she's a beauty. These waters, they're the only beautiful, tropical waters you've ever known. They're yours. You own them...

Or so I thought.

A more experienced sailor sees the storm clouds approaching and knows what to expect.

I, on the other hand, had never seen clouds, let alone clouds like these. To say I was caught completely off-guard would be a gross understatement.

When the first cloud appeared, I shouldn't have assumed it was just an isolated cloud... a job loss with some financial setbacks. Surprising and unexpected, yes, but I prayed and trusted God to handle it. Very soon, however, another cloud, a darker one, came to join it and clung stubbornly to the first. I
looked up and wondered, "God, what's going on?"
Silence.

Yes, God became very quiet.

Still the clouds persisted in a steady procession toward my boat. Was this a storm? I had never seen this sky before. The wind picked up. My boat began to dip up and down in the now steadily rolling waters. My heart sank. A sense of fear and sadness spread over me.
"Lord, what is happening?"

By the day my diagnosis arrived, my head was nearly engulfed by clouds of varying degrees of gray, ranging from gray-gray to charcoal. I could barely make out the outline of my bow, let alone the shoreline. Thick waves of smoke-like clouds began billowing all around me. The sea was churning that day as I sat in my Beetle in the doctor's parking lot, sobbing loudly. I glanced around...noticing I was alone now.

The dipping of my boat began to give way to some serious rocking. The waves swelled and broke
over the bow. The rudder and tiller no longer responded. Adrift, I was at a loss, helpless to navigate, barely able to hang on. What was that? New fear, like I had never known. You might call it terror.

Unable to find a bird or star now, I couldn't see the angry water anymore. How long had it been since
I had located the horizon? I couldn't recall. The lightning and thunder never stopped. I was scared to death. The noises awakened me in the night. I would pray for them to stop.
They didn't.

When the hailstones hit, I knew I couldn't survive. I couldn't duck fast enough. The loss of the
business now.. More money gone. My daughter's diagnosis. Another daughter run down in the street by a drunk driver...

'What? Is this real?'
"I can't take anymore. When will it end..? Please, God...! Please!"

The perfect storm continued pounding me. My muscles failed. The ER was becoming familiar now.

Aware of what was going on around me, but unable to cope, I faked it through each day. Very alone, isolated and lonely, I remained terrified, as the darkest clouds and strongest winds overwhelmed me. Nightmares accompanied me in the wee hours, along with something new, panic attacks. The waves pounded relentlessly while the hail pelted.
I knew my once safe and beautiful boat was about to capsize.
"Please make it stop!" ...I repeated this prayer thousands of times in the 3 years of the perfect storm.

"God, are you still there? Where have you gone? Why did you leave?  Jesus...?
.....But that wind just swept up my words and carried them off to nowhere...

My head recalled the Scriptures but my heart could not discern Him...and my ear could not hear Him. It was hard to pray. Without Him, my heart began to despair.

I began a new strategy for survival. Each day I counted the hours I was forced to be awake...15!  Fifteen hours until I could go back to bed... If I took enough of the right pills, at the right time, I'd sleep through the night.
This was my 'life.'

"Just tell me everything's going to be ok. Someone, Please!?"
But no one did.

I'd have done anything for safe anchorage. A harbor. A dock. A buoy. Anything.
I called out faintly to others, but they couldn't hear me.

They didn't live in the storm.
They had no idea that this storm was wiping me out.

I'm not sure when it happened, but I recall being aware that my boat had simply vanished. Gone. I tried, desperately, to find it. It was nowhere to be found. What happened? When was I left alone to tread water out here? (Did I abandon ship? Or did I capsize?)

If I could just get back to my beautiful boat!

It was back there somewhere, along with my calm, warm, turquoise waters and the familiar feel of my boat gliding across the sea. I kept reaching back, with all the strength I had left in me. 'It's back there. I know it is!'

"I will never leave you, nor forsake you."
'Are you sure about that, God? Because it sure feels like you're gone.'
To me, at that time, if it felt like He was gone, He might as well be gone.

My relationship with God was in some kind of dramatic transition, suspended indefinitely, as far as I
knew. Was He ever coming back? Could I cling to what I knew to be true from His Word or would I
succumb to the power of this tumultuous storm without His fellowship?

People were also gone--relationships with them. They just left. My home was gone. My neighbors too. People I had loved.. My health was gone. The money was gone. The job I enjoyed and found so rewarding was gone. The hedge of blessing surrounding me was also gone. I was left exposed and broken. My hope and optimism had slipped deep beneath the deluge that had overtaken me.

Hurting and desperate, I did not know how to do this life.

I wasn't the first Believer who ever wanted to die, you know. Not even close.

I knew I wasn't being attacked by God. Or judged. Or cursed, or anything like that. Thankfully I had studied the Word of God. I knew it and I knew God. He and I had been friends since I was 12 years
old. For that reason, I never thought, 'Why me?' I only wondered how life would ever make sense again and if God would return. I missed Him and I told Him so... A lot.
I asked Him what purpose He could possibly have for me in all of it.

Somewhere through the darkness of night, in the confusion of that tempest, I had lost hope.
Once that horizon was gone, so was my future. Now, I just wanted relief from the pain and terror.

So I ask you now, 'Is it possible for a "true follower" of Christ to lose hope?'

Yes, I assure you it is. My ordeal was the perfect storm of circumstances to produce hopelessness. The constant pounding of the waves, the darkness, the lightning, thunder and hailstones came together at just the right time, in just the right way, to take me under.

And so, like other believers who have gone before me, I didn't want to go on. And all of these are Hall of Famers...
Moses asked God to just 'go ahead and kill him.' Job rued the day he was born and then wondered why death eluded those who suffer. King David suffered from depression and thought God had forsaken him. Jesus did too. Me too.

Elijah laid himself down under a bush, wanting to die...in 1 Kings 19:3-4

"Elijah was afraid and fled for his life...Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die."
I have also prayed that prayer.

Then there's Jonah. After all his great ordeal with that fish, he still told God he wished he were dead!
Like these great heroes of the faith, I told God the very same thing. Maybe you have too. I hope you have not suffered guilt at the hands of another Christian for your depression or suicidal thoughts, my friend.

See this link for an interesting article on Biblical characters who were tired of it and wanted to leave earth:
http://www.revelation.co/2011/07/16/god-please-kill-me-now-i-wish-i-was-never-born-do-you-ever-
feel-like-dying/

Taking it a step further, I gave thought to helping God accomplish my earthly exit. I even gave consideration to how I might get the job done.
After all, I knew I'd be with Jesus. I knew it would be infinitely better and I know it's not an "unpardonable sin."

I have wrestled with the answer as to why I am still here.
I don't know.

Slowly, and over many days, I began to see the sunrises again. They stirred something in me. God sent people I had never known before to minister to my spirit, like the ministering angels He wrote of in Scripture... They loved me and cared for me and spoke truth to me. (See Matt 4:11 and Heb 1:14)
I could talk to them. I know lots of people prayed for me, too. It must've helped.

Otherwise, I just can't say.

Too many precious people have been lost to suicide. They lost sight of the horizon. The pain was too much. Their loved ones also ministered to them. They prayed faithfully and earnestly for them, but they died.
I can't explain it.

They aren't weaker than me. They aren't lesser people than me somehow. It's not like that. They fought. I know they did. Their lives mattered. Their deaths matter. And their loved ones are left to try and make sense of something they can never make sense of.
It's our responsibility to love them like Jesus would, and to tell them that their efforts were heroic. It's not their faults that the people they love are gone.

Robin Williams' death is a particularly sensitive topic for me. He suffered from depression like I did. He was diagnosed with a movement disorder like I was. He couldn't see a future that included him, just like me. The relentless violence of the storm overwhelmed him.
I get it.

As the months have passed, I wake up each morning seeking out the sunrise. We have spectacular ones here in South Florida. Many days, I take pictures of it with my phone to share with my friends. I have found a life that doesn't include counting my waking hours. I don't recall much about gliding along in a pretty sailboat and my view of the beautiful tropical waters are from the shore now. Life can never be the same. That would defeat the purpose of all I've been through, wouldn't it?

I do see a future for myself, again, but it's only as clear as today. After that, the clouds appear, making the picture a fuzzy gray again. My focus is on today. One day at a time. Cliché, yes, but that's all we're given. 24 hours total. 15 hours waking.

I hope that doesn't sound negative, because it's not meant to be. The precious things held in my heart bring me profound joy. They're small by most people's standards. To me, they're everything... The Word of God, His Spirit that speaks to me once again, the moon and stars He holds in the sky, my beautiful family, including pets, a few friends and my beloved beach.

I'm hopeful.
I have hope for today and hope for tomorrow...not in this life necessarily, but absolute hope in the God I serve and the life that is to come.

I'm joyful.
I have a purpose once again and I'm delighted about the things God is doing in my life and the people He gives me to love. If you are part of my life, it's by design. I will love you to the best of my ability. That gives me joy. "They will know that we belong to Him by the way we love one another."

I'm at peace~usually. "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want." He is with me. He is at my side, tending to me. "He makes me to lie down in green pastures." I rest well. He has restored my sense of well-being. He is leading me beside the still waters, everyday. I drink deeply from His well, and I am blessed.

Thank you for reading, my friends. Im glad you're here... And I'm so grateful to be here too. xx

This song became a favorite in my playlist during the storm...
"Paradise" by Coldplay  I hope you enjoy the YouTube!
http://youtu.be/nSLSkRP6X3U