"Free to struggle, but not struggling to be free"- Tenth Avenue North; The Struggle
I had coffee with Sara today, and after my session with my counselor yesterday, I was worried about the conversation we would have. Yesterday, I think I discovered the core of my struggles: I've been doubting whether or not any of what I have believed or lived for the last 4 years has been true at all. I had not admitted out loud that doubt until yesterday, but it was there. From that initial doubt was the question of if I had ever been truly saved by God. If nothing about God was true, then that question was irrelevant, but if God was real, had I never truly been His child? Had I just been riding waves of everyone else's salvation?
I was hesitant to share with Sara these doubts. I knew that she had been there for me through this rough semester and I didn't want her to know that I had come so far from Jesus. I didn't want anyone to really know that I have actually been doubting my faith. I can only imagine the disappointment when people that have known me for years find out that I have fallen so far. One of my biggest fears related to my doubts has been that I am alone in this struggle. I have known others to struggle here and there, but I don't personally know anyone who has gone through months of no desire or motivation to seek God. I have felt literally as if I am the only one to struggle in this way. I have had no one to tell me that they came out the other side just fine. I have had no one to understand me. At least not that I was aware of or realizing.
Sara shared with me the depression she has experienced and she shared with me that she had doubted her own salvation as well as the existence of God. I wasn't alone. She told me that despite my lack of motivation, my desire to want to desire God showed her that I had truly tasted the goodness of Jesus at least once in my life. It's hard for me to see this from the inside, because all I see are my emotions and the way they don't match up to my actions. All I can see is the heavy psychological weight I have around my shoulders of all the guilt, anger, and sadness I have accumulated over the past 6 months. As someone from the outside looking in however, Sara says that she has never doubted my salvation.
She quoted the Tenth Avenue North song to me and she told me that no matter what, God will always chase after my heart. She encouraged me to pray no matter how silly I feel or no matter how insincere it may seem. To scream it, yell it, or cry it out. To tell God what I think and ask for what I need. She encouraged me to read my Bible, to read anything. To just put myself in a situation where I am around God. She told me that instead of sitting around and waiting for an emotion or waiting for that dark cloud to part, that I should seek God. That even if it didn't feel real and even if it was the last thing I wanted to do, to do it anyway. To ask God to help my unbelief. This advice reminded me of what my counselor asked me to consider last week: what actions can I take to change the outcomes that I have come to expect? If I am sitting around expecting God to appear, but also believing that He won't, I'm setting myself up for failure. So why not take action? Even if I don't want to seek Him, maybe taking action is the way to change my outcomes.
So I think I'm going to try it. I am truly scared that I will find nothing, but while I am struggling with my belief, the voice that says there is hope, there is truth is a little louder than the other. I want to find Jesus again. I want to find eternal joy in Him, and maybe this conversation with Sara today was Heaven-sent. Maybe I needed to hear her words that would spur me in the right direction.
"So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light."- Mumford & Sons; Ghosts That We Knew
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