Dark Night of the Soul
And the land between
Have you ever experienced darkness? Has it seemed longer than a night? How did you get there? How did you feel while you were residing in the darkness? Were you able to pull yourself out?
Life can throw us curve balls. Fear can overtake us. We wonder how we even got to that point. How do we throw off the heaviness and uncertainty that the darkness can bring? How do we get to the place of victory over the issues and problems we face?
This is my story.
Dark Night of the Soul….as explained by Eckhart Tolle:
It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event, some disaster perhaps, on an external level. The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example if your child dies. Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning — and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.
Trusting the process has never been one of my strong suits. Living a life of faith and not fear — yeah, not me. I’ve endeavored to be more trusting, to see the glass half full. Once when I was a kid, I asked my Mom why I never received an Optimist Award that my school gave out each year. Her answer: “Honey, you’re not an optimist; you’re a pessimist.”
Welp.
The last 29 months have been the most uncertain and emotional of my life. After the deaths of my parents — two and a half months apart — my world crumbled before me. Losing my job six months after Dad died basically erased any remnant of self I had left. What was left to live for?
I inherited my Mom’s two cats after she died because I knew my Dad couldn’t (or wouldn’t) care for them. That responsibility itself kept me getting up out of bed every morning. I felt I owed it to my Mom. If not for them, I would STILL be in bed today.
I felt (feel) lost. Some days I don’t know who I am. What I’m supposed to do. Where I’m supposed to go. Literally. I have no idea.
Have you been there before?
Many days, admittedly, I have considered giving up. Ending my life. Completely. Raw truth. But the cats… Seriously. Responsibility is a MF.
My heart is heavy. My body feels like I’m being smothered by the darkness of uncertainty. What purpose do I serve anymore?
Continuous rejection from job applications makes me want to stop wasting my time. I spent thousands of dollars on a masters degree in business and have over 15 years of administrative and management experience, and I can’t even get an administrative assistant position.
Why keep going?
I drove for Uber and Lyft and I couldn’t earn enough to pay my bills, so I sold my car to keep a roof over my head. I had a 4.98-star rating. That wasn’t enough. No matter what I do, it never seems like it’s enough.
So why keep going?
I feel lost. Hopeless. I miss my Mom and Dad. I miss having motivation to contribute to the world. What is my contribution to the world supposed to be anyway?
“My heart is just a prisoner of war…my mind is like a building burning down.” -Tenth Avenue North, Empty My Hands
When I was growing up, I was extremely involved in my church in Indiana. Whenever the church doors were open, my Mom said I was there. But I walked away from the church in 2008 after seeing and hearing things at my then-church that I felt were hurtful to me and those for whom I cared. Backstabbing, mean-spirited conversations behind people’s backs, keeping people from succeeding through opportunity, god-like worship of the pastor, an incessant focus on money & giving and cutthroat tactics between management and staff.
I didn’t see or feel God there. Everything was a performance. Fake. It destroyed my feeling of safety in a place I should have felt unconditional love and security.
I no longer wanted anything to do with the church. I knew God, but I let the woundedness I experienced from people keep me from a relationship with God. If I was going to go back to God, it was going to be on my own terms. I knew God was the place of hope and healing I was searching for. I remember being taught as a child about God’s unconditional love, despite what I have been seeing from ‘Christians.’ I wasn’t ready to return to God yet. But I felt Him drawing me back.
I heard a sermon about a week ago by a pastor from Ada, Michigan, named Jeff Manion. His sermon was entitled The Land Between. I found out he actually wrote a book by the same title. I haven’t read it. But his message during special services at my old home church in Indiana cut me to the core. It was like a spotlight cut through the darkness, as if the clouds parted for a brief moment so I could see God — and understand. Hope.
I don’t understand, still, fully. But I’m learning to trust God through my cries for help and hope, even almost three years later.
Raw, honest truth. This is my story. I cannot run from it. And if I keep it locked inside, it will be more detrimental to my existence.
I am trying to believe there’s something for me, that God has a purpose for me again. Even through my doubts, I’m searching for hope. Through the pain. Through the loss.
God’s word gives me hope. What have I got to lose? Nothing. I have lost everything dear to me already.
Psalm 54:4 Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
What I learned from Pastor Jeff…
Often God will allow us to experience significant pain in order to head off catastrophic pain…it is to rescue us from catastrophic pain, if our course doesn’t correct.
The Land Between
The reason God has them in the desert is because He has them in TRUST SCHOOL.
God’s question to us: “Will you trust me? Will you trust me? Will you trust me?” Trust is the glue that holds any relationship together. We’ve got to learn it here before we get into the land of promise.
Me: God I don’t like this space. I don’t want this space. I don’t understand this space. But I will trust you.
The Land Between is the fertile ground for transformational growth…its also a space where faith goes to die. It can turn you toward the Father, or away from him. We decide. Complaint resists eviction.
Something we may have heard:
Good movement in your life pushes out bad movement. And bad movement in your life pushes out good movement. Trust evicts complaint. They are incompatible roommates and one inevitably pushes the other out.
THIS: The land that we hate the most can produce the fruit we desire the most. The desert that we HATE has the possibility of producing the crop that we most desperately need. That’s where we learn to pray. God’s word becomes dear to us and his promises became deep to us during that time.
Before we went through that season we used words like faith and belief, but we learned how to TRUST God in that space.
We would never wish such a season on our friends, and in our better moments we would not wish them on our enemies. But in that season, God did something in us and I don’t know if we’ll ever be the same. In the desert, we learned to trust Him. In the land between.
In my frustrated pain. God is at his best when I am at my worst. I cannot imagine I would be experiencing this level of sadness, pain and uncertainty without purpose. There HAS TO BE a purpose to it all. I am a firm believer in a reason for everything. So, I will trust. And continue to tell my story. Speak my truth.
Maybe someone else out there is thinking they are alone in their sadness, pain and uncertainty. If I’m just to tell my story so they know they are not alone, then I will tell it.
Trust. Believe. Hope.
Don’t give up. Let’s do this together.
