Your heart won’t stop coming after me
11 years ago when I was just 19 years old, I was at my very lowest in my anxiety and depression. So low that I attempted suicide. In my darkness I thought I would make everyone else's lives better by leaving this earth. I felt worthless as I took handfuls of pills of many kinds.
In the midst of my total darkness I got a phone call from a friend. Someone I had tried pushing away in the deep of my pain. She knew something was wrong as I explained I needed to get off the phone. She had no idea I had depression. She had no idea what was going on behind my side of the phone call. But God told her to call 911 on me. She felt queazy knowing that if she was wrong, I would probably never talk to her again. Moments later paramedics came to my door threatening to knock down the door if I didn't let them in. As they rushed me to the hospital to rid my body of all the medicine, I felt something crazy within my heart. I felt something unique. I felt God reminding me of his realness.
See, in the two years prior to my attempted suicide and that moment in particular, I questioned why God would allow me to feel this pain. Why he would allow my heart to be unable to feel joy. But when I was in that ambulance and in that hospital bed feeling physically and emotionally at my worst, I was reminded that I wasn't able to feel that joy because I didn't allow myself. While I was pushing my family away. While I was pushing my friends away. I was also pushing my Heavenly Father away as well. While everyone loved me and wanted to see me feel joy, I refused to let that love in.
Don't get me wrong, life since my attempt to leave this earth has not been easy. I still feel depressed. I still feel anxious. It's a part of me. It's a part of my story. But the difference from before to now? I no longer see it as the worst part of me. I see it as an opportunity. Shoot, even a gift. In the midst of that inner struggle, I am reminded that I am in need of my family. I am in need of my friends.
Most importantly, I am in need of my Heavenly Father. In my pain and in my sorrow, I know deep in my heart that I have my God whose heart won't stop coming after me!
