This morning I woke up at 7:36am. I thought, "Great. I'm up early enough to get the house cleaned, bills organized and maybe even go grocery shopping." For those of us who deal with depression, you know how quickly a good idea becomes a bad idea or how fast a moment of energy can fade into "maybe I'll just stay in bed". I grabbed my computer and logged onto to facebook as this is typically the first thing I do every morning. Scrolling through my homepage, I came across a post on the Grove's facebook page written by my friend Sunia. It was filled with a cry for Jesus stemming from emptiness and desperation. "Wow. This is exactly how I feel" I thought to myself so for that breif moment, I got out of bed and decided to start cleaning. Surely a clean house would make me feel better. I headed downstairs balancing my Bible, ipod docking station and blackberry in one hand. "Don't leave the phone behind," I thought, "I certainly don't want to miss a text message." I turned on Phil Wickham's "Cannons" and within the first notes, I was in tears.
I suddenly realized that I'm sad. I'm empty. I'm crying out for Jesus, but what am I asking Him for? Am I trusting that He knows my heart and my fears? Am I trusting that He knows what's best for me and when its best, or am I asking Him for something that I want and hoping that He'll say, "Ok, Camy. I can see you really need this to be happy so here you go." I'm pretty sure God doesn't work that way. In fact, I know God doesn't work that way. When I think about turning every burden over to Jesus, there is an overwhelming sense of freedom followed quickly by crippling fear because that means I'm no longer in control. The irony is, I'm never in control. Sure, I can decide to get up, clean, grocery shop, but what about the hard stuff? What about the fear of being alone after recently getting divorced? What about the emptiness that sweeps through my own home? I trust that Jesus will take care of me, but when? The answer is I don't know. Let me repeat that, I don't know. What would happen if I removed the "I" factor and settled on the fact that He knows? And when I reach those moments of sheer sadness, sheer lonliness, what if I turned to Jesus instead of facebook? Or opened my bible instead of sending a text message?
I could continue to ask myself a million questions, but here's the bottom line: If I first turn to God in moments of dispair and joy, He becomes my best friend. If I trust that only He can save me, that only He can fill this empty void in my heart, He becomes who I rely on. There is almost a skepticism in fully trusting Jesus because we can't see Him. I haven't physically heard Him say, "Camy, I know you're hurting but trust me and that hurt will subside." But if I look at the last several months of my life, how can I deny that He has been walking next to me through it all? I was at a crossroads when I got a divorce. I didn't know what I was going to do, or how to deal with the death of my marriage. He placed people in my life that encouraged me. People who barely knew me quickly became my family. I developed a relationship with Jesus for the first time in a long time, and I know He's always walking beside me. I am always in the presence of God. He is always speaking to me. He is continuously healing me. And with that, I need to open my heart, my ears, my eyes and continue to trust Him in all things.