37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature , shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39 (KJV)
When I wrote this I wasn’t sure I’d actually share it on my blog. I was at home on a Sunday morning. I had woke up too late for early service and had decided to go to an evening service. I was just having an easy morning, nothing had happened to make the waves of sadness crash into the point where I was quietly crying. I was just sitting on the couch listening to praise music, shopping on my Sam’s app for a new tv and electronic gadgets, and crying. I recognized fairly quickly that it wasn’t going to pass if I didn’t address the emotions and redirect. So, I grabbed the nearest pen and notebook, which happened to be my blog idea notebook. The following is what I wrote. I have always been a writer. From a very young age, my psychiatrists and therapists encouraged journaling and I wrote poetry. I found through the years that people don’t generally respect the privacy of a journal or private books of poetry and lyrics. For that reason, I don’t keep a journal so much as that I write in notebooks and pads here and there, on post-it notes, and in my notes on my phone.
Sadness sets in, what do you do with it? Praise music playing and nothing has happened to bring the tears that streak my face. I am not a crier. As a matter of fact, I hate to cry. It makes my head hurt and makes me feel weak so I avoid crying as much as possible.
I know who it is that brings these tears today. The demons that love to torment me are bored today and want to play. There is nothing happening in my world at this moment that opens up the playground for them. So, they will try to create a storm for the playtime.
The all too familiar emotions are coming to crash in on me like a tsunami. I start preparing. I wonder how deep the hole will be that I land in this time. I thought I had made it beyond these waves. Voices start whispering, “When are you going to stop fighting and just lay down, submit, end the fight?” The loop begins of my boys’ faces, flashes of memories from their birth to the present day. I know I will never give in to the pull of ending my own life. My boys may be grown and not need me like they once did but they still need me all the same. Always will.
Although I have messed up a bunch in life (mostly that I make very poor choices in men and my world gets turned upside down as a result), I am a good Momma. I have gotten that one right. I would never hurt my children, not intentionally. I would never abandon them. And this is my lifeline. I grab hold tightly. It is the only thing that prevents me from placing a noose about my neck, always my only lifeline. So, I keep calling up their faces, smiles, milestones, laughs, hugs (they give the best ones) and most importantly their love to keep me from drowning in the sadness.
My boys are my lighthouse in this foreign land that I walk. Their love is a beacon in the storm. Their love always guides me back. I told them so this past year. They know I have never felt at home on earth, but I wasn’t sure if they knew that they are my reason, my every reason to stay. Since I was a small child I have wanted to go home. Home to a place that my eyes have never seen and my feet have never set foot on, but a place that my heart knows perfectly. BUT as bad as I want to go home, I don’t want to leave my babies (yes, they are men, but always my babies).
The world crashed in too hard for me this past year. In recent years I had stopped nurturing my friendships because of an intimate relationship, an unhealthy relationship. I felt I had no one to reach out to when I became afraid of myself one day. I called a Christian woman that I know, respect and have more than just an acquaintance relationship.
Well, that didn’t go so well for me. She informed me that God couldn’t/wouldn’t hear my prayers because I was willfully out of His will. My therapist was repeatedly telling me to get in God’s will. My X was calling, berating me, calling me a whore and other nasty names and saying that I was failing, was a lost soul and a disappointment to God. All of this was too much for me to handle and threw me into utter despair and complete chaos. I had no solution. I had no support and God was being so quiet. This all had been consistently going on for weeks, maybe 6, maybe 8. They had to all be correct, right?
I remember coming home and falling on my knees and then flat on my face, begging God to tell me that He heard my prayers. For a couple of hours, I laid there pleading for God not to give up on me and not to abandon me. I asked Him to tell me how to do what He wanted me to do. I heard nothing from God, only the whispers from demons. They said what they always whisper into my thoughts, “You’re not good enough for God. You have messed up far too much, failed too many times. You are too dirty to ever be washed clean. You’re a whore, a bad friend, and a worse Christian. You don’t have a degree or a thriving career. You don’t make enough money. No good man will ever love you. You are an embarrassment to everyone that loves you. You have no home (that apartment doesn’t count as a home), drive a seventeen-year-old Tahoe and you are old now. You are stupid, gave up your home, quit your job and emptied your savings to move in with someone that never intended to marry you and didn’t love you. You were a placeholder to him. You are nothing to anyone. You will never catch back up to where you were, there isn’t enough time.” And that is all it took for me to decide to give in for good this time.
I didn’t want my youngest son to walk into our apartment and find me and have to live with that image. I found an overpass nearby over a busy part of I20. As I readied myself to jump, I thought “Well, I better hurry before a cop passes by and makes me get down; then I’d just be a further embarrassment to my friends, family and my boys.” Ah, then I thought, “What if I kill the person whose vehicle hits me or lots of people from the crash it may cause? What if me being so selfish takes a child’s Momma or Daddy ? What if I kill a child?” I couldn’t follow through with jumping. I don’t own a gun and wouldn’t even know which kind would get the job done or how long the process is to get one.
I had no health insurance or I would have self-committed to a hospital at this point. Fear owned me. I came home, defeated, frantic and exhausted. I dropped my pride and did something I said I would never do…lean on my children with this dreadful crap. I called my daughter in law and asked if she could speak, that I needed her to hold my hand and guide me through because I was afraid of myself and what I may do. She stayed on the phone for hours with me. She quoted scripture that my soul needed to hear. She helped to unravel the chaos knot that had been created by satan and his demons.
That phone call was one of the hardest I have ever made. I hate for anyone to see me be weak, especially my own children. I am supposed to be strong for them, not the other way around. But I am so glad I dialed her number. When my son got home that evening, I sat him down and told him that I was not in a good place in my head/emotions but that I was fighting it as best as I could. He said, “I had a feeling you weren’t ok”, (and I am very good at hiding behind a fake smile and being jovial). He made me promise I would call him if I ever got that bad again. He spoke his heart and said he could never be without me and I could never take myself from him like that. I already knew those things and it is why I fight so hard when suicide feels like my only option.
Some will say if someone talks about suicide they won’t follow through. Not true! I have first-hand experience with people that have talked about it to me and later followed through with taking their own life. It is an awful feeling to live with the wondering if you could have done more, said the right thing, and been more of what they needed that they would still be breathing air on this earth.
My first attempt was at the age of seven. I have had a few more along the way. My go to was always overdose and sometimes pills and alcohol, with a little reckless living and maniac driving thrown in for good measure. At seven I ate every prescription and over the counter medication in Granny’s kitchen cabinet. There were a lot. I spent several months in Brookwood hospital my tenth-grade year following a nervous breakdown after a rape, then an abortion. I was sure I had sentenced myself to hell by having done that to my own child. It is something I continue to deal with, and I am not sure that I can forgive myself for such an unspeakable act.
Today, when the whispers came, I wrote this post. My hope is that if you read this and you’re at the end of your rope…well I am asking you to please not let go. Fight! If you are reading this and have a loved one that is not in a good place, be there for them, even if you just sit silently with them. People have always said that I am “so together, so organized, so composed”. And I have not let but a handful know the side of me that struggles so hard sometimes. I’m a proud creature and I also don’t like to ask for help from anyone. But now, I’m wondering if I share this all that just maybe it can encourage another to dig deep and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Seldom will people be brave enough to tell you how desperate they are. It is embarrassing and you feel like such nuisance. If someone speaks about suicide, please don’t write off the very real possibility of them carrying through with it. For goodness sake, stop calling someone trying to reach out and asking for help attention seeking!
I imagine that not all who long for death have the lifeline that I possess. And that is why even when I sense someone is the least bit not ok, I sincerely ask “Are you ok? Are you mad/sad? Do you need to talk?”
I have stopped believing that I can lose my salvation. I started believing that God fully loves me just as I am. I started putting on the armor of God EVERY day, without fail, because I know who/what I am fighting against now. I have stopped believing what the demons whisper into my life. Although the demons whisper still, I no longer buy into their lies and I haven’t fallen into their traps since the day I decided that God wouldn’t take my salvation away because I fail as a Christian. When they speak death, I speak God’s promises back to them.
My life is by no means perfect and I am just a messy, shattered and broken sinner saved by His grace. I am learning not to panic. I am learning to trust God more and more and I am learning to say it is well with my soul. Not because I have given up but because I know that whatever satan does to me, however people hurt me, no matter how many times I fail at being in God’s will…He will not abandon me. I cannot be bad enough for Him to stop loving me. He knows my heart, he knows me fully and He knows that I am trying.
I choose life. Every morning I open my eyes I say “Thank you, God!” and I choose life. The demon of suicide no longer owns me, it no longer has great power in my life and I no longer believe its lies. Fear is a liar and I now understand this completely. I hope you all choose life.
This song has had such an impact on my life. I listen to it almost daily and have for 6 months now. Check out “You Say” by Lauren Daigle on Amazon Music. https://music.amazon.com/albums/B07LFP4R32?do=play&trackAsin=B07LFPHNVZ&ref=dm_sh_MqpNlGiZpmck4OCVoRuVngBqh
Just Shae It 