I was one of those kids growing up – Sunday school every Sunday, Youth on Wednesdays, attending every event, retreat, and conference that I could. I was the poster child for the good church kid who never made a fuss, never made a mistake. The good kid, without blemish.
When I went away to University, I was no longer surrounded by the safety and comfort of my family and my Church. Everything was new, and it created this spotlight in my life, exposing my imperfections and weaknesses. I let this voice in my head convince me that my life wasn’t what it was supposed to look like. If I was the Christian that I claimed to be, then there should be something different about my life. But there wasn’t. I was a failure. There was something wrong with me. I knew God was real, but it had no effect on the way I lived my life like it seemed to for so many others. Compounding this was the emotional and verbal abuse I experienced at the hands of my coach. Piece by painful piece, my identity was stripped from me. My value was questioned at every turn. Every failure of each teammate and every game was placed on my 18, 19-year-old shoulders. I was publicly shamed for my body, my personality, my beliefs. Nothing about me was worthy of praise. Nothing about me was good enough or strong enough. I was nothing but a disappointment.
After a year of this abuse, I couldn’t take it any longer. When I quit at the beginning of my second year, it was the last tie to any sense of self or identity that I had. I wasn’t that Church kid who went to anything anymore. Neither was I an athlete. What else did I have going for me? What else about me was important? Worthy of note?
Desperate for attention and value and any sense of self-worth or identity, I started to drink and party. Every weekend was spent dulling the pain and trying to fill this void in me that was dark and terrifying. And all the while, that voice in my head continued to heap shame upon shame on me for my actions. I knew what I was doing was wrong in God’s eyes. I knew that this was not right, but I felt like it was too late. I knew better and was willingly choosing to sin. I believed God was real, but that he was indifferent to me. What use could he have for someone who knew better and turned her back on him? It’s not like I was making these choices out of ignorance. I was a sinner in action and thought. Not only was I a bad example, but I was also dragging God’s name through the mud with me, almost maliciously. Daring him to do something about it and prove me wrong.
By the time I was finished my third year of university, I didn’t know if I could carry on. I had spent two years desperate for meaning. To be known and seen and valued. I longed for an identity other than “the girl who couldn’t cut it in athletics” “the quitter” “not good enough” “not strong enough”. I had almost failed all my classes, I couldn’t get out of bed, was struggling to support myself financially, and had no true friends. Everything was superficial and calculated to get me into the right parties in front of the right people. Depression and anxiety ruled my life. I didn’t know how to go on. And that voice in my head continued to call me worthless, pointless, useless, failure, not enough.
Then, one May afternoon, I contemplated going home. To be around my family and back at Church maybe, just maybe, the love that God had for others who weren’t as flawed as I was, who weren’t liars and failures, would overflow and maybe, just maybe, a little bit would come my way. And maybe, just maybe, I could breathe again, if only for a moment. Utterly defeated and ashamed, I hit rock bottom.
And it was in that moment that I felt my very soul cry out to Jesus. This cry left my heart: “God, what do I do?”
I decided that I would go to the local church that I had been to a few times the next Sunday. All I wanted was for the darkness to lift just a little bit so that I could catch my breath. If I was just in a place with good people, maybe I wouldn’t feel like just a waste of space, a useless disappointment, even if only for a moment.
When I arrived that Sunday, I saw a young woman that I had met earlier in the year. She was back from her time at YWAM in Australia and I just HAD to talk to her. My sister was at Capernwray in Australia at the time, and I had this almost feral need to talk to this girl with the hope that I would get just a taste of familiarity and comfort. I was alone, in a dark pit with no way out, and I hoped that she could at lease send some comfort my way.
I didn’t know it at the time, but she was soon to become the most important person in my story next to Jesus. Her story, so similar to mine, was filled with the same sense of shame and emptiness that I had been carrying for so long. Having grown up in the Church, we knew right from wrong and about a God who sent his Son to die for our sins because he loved us so much. We had been captive to the lie that our sins were greater because we knew better. That we had spit in the face of God, and he was done with us. He wasn’t interested in our disrespect, in our blatant betrayal of his Grace. And as we sat in that Starbucks in Camrose, it was like Jesus sat across from me and poured his love out into my empty and cracked heart. Here was the proof I was so desperate for – proof that despite my willful disregard, I was worthy. I was loved. I was forgiven. God’s light shone in the darkness of my soul. He got down in the pit with me, his love, grace, and forgiveness burning away the darkness.
I heard the voice of God for the first time. It happened in a fraction of a moment, but the weight of eternity was behind it. He said to me that I am loved, and that He moves mountains for me, and his desire for me is for me to know his love for me. That his is not disappointed or ashamed of me. That there was nothing I could do to change his mind. That I was his daughter. The darkness lifted, and I could truly breath for the first time. I was not doomed to live outside of his love and goodness because of my mistakes.
There is a song by Seph Schlueter called No Distance, and it sums up my story more beautifully than I can:
“Hope Hope is the song that You’re playing inside of our hearts
You Spoke
And space was erased You are close like the sky to the stars
Known
I am known and I’m loved by the God who would bleed out for me
Home
I’m home in the arms of the One who has come set me free
There is no distance existing in your eyes
You come in close like the sky to the sunrise
Crashing through darkness to bring me to Your Light
Emmanuel
Whenever I hide You will always go seeking
Ready or not, here You come in to meet me
You fight for my heart and you give me the victory
Emmanuel"
The light has shone in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it, and the darkness has not, will not overcome it – God with Us.
First presented Christmas Eve at Cochrane Alliance Church, 2022
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