the beginning of the end

I started a series sharing my story from my journal that I started writing in January 2010, if you are here for the first time and want to read my story from the beginning it starts with the post on January 8, I apologize I know it is a little long, anyway continuing on….

I had started over many times in the ten years since I had left Wisconsin, when the Army recruiter came knocking on my door to deliver me to basic training.  Being in the military you move often, having to acclimate to a new town, new people and a new job, so by the time I got to Minneapolis, with just a duffel bag in tow, I was a champ at starting again, so I thought Wisconsin was going to be breeze, it was home, familiar territory, the place where I grew up and spent the first twenty years of my life, but home is where I struggled the most.

I got a job almost immediately, and as fast as I got that job, I learned even faster it was not going to last, I felt lonely and isolated and they didn’t like me much more than I like them, that job lasted a very long two months. Things didn’t get any better after that, they only got worse, changing jobs faster than I changed my socks each one worse than the one before, and paying little more than minimum wage, I was a grown woman living with my mother and I couldn’t find a home, and I was struggling to make friends.  I became sullen and introverted and growing increasingly unhappy, slowly and almost unnoticeably I was sinking into a deep  and debilitating depression.  I thought if this is what my life is going to be what is the point of living?  I stood in the aisle of the drugstore fingering the bottle of sleep aids thinking how easy it would be to end it all.

Depression is a funny thing, it sneaks up on you, it slowly envelopes every pore of your being, you don’t even know it is happening, it becomes a way of life, after a while you think it is normal to just exist in comfortable misery, to bide your time until death comes.  Not that I wanted to die, it was just the opposite I wanted to live.  I wanted my life back.

I was tired, lonely and at the end of myself when he came along, the man who would take me away from my miserable existence and fill the empty void I felt inside, and he did for about a minute, but looking back all it did was put a band-aid on the real problem.  I had so much turmoil and anger raging inside me that it consumed me without mercy and there isn’t a band-aid that exists that could contain it, that could stop it from seeping through the cracks, unknowingly the beginning of the end was near, rolling into my life like a tidal wave leaving nothing in its wake. As fast as that relationship blew into my life it blew out even faster, leaving me to pick up pieces of an already shattered and broken life, I was a mere shell of a person, I was dying on the inside and I saw no light at the end of my tunnel, I had enough and seemingly out of no where I fell to my knees before God, not entirely sure why.  What I did know is that I was done, done with it all, done with the constant daily struggle, I was tired of being lonely and depressed, as hard as I prayed satan attacked even harder, he wasn’t letting me go without a fight and I gave into the lies he was telling me.  I was worthless, no one would ever want me, I will never amount to anything this your  life is so get used to, nothing good will ever happen to you.  And I thought he was right, my boyfriend didn’t want me, I couldn't find a place to live every home I put an offer on was either rejected or already had an accepted offer,  my employment situation was less than desirable and I had not a friend to speak of.  

Unknowingly God had other plans, as hard as he tries satan can never outdo God, He was after me with a vengeance and He was not going to let go until He got me.  The home I ended up buying….was across the street from a church.  It wasn’t exactly my dream house, but the price was right and I could manage it financially, money was very tight but I was surviving.  At the time I did not give that church a second thought, as a matter of fact every Sunday morning it was the bane of my existence. Cars would line the street end to end making it virtually impossible to get out of my driveway.  In the middle of all that my uncle, my mother’s brother passed away, and my cousin, at just 30 years old was struck and killed by a drunk driver.

My journey back from hell wasn’t easy it was a long and painful road I had a battle of good and evil playing tug-of-war with my insides. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to eat, it hurt to wake up and it hurt to go to sleep, my skin hurt, but I kept praying.  That is when I found solace in the church across the street, the church that was once the bane of my existence was now my saving grace.  I had such turmoil raging through my head that the only place I could go to find quiet was in that church and I would sit in that empty chapel sometimes for hours because that was the only place I could go to quiet my spirit.  That church is where I could feel God wrap His arms around me, telling me it was going to be ok.  

Please don’t misunderstand me, things did not change overnight, as a matter of fact it would be years before I would feel like a whole human being again. My heart still hurt, I screamed, I cried, I blamed God for everything wrong in my life, I became angry and at times irate with Him, I dug the pew Bible I snagged from the church across the street out of more than a few snow banks and it got dropped kicked around my house more times than I will ever admit.

I know I am ending this a little abruply, but I will continue on with my journey next time.