Blast From the Past

If someone were to ask me, “How’s life?” I would not hesitate to answer, “Great!” However, I would be lying. Ok, maybe I wouldn’t be completely lying because my life is great! I have a career that I enjoy, I live in an amazing apartment with great roommates, I’m included in one of the best missionary communities I’ve ever known, and I’m going out of the country in approximately 3 months! What more could I ask for? Aside from all of that, it seems that there is something very ugly making itself quite apparent in my life these past 2 weeks. This would be the reason for my not-so-honest answer to the question of how life is going.

ARC has been tremendous in the way God has been working in and through everyone. Yet there is something that came over me a few weeks ago. The only way I’ve been able to describe this thing as, is a nostalgic depression. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not depressed or anything, but I have an acute awareness of how I used to feel when I was struggling with depression previously.

We’ve all been through some serious attacks recently. Personally, I haven’t had anything noticeable hit my life, other than this looming gray cloud that I can’t seem to shake. Tuesday night, one of the ARC girls was sharing a prayer request about her family. My heart immediately felt sympathetic, since I’ve also known endless amounts of family tragedies. Then no sooner could I get the ‘awe” out of my mouth, but I instantly felt jealous and angry. Haven’t I been through a lot in my life? Why are you all not consoling me? Just because I’m on the other side of my crap doesn’t mean it hurts any less. Why aren’t I the one you care about? Why don’t you see my hurt? All I could think was, “Where the heck did these feelings come from?”

Then I began to feel my skin crawl. I was trying to exit the shed as quickly as possible; however, because we were in the middle of class, I was painfully trapped! My mind couldn’t focus on one word anyone was saying. There was an iPod playing in the background. I kept straining my ear to hear the songs, and would close my eyes to escape into worship… this being my one sure fire way to find Jesus in the midst of my insane emotions. Success was not found in this attempt. After searching for my escape route and coming up dry, I gave up. I sat there, miserable and barely able to contain the chaos inside of my body. When we were finally nearing the end, I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I was sure that someone would notice that there was a sea of hatred welling up in my mind. Once the end was at hand, without hesitation I grabbed my things and bolted out the door. I tried my hardest to ignore everyone’s ‘Goodbyes’ and made a bee line for my car.

While I was driving home, I literally felt my whole body shiver with the most agonizing uncomfortable feeling I’ve experienced in quite some time. I was upset by my own disgusting display of emotions, because they were so unjustified! I love my friend who was sharing about her life. I want nothing more than for her to feel comfort, and who better to help comfort her than someone who’s been through family issues themselves! My mind was searching for an explanation to this unusually overwhelming feeling but nothing was making sense.

All of these feelings I was dealing with in the days before were just memories of something I felt in my own hard time of life. I knew that nothing going on presently in my personal life was actually causing me to feel depressed or heavy. Of course there is always the ‘spiritual attack’ reasoning, but I was convinced it was something else. Over the years, I’ve grown from completely bottling my emotions to becoming transparent in a healthy fashion. Every once in a while I will become overwhelmed with life or the circumstances presenting themselves and I tend to shut down for a short period of time until I can figure out how to smooth things over. Sometimes I involve a friend or family member to pray with me, other times I keep it to just me and God. With this situation, a very small part of me was whispering to expose the feelings I had been having, and the larger part of me was saying to run away from everyone and keep this locked inside. Unfortunately, I chose the later. I was planning on working things out just me and my good friend Jesus, but then the story progressed. I had some extra time before I had to go to work Thursday morning. While relaxing on my bed I decided to check my MySpace account which I had not done in ages. To my surprise, there were several messages from someone that is directly connected to the largest attack the enemy had ever had on my life years ago. I checked the date the message was sent, and it was sent on the exact day that I had begun having this unnatural heaviness plague my spirit. Right at that moment I knew the enemy was out to ruin me. There were several minutes of confusion and a large portion of my morning spent crying. I praised God that I was not struck with a spirit of fear. I’d like to credit that to the freedom He’s allowed me to experience while ARC has been doing the outreaches in slightly rough areas of Norfolk. However, I knew 20 minutes of crying wasn’t going to be the end of Satan’s scheme.

We recently had a visitor to ARC advice the group that, while our closeness is a gift from God, beware because the enemy may be causing dissention in the group. I fully believe the jealousy and anger I was feeling are quite accurate to this warning. After having a heart-to-heart with my mother the morning of the messages, she said that the emotions I was feeling could have been God’s way of preparing me for this to happen. I fully believe that in the midst of all the glory God is getting, the enemy is digging as hard as possible to corrupt us.

It has been over 4 years since I had to be faced with the people that contacted me. Again, God’s been breaking the fear of man over my life and He’s also been ministering great healings in my life. But I still dreaded the day when something like this may happen. This surprise was definitely not pleasant, but I do have a sense of relief. I’m not glad that I was contacted by any means; however, this brings clarity to the oppression I’ve been feeling and, it brings light to places in my life that God is asking me to surrender.

Now, why do I feel it’s necessary to explain these things? Because, knowing what I’m facing gives me traction in the fight against Satan’s attacks. Also, I want to do anything possible to derail the enemy’s plan against me, and partnering with everyone in prayer is a vital key in this process. I can’t be completely sure what the enemy is trying to do in my life, but I can be welded as close to the Lord as possible until there is victory. If you feel led, please join with me in prayer for this situation, and also pray for a covering for all of the ARC members.

To God Be the Glory!!