Recently I received a comment from a friend saying that she is often encouraged by my story. This comment has carried me back into my past. A past I rarely think about anymore.

In the month of May two years ago I packed up my life and entered a residential women’s addiction program in Winnipeg.

Did you know that the enemy of our soul does not want to see our success?

Last Sunday, my church had a potluck lunch after the service. A beautiful couple joined my sister and me at our table and struck up a conversation with us. Since we are “newer” to my church still, it was a “get to know you” kind of conversation. And naturally, I had to tell them parts of my past, to help them get to know me.

The other evening I was sitting on my balcony soaking in the amazing warmth of the spring sun.

The last few days I have been reflecting on this past year of my life.

I know families who are talking to their children about an Easter bunny coming to hide Easter eggs for them this weekend. I know families, my own family included, who have completely abandoned these traditional Christian holidays, considering these long weekend days like any other days in their lives. And I know families who are keeping the Old Testament feasts instead. Each family is doing the best they know or believe.

I have travelled around the sun thirty-four times today. Thirty-four years since I took my first breath. Thirty-four years since the day I was born into the world.

My play observation assignment is submitted. It was a tough one that needed a lot of brain energy and critical thinking. Two more assignments are due by next weekend. One I just need to do a short reflection on yet. And the other one is a group skit in our next Guiding class. Kudos to me!! I'm almost done with round one of the assignments due this term.

The one where you come home from church feeling like your world, which seemed all right in the morning, just caved in on you. Not because the message shared from the pulpit wasn’t uplifting and inspiring. Not because the worship wasn’t beautiful. In fact it was. And the message may even have spoken directly into an area in your life you needed guidance on. But there was something else that triggered a wave of crushing emotions.

It has been a few weeks since I wrote a new blog post. It is not because I forgot about it, but because I have been going through a very personal difficult layer of healing. And I can't honestly and with integrity write beautiful, inspiring blogs when my life is feeling like a wasteland. So I thought I would share the lyrics of the song that I have been listening to on repeat the last few weeks. I hope the words bless you as much as they do me.

I know I have. Many times. My readers know about the darkness I used to live in for years so I will not delve into that now. But I will say that there were so many moments in which I cried out to God, I had people pray over me, yet I always went back home only for the darkness to continue. Only for God to grow even more distant and silent. Or so my disappointment told me. I became disappointed so many times that I began to be afraid to even try another time. I had experienced too many moments of seeming rejection and abandonment

It is a commitment I spent years looking for. I used to try to find it in fellow human wanderers, but I often was let down with disappointment, abandonment, and rejection. I looked for it in the desires of my human nature but found only fading pleasure.

I grew up in an environment that loved truth in disproportion to mercy. An environment that focused on outward works more than on the love of God. And for years I held tightly to those standards myself. I judged others by their appearance and lifestyle. Holding others to standards that we believed were God-given mattered more than accepting them with mercy, grace, and understanding. If someone did not live within my box of what I perceived to be true and right, I deemed them fallen away from God.

After I became a Christian as a young teenager, I spent years living in defeat and darkness. I spent my days fighting with hopelessness, suicidal depression, and crippling anxiety. And soon came to believe that God had made a mistake when He created me. I resented Him for creating me only to then to abandon me to such darkness.

            I am going to be honest. I feel intimidated. A new year. A new number. Another year of my life has passed. And I hope and pray it has been a year of much purpose and growth. Looking into a new year scares me. How am I going to live it? Will it be a victorious year? Will I break free from more darkness? Live it with more purposeful and passionate faith?

A deep, raw unfolding of Christmas and grief.