Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: 2016

Two years ago, I was in an awful place.

Recently separated, living in a tiny apartment, overwhelmed by four year's worth of painful memories, boxed paperwork, and miscellaneous marital property, trapped in a metropolis seething with angsty people with too little to do, stranded without a vehicle, and abandoned by people whom I used to call "friend," I was at the lowest point emotionally I have ever been in my life. It was Easter, and everyone was posting pictures of smiling faces sitting in the sunshine. I was sobbing, alone on my floor. My toy poodle, Lucy, was sitting next to me, happy to be near me. Simple. Not knowing how close I was to taking my own life.

I was trying to decide if suffocation was painful. I didn't know how long it would take for someone to come looking for me. Being that I worked for the apartment complex I lived at, and out of respect for the cleanup team, I wanted to make sure that I made as little cleanup work for them as possible. I was thinking that the bathtub was the best spot to do it, because the cleanup would be easiest. I lived in a loft, so the smell would take awhile to come down and get into the hallway. I just couldn't figure out what to do with Lucy. She deserves a wonderful life with people who love her, and if I just GAVE her to someone, they'd know something was up and try to stop me.

I had spent the last few hours crying and yelling at God for making me a child with great potential and promise and then throwing so much crap at me as a teenager and young adult that I became a fat sack of wasted space. Spread around me on the floor were the contents of a box from my childhood, including awards, kind words written by teachers who believed in me, and other accolades. In that moment, I compared the bright future of the young Stephanie to the current reality of the late-twenties Steph and hated it. I saw myself as a failure. A waste. Another sad story that'll be hushed by the management team because they don't want people knowing someone died in one of their apartments. I failed at choosing a life partner. I failed at finances, only having $300 to my name. I failed at planning my escape from the hell that had become my marriage, and I failed at convincing people this was really happening to me and that I wasn't actually going crazy. I failed at paying bills. I failed at everything I was supposed to be succeeding at. My friends were all married, or engaged, or having babies, or buying houses, or being recognized on a large-scale for doing something amazing, and I was working a high-stress, low-paying job with coworkers who hated me and a manager who was mentally unstable to the point of scaring me. My family hated driving in the city so nobody came to visit, and I lost nearly all of my support system when I broke free of the abuse.

I was very, VERY alone. And I was done trying.

I told God to shove it. I told Him He was an idiot for keeping me alive through the many opportunities He had to take my earthly life from me. I told Him He would have had a better world if He had taken me instead of my teenager-era BFF Britney. I told Him to freaking shove it.

And God, being the good and wonderful God that He is, did not, in fact, smite me. Though I personally believe I gave Him plenty of ammo to do that. Instead, He did what He always does - He looked on me with love, grace, and mercy.

He saw a broken woman, sitting in the bottom of a very deep and very dark well. He saw a woman who had no hope, no joy, nothing to live for, and He reached down and held out His hand to her. Essentially, this was the moment He called me home again.

When I was seven years old, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and became one of the saved. My life from that point until this moment had been full of ups and downs, and eventually I had been led astray from God's sight by the people I surrounded myself with. So when God called me home in that moment I was sitting on rock-bottom, I heard Him. The Voice was quiet, simple, and calm - "Call your mother."

And strangely, I did. I am a stubborn lady created by two stubborn parents, and normally I don't like doing what people (or beings) tell me to simply out of spite and pride. But in this moment, I did. I called my mom. And cried. A lot. I told her about the bathtub and the issues and how much of a loser I was, and she consoled me by reminding me how far I'd come.

She reminded me that I heard God's voice when I obediently read "The Verbally Abusive Relationship" book she suggested. She reminded me I screwed my courage to the sticking place when I told my spouse to move out and I wasn't doing this anymore, even though everyone I knew, both Christian and non-Christian, believed I was losing my mind. She reminded me that I put everything on the line to follow God's instruction to get the heck out of that awful place I was in, including my job and my home, and that the courage and stamina it takes to do something like that is enormous. She recommended I spend more time with God and I will find the comfort I was seeking.

I took a nap.

That evening, I opened up my devotional for the first time. I bought it thinking it would be good for my mental health. It was one of those things where it suggest you pick your own verse and then write about it. I was perturbed - the Bible is ginormous and I was rusty. Where do I start?

I did what I always did as a child - I prayed, then opened the Bible in a random place. On the page I opened to was the chapter of Psalms that has saved my life over and over since then. And I do mean literally. Suicide is a scary thought to entertain, and I had many more moments of pondering it after that Easter, and each time, a few specific verses would pop out of my memory like pop-up advertisements, reminding me of this moment.

Psalm 139 (NIV)

"1. You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.
2. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.
5. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?
8. If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10. even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,'
12. even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
18. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand- when I awake, I am still with you.
19. If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20. They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21. Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22. I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23. Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

I love Psalm 139, and the verses that jump out at me are 13-16. I spent a lot of time reflecting on those verses and found hope and joy in them. Knowing that God made insignificant me, and spent so much time PLANNING me, creating me in His plan and mind long before I even existed, gave me a sense of purpose I hadn't felt in a very long time. I agreed with verse 14 - God's works ARE wonderful, and I do know that full well. I see Him in my nephew's face - the child my sister and her husband worked so hard to conceive. I see Him in the amazing mountains and valleys of the earth, the creatures of the sea, the stunning sunrises and sunsets. I see His amazing works and I do, in fact, know they are wonderful. So the logical conclusion was that I am also wonderful, being made by His hand.

Part of me was confused and scared, because everyone and everything in my life was telling me that I was worthless and a waste of time, energy, and space. But that's not what God says about me.

And that's not what God says about you, either. You and I have been specifically and extremely carefully planned long before we existed. We are wonderful. We are beautiful. We are spectacular. We are meant to be. We have purpose. We are supposed to be here.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

This did not solve my problems all in one day. But it began a journey for me that I will never, ever regret. I came home to God that day. I gave Him my life, my heart, my hope, my joy. My life restarted that day.

This is my testimony. I love sharing it with those who ask for it, and I look forward to sharing more of my journey in the coming days.

May God bless you and show you your purpose today,
Steph

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made

Welcome!