Hey everyone, it’s your resident sad boy Tommy! Well two months in and oh boy, I think it’s safe to say I did not know what I was getting myself into. I’m assuming you reading this have heard the old saying “be careful what you wish for”. Welp, maybe I should have been a little more careful when hoping this year would be a formative one of change by the Lord’s hands. Let me tell ya, it is painful. Thinking back prior to beginning fellows, I can’t help but feel naïve in my thoughts regarding the journey I was about to embark on. In all honesty, I came into the program in a very difficult place and I was sincerely hoping that the Lord would work drastically in my life. Insecurities and lies I had experienced, which I was convinced I had a handle on, came back more alive than ever. Truthfully, it felt at the time like rock bottom. A season marked by loneliness, isolation, and despair left me hollow. I felt spiritually idle, dead in the water, waiting for the fellows program to come rescue me from my spiritual pit.
Flash forward to beginning the program. I meet a bunch of incredible people, begin spiritual classes, and am surrounded by activities which are centered on Jesus. Perfect! My problems are solved. Now it’s just a matter of time and things will improve and improve and I’ll be back to my normal self, right? Well, dumb old Tommy didn’t realize that the Lord had to cut away the decaying pieces of me to fully restore my heart. Dang, it’s painful. What I thought was rock bottom over the summer looks far more appealing than the inner turmoil I have felt since diving into the fellows program, and I mean that in the best way possible. I was hoping for sanctification without the pain but I realized by day 10 I was not going to be afforded that luxury. I felt I was truly alone with my feelings for the first time in months and let me tell you, what a terrifying place to be. I felt myself physically writhing in discomfort, it was as if I needed to escape the presence of the Lord because I anticipated the pain of him addressing these pieces of me. It feels at times that he’s got a grip of my soul, and is turning it and wringing it out of all the lies that have soaked into how I viewed myself. It’s truly wild to me that there were times while I was alone that I felt almost physical pain because being brought face to face with the lies I believed cut so deep. I mean why wouldn’t they, they were statements which reflected the true darkness of what I believed about myself. I felt detached from those around me, especially the Lord. I was angry at him, for reasons I don’t fully understand. Maybe it felt as if his promise of the cross didn’t seem to ring true in my life, and him telling me I can return to him and feel love felt so unrealistic, it felt like he didn’t know what he was talking about. Thinking you are unworthy, and believing you are unworthy are two completely different things. When it becomes a belief, it soaks deep into the recesses of your heart. Because of this, God has to plunge his hands deep into my soul, and rip away the cancerous beliefs which had become so intertwined with me.
What I so incorrectly thought was going to be a nice and steady climb out of darkness and into the light quickly transformed into me hitting rock bottom, and then clawing my way even lower. If you have not yet read the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, I implore you to begin. But in his novel, a man leaves hell and tours heaven, and there’s an exchange which has stuck with me for two years now, and seems to ring incredibly true now. The main character’s celestial tour guide says “All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste.” And what was the main character’s response? Was it overwhelming joy at the hope in this statement? Was it eagerness to live a life free of hell? His response was simply, “It seems big enough when you’re in it, Sir”. Double oof. I hear the promises of what life with Christ is like. Heck, I have experienced these joys first hand. But right now, the valley I have been walking in feels wide and I feel oh so small. If I had any idea of how painful sanctification was, I may not have been hoping for it coming in. But that’s the funny thing about life with Jesus: It is profoundly hard. Then again, it’s far more painful not knowing how crazy God is about me. All of the pain of this world can’t even be registered on an atomic scale in comparison to the joy of Christ Jesus. I’m just having a hard time seeing it. Anyways, if none of this made any sense go to listen to the song “Doubting Doubts” by Citizens. They basically sing some of what I was trying to type. Peace, love, and blessings!