Sing Blessings in Darkness

I have written my salvation story many times. To those who will hear and read it, I pray God was able to use my story to help you in yours.

It is high time for the community of believers to start acting like a community by helping one another out. 

So here is an exert of my life:

I was not raised in church. 

This would probably explain a great deal of my not so traditional quirks. 

I was the last of three children and 8 years younger than my brother who came before me. So as you can imagine as a child I was quite spoiled. My father, who was born right after the depression, grew up poor. He always says, "I want you to have what I never could." 

When I was five years old the fragile damn that held my family together broke. My father (who was a retired marine - 28 years - who was used to no talking back) beat my brother so badly my mother barely recognized him in the morning. 

We left my father's house and spent the next 3 years living on peanut butter sandwiches, Ramon and macaroni and cheese. To say it was a difficult time would be an understatement. Each person in my family responded to the negative events in their own way. 

Being young and completely lost in the new paradigm of my broken family, I developed serious anxious and depression. 

But the worst was yet to come. 

Just when things seems to be restoring themselves (my parents remarried - after much redemptive work on God's part and a miracle) my mental and emotional state broke. I developed PTSD after losing too much too fast and having to grow up too quickly. 

At fourteen I was a depressed, self abusing girl who felt like my soul had fallen into a pit. I felt that no one could reach me. 

I still remember the first time my parents noticed the marks on my arm: they threatened to place me in a mental health facility if the behavior continued. 

I came to know Christ not because of an organization, but because Christ helped me to see and understand how much He loved me. He showed me in a moment sitting, bored out of my mind, in a church pew my mother forced me to sit in, that He loved me where I was. His love had always been there waiting for me to call out of my darkness to Him. 

So when I said in my video blogs this past week or so that I understand a dark night of the soul it was not pomp and circumstance. I know what it is to feel unloved. I know what it is to feel dead inside. To feel unreachable and alone. 

To those of you who have experienced depression or are in the midst of a bout of it: know that you do not walk those dark corridors alone.

The best lie that the Empire and the enemy can make us believe is that we are alone. If we are alone, we are easily defeated.

Always remember that where you walk, not only have brothers and sisters in the faith walked before you, but the God of all creation made Himself a man do that He could walk that road as well.

Christ meets us in the midst of our worst seasons of life and breaths life, light and restoration into us. I know that though everything we face Christ stands beside us waiting for us to call out to Him. He does not stand afar off. Scripture teaches us that the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit) is the one who comes along aside us. 

God never leaves us alone in the wilderness. He teaches us that He will sustain us always.

God never leaves us alone in the storm. Instead He given us the peace to withstand it.  

God never leaves us alone in the darkness. He lets us know, He is the light and warmth in our cold loneliness. 

So regardless of what season you may be facing, always remember the God who is with us. The God who meets His people where they are instead of waiting for them to get better. No, He wants us even at our worst. He loves us unconditionally.

"We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." (‭1 John‬ ‭5‬:‭9-12‬ NIV)

So when the darkness comes, sing blessings. Because as a beautiful soul (Mandisa) said as a concert I attended recently: "When you choose to bless the Lord in the middle of your darkness, the people around you listen." Also, "When we worship in our pain, God doesn't just set us free, He sets others around us free."

Don't just be a worshipper that blesses the Lord: Be a worshipper who does not depend on circumstance to worship, but who worships when it makes no sense and who's worship sets others free.

Because in the end, that's what we all truly desire and need: to love, be loved and experience true freedom.

Blessings,
B.