“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to accept what is true.” -Soren Kierkegaard

I am a member of the Lacey Sturm Facebook Fan group. Unlike most fan groups, this group is more like a social media family than a fan army. We ask for prayer requests, share Bible verses, encourage each other, and (of course) discuss the newest Lacey Sturm news. It’s a pretty tight nit group of people that I have come to love and trust.
A week or so ago, I was really having a rough day. I was melancholy, depressed, angry, confused, and just feeling overwhelmed and lost. (I know- this seems to be a common theme with me.) I was so empty, that I felt I couldn’t even confidently call on God. So in a sort of blind desperation, I got on Facebook and asked the group to pray for me.

I went to bed depressed, woke up numb, but with nothing better. No answer to the prayers as of yet.

At the same time, I am currently reading a book called The Mystery. It is, coincidentally (or perhaps not so much), by Lacey Sturm.

I had gotten eleven chapters in, riveted by the autobiographical story, before the message of the book began to hit home.

Chapter twelve of the book is entitled “The Mystery of Silence.” In this chapter, Lacey talks about the silence of God, and the choice we have to either continue to trust God in these times or to turn and trust our feelings and emotions. She explains a crossroads she came to where these two choices presented themselves and she was forced to choose:

“Would I choose to believe in a God I could no longer feel, understand, hear, make sense of, or in many ways, even remember? Or would I choose to make this decision based on the same thing I’d based every other decision I ever made in my life on: my feelings?”

And I realized reading this that this is where I was at. I was at a crossroads. And I had to choose. Again, I turned to the group from the fan page, and without asking for anything, shared my thoughts and convictions. This is what I said:

“I’m reading The Mystery. I just read Chapter 12, “The Mystery of Silence,” and It really spoke to me. Lacey’s struggle in this chapter is much akin to mine. I ache for the person of Jesus Christ. I break in the silence I’m faced with. I so easily follow my emotions rather than the God I know has saved my life, and has given me a new hope. She says she was faced with the question, “Would I choose to believe in a God I could no longer feel, understand, hear, make sense of, or, in many ways, even remember?”

That’s the question I’m faced with. I can hardly remember God’s presence. I can hardly remember what it is like to be a confident Christian. I can’t hear God. I can’t see Him at work in my life. I don’t feel Him near- Oh! It’s been so long since I’ve felt Him! And yet, I cannot deny Him. I know He exists. I know He’s alive. I know in my mind that He loves me. I know in my mind that He wants only what is best for me. But none of that has yet translated into something experientially relevant. It’s not tangable knowledge. I don’t think at this time that I can deny God. I’m stuck on the fence. I’m reaching pitifully for Him, but falling ever backwards. And I know if I do finally lose faith, I will be like Charles Templeton- always longing for His presence again.

But that Silence of God. It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life. He’s not a very talkative God. At least not to me.
Anyway, I’ve got this song in the works called “Incomplete Me.” And it’s about how God is breaking me down, incompleting me, ruining me- showing me how much I need Him. In my mind, I think I’ve kinda got the picture now, and I just want Him to show up. But the silence continues, and I keep on breaking. I keep on fading. I continue on, incomplete. Maybe I’ll never be complete ’til I die. Maybe I’ll always ache, ’til I meet Him face to face.”

Yet more people informed me that they were praying for me.

And then I got to chapter fourteen. And God began convict me like I have never been convicted before. He revealed how selfish, how hard, how dark, how empty I am. He used the entire chapter, but this section in particular to point out how foolish I am:

“The very way I though about “being healthy” exposed a false sense of identity. I’d learned it from Tim Burton movies, from metal music, from dark poetry and art. I reveled in honesty and brokenness and loved to celebrate the strange ideas and ways of life. I loved the rebellion of being different and the isolation that came from feeling superior because I seemed to see life in a different color than everyone else. This sense of being “different” was my fuel for wanting to create art. I wanted to sing a song no one was singing. I wanted to shock people with a different way of living and seeing things. But in doing this I had judged all the “healthy” people as enemies of art and change and beauty. I didn’t want peace. I wanted struggle, chaos. I wanted to embrace the sickness of life.”

Oh, how I hated reading that! It burned. It stung. It refused to let me go. I wanted to be able to erase those words from my memory. I didn’t want to think about them. I didn’t want to remember them. But they held me captive and would not let go. Because those words right there describe me exactly. Perfectly. Flawlessly. And I could not escape the truth in them. And I still can’t. It still hurts. It still burns.

There is something deep inside of me that desperately wants to rebel against the current social structure, the current status quo. I want to break all the rules and prove the world wrong. I want to make a statement and change the world. I have embraced pain and suffering as a point of connection. I have fought with everything I am to call out the hypocrisy of those around me while ignoring my own hypocrisy hidden in my heart. I have held that which is broken and twisted in my hands and called it beautiful. Not for the beauty of what it once was, nor for the beauty of what it could be if touched by God, but merely for the fact that it was broken and twisted.

And here was Lacey Sturm, by biggest hero, the person I had made my role model, calling out the very depths of my heart and telling me That I had understood the message she had been screaming into the microphone for all those years utterly backwards.

That night, I wrote the following letter to God. Part complaint, part confession, part plea:

“Dear God,

You’re hurting me again. You pick and tear and cut at my festering wounds. I don’t want You to touch me. I’m afraid of the light. I’m in love with my pain. I’m angry that you would touch me there. I feel violated. I am in a sort of comfortable agony here in the dark. It may be hurting me, but it’s familiar. So I continue to cower here in the shadows.

I’m afraid to change. I always have been afraid of change. I’m afraid it will hurt. I’ve become sort of numb to my hurt. So I’m ok with it. But Your surgeon’s knife will open up old wounds and create new ones. I’m afraid of that. I don’t want that. I’m so tired of pain that maybe I think it’s better to be at home with the pain I already know than to risk a new pain that could bring healing over time.

Besides, this dark pain of mine brings me attention. It brings me applause and, in some cases, attack. I relish attack. It gives me something to fight. Something to defend. This darkness gives me adventure. And I don’t know if I want to be whole anymore. Because to me, that means the death of who I think I am.

I remember a couple years ago, I was frustrated with my girlfriend of the time because she had created for herself this false identity of who she thought she was. I could see that she was so much more. So I tried to pull her out and show her all she could be. And I succeeded. A little bit. But she resisted and eventually dumped me because of it. And now I’m doing the exact same thing she is. I’ve created my own idea of who I think I should be rather than seeking Yours.

And I like who I think I am. I’m content with who I am. I’m desirous to maintain the façade of broken, degenerate, depressed, misunderstood rebel. I like being the outcast. I don’t wanna be part of the “in” crowd.

I don’t want to be whole, regardless of what my songs may say. And yet…

I want You. More than anything else, I want You, God.

And yes, I do want healing. I just don’t know if I’m willing to pay the price.

But I need You, and regardless of the price, I think I’m willing to take a step towards You. God. Help me. Really. I mean it this time. I’m so in love with You. Yet I’ve run so far away. Help me seek You again. Cut deep and cruel. Remove all the festering pain I’ve protected for so long. Not matter how much I love it. Even if it cuts most of me away. Because I want You more than I want me.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

And I prayed it with all my heart. And it hurt. And it still hurts. And I’m afraid. But I know now where I went wrong. I’m not quite sure yet how to begin again, but I know now that I must begin again. I know now that I can begin again. And by God’s grace I will find my way back. By God’s guidance, maybe I can meet Him in the way that I have been desiring for so long.

I want to thank all of you have been praying for me. And I would ask you to continue to do so. Because it’s working. God is working in my life in a manner unlike any I can remember in recent history. I feel He is drawing me once again to Himself. Please, keep praying for me. I’ve got a long way yet to go.

~Joshua Ivan Crain.