How Do the Healed Live?

I’m going to be sharing a journal entry from back in January. And although it is 10 months old, things are still very much the same. I’m still struggling with the issues I’m about to share. So, here goes-

(For clarification, I have two separate journals. The first one is called “The Darkness Diary. It is really my primary journal, and in it I write things that I will probably end up sharing with the rest of the world. The other is called “The Secret Place of The Thunder,” and it is a journal of communication to God- our secret place, our trysting spot. It reads like a journal of prayers. I will never quote directly from it, but sometimes an idea or thought will surface in it that I want to share.)

January 6, 2017 12:05 AM

I was just reading in “The Secret Place of the Thunder,” from a day last week where I was raging and angry. I was hurting, lost, and full of self loathing. I swore several times and emphatically stated something to the effect of- “I can either be clean and nice. Or I can be honest. I can’t be both.”

You see, I had originally intended this journal to be something beautiful and sacred. But I screwed it up.

That entry in particular was angrily scrawled across two pages, at times barely legible. I was feeling so dirty and messed up. The entry depicts this, not only in the language used, but also in the very way the words were written. And looking back on it all, here’s what I think I’m learning:

I can’t be a good person. I can’t do anything right. Everything I set my hand to will ultimately fail. But God can do something with that.

Now, for clarity’s sake, I want to stress that I don’t want to be one of those “broken is beautiful” kind of people. God saved me from that last fall. Let’s face it- being broken is miserable. It hurts like Hell. And I mean that literally. Being broken is messy and painful, dirty, wretched, empty, and hellish. Anyone who tells you that messes are beautiful is either a very shallow person, or they are lying to themselves so they can sleep at night.

Take it from me- I’m a mess, and there is NOTHING beautiful about it.

But God. Oh, those two words are beautiful. Those two words are packed with such weight and hope, so much promise.

I am a mess… But God…

I am a failure… But God…

I am hopeless… But God…

I am empty… But God…

On and on I could go. Because with God, all things are possible.

I admitted in my written prayer that I didn’t want to move from where I was. Because I like my Prison of Pain. And here’s why- I can’t make art as a happy person. I can’t find beauty as a functional individual. I can’t create when I’m “good.” When I’m content, I can’t sing. And I hate it.

That phenomenon will drive me from discontentment to Depression, self hatred, anger, rage, and passion. And then, once I hit that black place, I once again find meaning, and fire, and life.

This all feels so wrong.

But living happily, being content, being at peace feels like living a lie. I can’t create music that way. I can’t sing to God that way. I can’t find hope that way.

Truth is, when I’m depressed and broken and all messed up inside, I’m not nearly as unhappy as I think I am.

I remember back at the 2016 CRU fall retreat I went on, I felt so ecstatic and just overrun by unbridled emotion. God was speaking to me and I was giddy and emotional and I couldn’t stop babbling. I hated it. I was a slap happy wreck. I just couldn’t take it. I still look back at that weekend and pray I never feel that way again. Because I want to be a level headed Christian. I want to be someone who is honest and sincere, yet still maintains tact and self control.

Things settled down a little after I got home. I was still happy, but I could think straight, and I was no longer rambling on like a chittering chimpanzee on Red Bull.

But I couldn’t write. I couldn’t sing. And therefore I felt like a couldn’t live.

Because the truth is, I don’t know how to function happy. I don’t know how to be healthy or right or happy or nice or good. And truthfully, I don’t really want to. I’m content with my shadows. I’m at peace in my pain. I like the darkness.

Last week I was crying out to God to help me. To fix me. To heal me and to teach me how to live healed.

How did the lame cured by Jesus survive after suddenly being able to walk?

How did the blind function after Christ gave them sight?

How did the lepers live after they were healed?

These are the parts of their stories I feel that I need. And unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t tell us that part.”

This is the part of the blog where I tell you what I’ve learned. But I don’t really have anything to put here. I’ve discovered joy and peace and hope. But my fire and passion have all but died. I desperately don’t want to head back into depression to find them. But I’m really struggling right now to live life. To create art. To speak. To breathe. And my darkness is the only place I know where to go to find them. I’m praying that God will give me a new passion and a new fire. But as of yet, they still remain unobtainable.

-Joshua Crain

3 thoughts on “How Do the Healed Live?”

Josh
You are not alone in this. Many of the greatest authors of all time struggled with deep depressions. Many of them committed suicide or died from the overuse of drugs or alcohol. For some reason, great art often comes from our darkest times. Many of our most beloved hymns, psalms, and even many of the books of the prophets were written by people crying out to God in the most painful, terrifying, and angry times of their lives. The beauty of this kind of art is the vulnerability and the honesty of it. It bares the soul and that gives voice to the raw emotions that others are also feeling. It allows people to connect and verify that they are not alone.

When I was younger, I did a lot of writing. I wrote poetry and prose and people loved it. They encouraged me to continue with my writing. What they didn’t understand was that the words only flowed onto the paper when I was feeling angry or in despair. Beautiful words poured out of my when I was experiencing passionate emotions – but I usually only felt that way when I was hurting. Sometimes I would try to talk myself into seeing the bright side – or my idea of what a good Christian would be thinking – and then try to write those words. They always felt so lame and empty. The most honest poem I ever wrote was a confession about how disconnected I actually felt with God and it was a major turning point in my relationship with Him.

I stopped writing a long time ago. I stopped filling up journals and creating poems. I went years without really doing any writing. Then one day, out of a time when I felt an inexplicable depression, I started a blog. I say “inexplicable” because there was absolutely no justification for the way that I felt. I just felt that way and I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I still don’t do a lot of writing (I think I average 2-3 blog posts a year) but when they words come, they just come. It’s not the art that I once had hoped I would write, but I rarely feel like they are just my words. I always feel like they are words that are meant to be written.

Sometimes I think we struggle with darkness and depression because this is not the world that God intended it to be. He created for beauty but there is so much pain and suffering around us, everywhere we turn, that it is hard not to get pulled into it. It is not wrong to feel the pain of this world. We were created to be empathetic and compassionate and sometimes it is a deep, dark struggle to keep from being suffocated by the sins of the world.

Something I have begun to learn (and it has taken me 34 years to even start to scratch the surface) is that God created every one of us wholly individual. Seek out the person He created you to be. You will find joy and passion in being that person – and it won’t require you to sink into darkness. You will still create art and it will be beautiful and it will be honest (because art is never truly art if it cannot be honest) but it will shine with the same light you find in God – whether it makes people cry tears from joy or from sadness.

My art these days comes to me through my children. Through them God has taught me to find joy and laughter all around me. That isn’t to say that I don’t still have many dark, unhappy days. I still live in this same sinful world that I have always lived in, as the same sinful, but saved, person (a constant work in progress). I have found (some of) my passions and I am learning how to use them for God’s glory. Sometimes that comes in bright and cheerful stories about my kids and my life and sometimes it comes from deep reflections on painful times.

I don’t think that bringing glory to God means we have to put on a false front and a happy-go-lucky attitude. The Bible is filled with soliloquies of angry and hurting people. Those words are just as important as all of the uplifting passages that we Christians like to quote. They are important because they help us to connect to the idea that this broken and hurting world is not new. Others have gone before us – even those who God spoke through and those that we uphold as being very close to God – and they have struggled with the darkness and pain of this world.

All this to say – don’t give up hope on finding your passion in other ways. I do not know your story, but I do pray that you do not find yourself heading back towards depression. God gave you a gift with words and He did not intend for that to be wasted. Give that gift, and yourself, entirely to God and He will lead you to the way to use it. Trust Him and you will find your way.

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