“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” -John 12:24 (KJV)
I constantly wear a copper pendant on a leather cord, with the image of a sprig of wheat stamped into it- a reference to the above verse. That verse has meant so much to me over the years. It struck me as novel the first time I heard it (on a Michael Card album), for when I heard it, there was a mystery to it, and I knew there was something deeper there that I could not quite grasp. And, as I grew to understand it in a deeper context, it seemed to carry the entire weight of my faith and hopes of who I am and in who God is. And yet, the more I understood, still the mystery of it all remained.
Lately, I seem to have forgotten what it means. The necklace became little more than “edgy” jewelery. Mostly because other Christians (usually from an older generation) would make slighting comments about it whenever it was not tucked under my shirt. So I began wearing it more in protest to their idiotic ideals, than as the reminder to myself I had originally intended. Much the same way I would ocasionaly wear my hat on stage at church during the worship service: a silent middle finger to those who dared call me disrespectful to God for my outward appearance. And while this sort of protest may be well and good, I had lost sight of the goal. I had forgotten my original purpose. And living your life as a reaction to how other people view you can only lead you nowhere.
As life carried on, my spiritual growth became stunted in many ways. I got caught in a cycle of living, with no more thought than to push through the day to merely make it to the next- filling my free time with idle pleasures: YouTube. Netflix. Video games. The occasional piece of mindless literature, for God forbid I actually use my mind. Sleep. I stopped thinking deeply, and merely lived just to be. To exist. I stopped living, and merely contented myself with existing.
Part of the blame for this decent into apathetic chaos is to be laid on my job- I worked long, hard hours every day, and when I got out of work, I had no energy to do anything except sit and vegetate. I desperately wanted to create music, and art, and poetry. I wanted to be a deep thinker. I wanted to contribute something to my tiny corner of the world. But the energy for creation was simply not there. My trailer became chaotic and cluttered. The dishes piled up in the sink. Garbage piled up under the sink. Empty cardboard boxes, plastic and paper packaging, dirty clothes, etc., all grew to clutter my home. And I didn’t have the energy or the will to clean it up. I would occasionally start some feeble attempt, and maybe make things look a little better. But the chaos always outpaced my attempts at order. Most of this, I blame on my job. There was no time for anything else in my life. It was get up, go to work, work all day, come home, crash, sleep, repeat. I was a zombie.
But, part of it was also my own lack of self control and my own slothfulness. And a great part of it was due to the Depression that continually haunts me, and that I had given up fighting. Because, as will be a familiar refrain to anyone who follows my blog, Depression is comfortable to me. I am familiar with pain, and at home with sadness. It is an easy snare for me to fall into. And one I seldom see coming until it’s too late.
But finally, things had reached a breaking point. My life at work was so incredibly stressful I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed an out. And I quit.
I didn’t give the company the courtesy of two weeks’ notice, as is the common custom. I didn’t even walk out in a rage. One morning, I woke up to my alarm and thought, “I’ve done as much as I can. I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.” (I think my actual words were, “Fuck it.”) And I simply turned off the alarm, and went back to sleep. I never showed up to work again. And life finally started to look up.
I had no plans, except a vague idea of finding work in the Grand Rapids area, and moving down that way. The job market is better there than it is here in Mount Pleasant, and I have a handful of friends and family living in that direction. It was perhaps a foolish thing to do- to quit my job with barely a thousand dollars in the bank, and no back up plan, no idea of what I was doing next. But for the first time in over a year, I was finally taking initiative instead of slumming my way through life, like a leaf lazily drifting down the river, carless of where the current takes it. Now, I had struck out on my own, leaving the safety of my little life raft, and pushing my way against the current.
It took two or three weeks for me to even start a serious hunt for work. Most of that time was just spent recuperating. The job at Delfield had so drained me, it took that long just recover my physical and emotional strength. It wasn’t until I was gone, that I realized what a toxic place it was. Also, without the security of a weekly paycheck, my depression skyrocketed. I had not felt lows that bad since the times where I daydreamed of death, and seriously contemplated suicide on a daily basis. There was also a huge amount of shame that I felt, because I was out of work, and had been cautioned by friends and family, to not quit my current job until I could find a new one. And I had gone and done just the opposite of that wise advice, and now here I was, running out of money, and afraid to tell my parents and family, because I was afraid they would be disappointed in me. I felt like I had failed.
Of course, these fears were utterly baseless. Illegitimate, illogical concoctions of an overwrought psyche. They were lies born out of my depression. Depression is like a parasitic creature, that will do whatever it can to make itself bigger, and fatter, and more pervasive. It feeds off of pain, fear, and shame. And it does whatever it can to amplify these emotions inside of you, so it can continue to feed until you are more Depression than you are Human.
My parents, when I finally told them, were loving, understanding, supportive, and concerned. But they were not ashamed of me. And if they were disappointed, they were not disappointed in me. They only wanted the best for me, and immediately sought out how to best counsel and encourage me in this next stage of life. I also finally had the energy and time to clean up my house. To make it livable again. And finally, just this week, I began creating music again.
Once I finally started looking outside myself, once my isolation was finally broken, once the old destructive habits bit by bit began to die, my world expanded. And hope became reborn. Within two days of stepping out of my fear and confronting the Unknown head on, I got a call from a company in Grand Haven that wanted to do a job interview. I had applied all the back in early August, and had all but forgotten about the company. I immediately scheduled an interview and within a week the hiring process had begun. I don’t get to start until early December, but the promise of a job is there, and it seems to be a company I can happily work for. The hours promised are enough but not excessive, the benefits are good, the management seems capable and considerate of its employees. I even have an opportunity at some part time work to fill in the gaps in my income until I can start for the new company. I still don’t have a place to stay. There are a lot of details I don’t have ironed out. But there is a promise of new life. I am fearful, but a hopeful fearful. It does not cripple me, but rather spurs me on to ensure I land on my feet.
And now that I am thinking again, I have begun listening to deep thinkers again. I finally picked up the book “The Return,” by Lacey Sturm, her third, and most recent publication. In fact, I bought it the second it came out, over a year ago. But I tried reading it then, and it seemed dry and empty. I wasn’t in a place to hear anything she had to say. This evening I picked it up again, and it was fresh, and lovely, and encouraging. And on page 24, I read these words,
“I was a brand new heart beating before Him. After He made me new, the only word I uttered to Him was ‘yes.’
I had no plans. Except to die the night before. Indeed, inwardly, I had.
Now what? My prior life had disintegrated into rich, fertile soil of life-producing death.”
At that last sentence I stopped. It took my breath away. And I remembered the pendant hanging from my neck. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
What does that mean, in the context the story I just told you? “My prior life had disintegrated into rich, fertile soil of life-producing death.”
That old me, the one who barley had the energy to toss his dirty socks into the hamper, is gone. The one too afraid to tell his parents he had failed. He’s not around. He’s dead. At least for now. I have a bad habit of reanimating old corpses. But through the death of who I was, I am alive in a way that I have not been in a long time. I am peaceful, and even joyful. And I know God is good. And occasionally, I shed a tear or two of gratitude. For I know every good thing in my life is because of His bountiful grace and love.
Reading that sentence from Lacey’s book in which she remembers the day she planned to kill herself- the day God opened her eyes to who He is, brought me back to a day in early fall of 2016, when God opened my eyes to who He is. When I finally let the old me die. When I finally said ‘yes’ to God, and struck out brand new, like fresh born child, with complete dependence in God to care for me and guide, and keep me. And how out of the death of that old self, a new birth takes place. Sometimes I wonder if that was really the day I found Salvation. Everything before that had been me trying to be a Christian. I had taken the yoke of the Law upon my shoulders and set out to walk the straight and narrow in my own strength. I was trying so hard to follow a religion, a doctrine, a set of do’s and don’ts. I knew what was right and what was wrong. And I tried to serve a God I didn’t understand. And I tried to walk a road I was never meant to walk.
I tried to please God by doing things for Him. But one of the best kept secrets of God is that you can’t do anything for Him. He gives us the very breath we breath. As Paul says in his address to the people of Athens,
“This I proclaim to You. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ ” (Acts 17:23c-28)
Living my life constantly trying to serve God is one of the most destructive things I have ever done. Because I cannot. I am destined to failure. I found the law, and made it my way of life. But I forgot that the Law was given, not so I could have a code to live by, but so that I could understand how incapable of righteousness I am. The do’s and don’ts of the Bible are not there for us to set before ourselves as the way of living. They are there to show us what is Right and Good and Holy, and thus by comparing ourselves to it, show us how we are NOT those things. For as Christ Himself has said,
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)
Jesus Christ is the only one who can fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He is perfect. And only in Him, can we find our Righteousness.
Until that fall day in 2016, I was living as if I were responsible for my salvation. Or rather, I had been up till about a year or two prior, when I gave up even caring about right or wrong. And finally on that day, God showed Himself to me in a way I had not understood before. And the old me started to die. And out of that life-producing death, I began to live.
And so again, I find myself in a season of death and life. The old me is dying off, like a snake shedding it’s skin, the old, dry husk of who it used to be, giving way to brilliant new colours. Like, the seed being devoured for nutrients by the newly sprouting plant, that will give birth to thousands more seeds- more abundance than can be fathomed.
That little copper pendant hanging from my neck has suddenly taken on the depth and weight it originally held for me- A reminder of the continual need to die to myself, that God might manifest overwhelming abundance in my life.
Here I am again, a new creation, facing a new world. Afraid, scared, and wholly dependent on the One who led me here.
Of Pain And Love And Life 