The Day I Met God

For some of us, we enter into the Kingdom of God gently.  I am not one of those people. For some of us it is a power encounter.  A time where God breaks into our lives, and breaks us out of the jail we were living in – silencing the tormentors, and creating a newness that is as foreign as the concept of “peace”.  This was more along the lines of my experience.

God, more or less crashed into my life when I was fourteen, on the night I planned to start down the road to my death.  I had been thinking about it for months.  I knew that I wanted to end my life.  I knew that I couldn’t carry the pain and trauma for much longer.  In my heart, I knew there was more to experience in life,  and I wanted to experience it.  I was stuck somewhere in limbo between thirst for life and knowledge that uninvited death was crushing me.  So I found a creative compromise – I would live for the next 8-9 years as a drug addict and alcoholic.  This would buy me time to experience some things,  and the drugs and alcohol would numb out the pain that was currently eating me alive.   I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever, so I would be used up by the time I was 23.  This was the age I planned to overdose and kill myself. If I decided to be pathetic I could maybe stretch it to 24, but really, let’s not resort to that.  Have some courage and self respect. In truth, I was one of the youngest, full blown- fatalistic- epicureans I knew.  “Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die”, at least it would if all went according to plan.

There were lots of reasons for my death wish.  It was a really dark time. But this isn’t a story about the darkness, it’s a story about the rescue.

They may not have known what to do with me, this morose child, but my parents loved me and in desperation turned to the only one they knew could save me.  I firmly believe it was because my dad was fasting and praying for God’s intervention, that my world changed.

I had worked for two months to be invited to the biggest party of the fall.  The cops were going to be called at least 2 times, guaranteed.  Hopefully no one would be busted for possession until after we were good and smashed.  Then we could sleep it off in jail and deal with the consequences after.  Strategy, planning, social finagaling, and finally, invitation.  I was in. And it was this night that I planned to launch the beginning of the end of me.

This is where things become really fuzzy.  My friend Kerri was a couple of years older than me.  We grew up together and were like sisters.  My church had  a teeny tiny youth group.  And this itty bitty gathering of people were going to go to this youth conference that was coming to town.  Kerri practically begged me to come.  And I said no.  For a month. It was the same night as the party, and I had plans to get to. Besides, youth conference – boring.  Drugs- not boring.  This didn’t seem like rocket science to me.

And then inexplicably the week of the conference, I changed my mind.  Actually that is a misnomer, my heart was literally changed with in me.  I had absolutely no desire to go to this party.  In fact, every time I thought about it, things seemed to get really hazy. And I my heart became set on going to the conference.  WHAT?  It still sounds crazy to me, and I lived it. And even when I got miserable sick right before I was supposed to leave for the conference, it seemed to solidify my decision.  “I’m going.  And that is that.”  Where on earth did that come from?? Certainly this was not generated by me.

We were loaded up into a borrowed minivan with 8 other kids and two adults.  Yes, in true youth group style, we did stick two people in the trunk.  And  then all of us piled out of the van clown style and into Marriuci Arena. I got stuck in an aisle seat.  I thought this was great, because in my mind, fleeing was still very much an option. Also, I had lost most confidence in my digestive system at that point. So all was working in my favor. Except that I couldn’t really talk.  The kids around me tried to engage me in conversation.  But there was something about the air that made my muscles shaky and my insides tremble and I couldn’t really focus on anything else. Not the I’m going to run to the rest room version I had been experiencing up until this point, but something told me I was entering into a place where Holy lived, and my body reacted accordingly.

I have never felt an atmosphere so thick. There was peace, and power, and something that plucked at my soul and felt oddly like…hope.  It felt like a physical cloud. Now there WAS a cloud from the pyrotechnics they had been using…but it was more than that.  Deeper than that.   It was love.  And then it was vision – and a reason to live. I can’t tell you what was said during the sermon.  I remember a video about being a world changer.  That some how got printed on my new spiritual DNA. But I don’t remember much else.

Mainly I just remember the end of the evening.  My heart had been beating wildly all night long.  I didn’t know why. The speaker was kind enough to explain it.  “If you are sitting in your chair and you feel your heart beating wildly right now, that’s the Holy Spirit.  If you would like to respond to the invitation that God is giving you tonight, come down to the front”. I thought for about 30 seconds, and that’s when my whole spirit and soul heard Him.  The God of all the Universe talked to.me.  “Melissa, I see you, and I see everything you’ve done.”  And in that seeing I was undone. He had seen me, and all of the nights I spent awake anxious and confused, he saw the pain, he saw the causes, he saw how alone I felt and  everything I had ever done in response – the meanness I had cultivated, the death I sought, the death I had sown into the lives of others.  It broke my heart.  All the bitterness, the betrayal, the ugly of it all that I had buried myself in came loose, and I saw the truth of it. The only response that even seemed remotely ‘right’ was to throw myself on his mercy.  I had no assurance of his reaction, I had only the hope that he is a loving God, and memories of his gentleness. 

I twitched, ready to walk forward.  The girl next to me grabbed my hand and asked in joy and earnestness, “do you want me to come with you”.  Yes.  Yes I did.  Mainly because if I fell over due to the shakiness, or the overwhelming sorrow of the moment I figured she could catch me and perhaps roll me out of the way hotdog style. Decision made, I headed for the front. 

God in his great mercy met me there.  I say ‘there’, because it was there that I came to be on my knees praying honest and desperate prayers.  “God I need you, I am so sorry”. In truth, he met me some time before.  He was in the lonely nights, and next to me in the despair. He was the voice that reminded me that there was life to be lived even as I planned my death.  He was the one that made meanness less desirable and shielded me from the consequences of the worst of my actions. It was his mercy and joy that led me shaky down the aisle to the front of Mariucci Arena. And it was his power and blood that transformed me, took my sins upon himself, and let me stand to my feet 45 minutes later a soggy new creation. He drove away the tormentors, and called me by a new name – His.  It’s a name I will keep forever, and it by far one of my favorites.

Things changed that day, and I say honestly that I have never been the same. He rescued me.  Still rescues me each day with his love. And I am so grateful. I don’t have a nice bow for this story, mainly because it isn’t over. I will say this though, I turned 30 in September and couldn’t stop smiling – a deep down smile that has nothing to do with my face and everything to do with my heart. I asked God about it about two months later, and as I did I realized that I never, ever, imagined myself as 30 years old.  Somehow that marker –death by 24 years old- kept me captive long after my deathwish died, bloody and redeemed.  But this year, which is dreaded by almost all of the population of American women, is set apart for me.  It is a gift and it is a treasure.  I made it.  I am alive. More that,  he has caused me to live.  He has mended so much of the damage, and continues to mend, assuring me each step of the way “I see you Melissa”. I get to wrap myself in his love, and the assurance that I am His.  Truly – best.thing.ever.

Noise and Precision – The Noise - Part 1

I have lived with noise in my head. Lots of noise. Some of it is really fun, some of it is terribly distracting.  I am  easily side tracked by the shiney, the humorous, the odd and out of place. Perhaps you can relate?  I used to be so distractible that it would take me roughly an hour a day to sort through all the stimuli I encountered.  Some people instinctively pick up what they need to know in order to survive.  I was not that person.   Every single day, I would replay the various conversations, silent interactions, information gathered from print, TV, Facebook, and pull out what was needed.  I then tried to organize THAT information into some sort of coherent filing system and world view. Most people have something like this in place.  For me it was intentionally picking through the pile of information for about an hour, and then filing it away purposefully, carefully, with a very specific label. Unfortunately, during these ‘filing’ times,  crippling emotions and other things would  jump out of closets and drawers when I least expected it.  Surprise!  This would often send me shaking and hiding to some corner of my own mind clutching every emotional defense mechanism I had in my possession.  But life doesn’t stop when I am hiding in the corner.  My ‘in box’ grew large, right along with new emotional companions – “overwhelmed” and “extremely frustrated”.   In short, life was just exhausting.  All.the.time. And truthfully, it didn’t feel much like life.   It felt like survival.

About 4 years ago I decided to hunt down my terrifying emotions.   I was running from all emotions at this point, not just the threatening ones. The really ugly ones:  Shame, Pain, and Isolation, became a pack and started dogging my every step.  So I decided to hunt them back.  I knew of two instance in my life where these emotions feasted and I thought it logical to start there.  But I was going to need help.  I enlisted a kind counselor named Ruth.  We never much got to the emotional stuff.  After one  conversation with me, she strongly suggested I get tested for ADD. I nodded politely as I tried to mentally locate my rolodex of other counselors I could call – clearly this one was off her rocker… but then got distracted by the light reflecting off her picture frames in just the same way as this one picture I studied in college, by….Kandinsky?  he was in the modern group right?  Remember that time at MOMA in NY….SOUNDS Like boats in the Harbor…….And that dog the lady was walking on the Brooklyn Promanade….NY…airplanes…Ear popping altitude…I really hate falling….Crashing….remember how you thought being boiled alive would be awful last week in the bath when it was too hot?...SNORKLING…I should try that sometime….GLITTERING fish like the lights on the picture frame….WHAT?? Sorry…did you just say something??  ADD?  Me?  No.  I graduated college thanks. People with ADD have….real problems.  Mine are just in my head.

Ruth must have seen these thoughts, or maybe she just saw the glazed over look in my eye.  Whatever it was, she wasn’t buy it.  “Ever need help cleaning your room?  Organizing?”   I physically winced. How did she know that?? I spent so much time hiding the fact I didn’t ‘have it together’, it may seem dumb to you organized reader, but it felt like an awful thing I had to keep quiet.  The shame around this was immense.  Labels like “lazy”, “dirty” and “never going to get it right”  seemed to fit the bill as the chaos I lived in each day re-enforced these negative perceptions.  I broke down twice and accepted help organizing my stuff. There is nothing like coming to the acknowledge your limitations, not to mention the amount of time you spend making sure that your bedroom door is securely shut. My intensely organized roommates had taken pity on me and offered to help me ‘find a place for everything’.  They are a compassionate pair of people, and I love them dearly. We went through everything I owned.  Luckily by hour three, they stopped asking why they found banana peels in my sock drawer, and where gracious when they discovered power tools next to my dental floss.  I would often get distracted while putting things away and stash  things  wherever I could find a place. So the roommates dove in with gusto. They set aside verbal judgment, and simply began throwing things away.  It was in that moment that I knew they truly loved me.  Me and my crap didn’t fit into their ordered world, but instead of kicking me out, they simply helped me organize it. For eight and half hours. And laughed with me while they did it.  This could be a blog on how much that spoke to me of their love and care, but that’s a blog for another day. (I still get distracted, but now it’s just with the good stuff;) ).

Back to Counselor Ruth who is waiting me to answer her question:  yes.   Yes I have had to ask for help for basic organizational skills.  Ruth carefully explained to me that some people will go undiagnosed because they weren't seen as "failing" in school.  They are coping with some success.  They are often A-B students, who struggle to figure out how to “do life” as an adult.  Many will lose jobs and have damaged relationship because of this. Others will create ways of floating under the radar, using creative problem solving to ‘get by’.  A very small portion of adults will use ADD’s super-secret gift of “hyper focus” to propel them into next steps, and tenaciously get projects done.  Not all people are driven by taskmasters.  Some are just incapable of stepping outside the hyper-focus slip stream. Once outside it however, chaos generally reigns supreme.

I conducted a brief poll of my nearest and dearest, and then I consented to testing. After a battery of listening tests, and IQ tests, and other learning difficulty testing, I had my answer- I scored above average!....on the ADD continuum.  What this means as that I have ADD in the moderate to severe range.  Because of other compensation, I was never diagnosed until I was an adult.  

I give you details of this discovery because  I didn’t see ADD in my life until I saw examples.  I needed to see ADD in a ‘normal adult’s ‘ life .  I was never hyperactive kid or a 'problem' (unless I wanted to be).  I didn’t struggle with self control – in fact I was usually slow to act on things.   I never had a clue.   If I hadn’t been diagnosed four years ago, I would have had a really rough go of things, and probably wouldn’t be where I am now- a place where noise has quieted and precision is possible.   More on that next time.