This did not start out with me at my best.
I was so miserable. I stopped looking after myself. I rarely went out and when I did I avoided people as much as possible. If I didn’t have to talk to anyone all day, that would be a good day. I ignored phone calls, emails and messages. Then when it got to the stage that it might arouse too much suspicion, I’d make a nominal effort to engage in phone calls with those who cared. It wasn’t much though. Life was getting too much for me. The automatic mode of existence I was on barely motivated to do above the absolute minimal.
There was someone who was made aware of my plight who responded very wisely to my situation. He was one of the few that got through to me by phone and hearing my voice he encouraged me to come and visit him. To show that he meant it, he paid the way for me to travel to where he was, which in itself was no small investment. Perhaps out of a sense of not wanting to waste his money – and I had a number of options that would help me to do that – I used it for the purpose and travelled to him. He took one look at me and knew the situation was very serious. Not that he behaved in a way that would have alarmed me or gave me cause for concern.
He sat me down and got me to do something I had not done in weeks. He got me to talk.
He didn’t force me to talk. He didn’t manipulate me to talk. He provided the environment in which I felt comfortable talking. So I talked. And then wept. And then went silent again. He asked a few questions which prompted me to do something else I hadn’t done in weeks. Those questions got me to think in a different way than I had previously.
He left those questions with me. I took them home with me. Shut myself off in my room and settled back into the misery that had become something of a familiar friend to me. It would have been misery as usual, if it wasn’t for those questions.
The guy called me sparingly and not for long. He knew how much he could get out of me, so he’d keep it brief and always ask me about those questions. Not looking to hear the answers, but at least wondering if I had given them time to consider. I didn’t bother fobbing him off by telling him I had when I had not. I just told him I had not got round to it. In fact in one phone call, I bluntly told him I couldn’t be bothered to look at the questions. He didn’t get upset or irritated. He accepted the answer and moved on.
That calm response also played at me. The questions were beginning to play at me anyway. Finally I got round to lifting my head up long enough for my eyes to consider those questions again and spend longer than the time it takes to skim questions.
I looked t them and they read me. They read me carefully. Those questions saw my low condition and sought to raise me from it by getting my attention first away from myself. Away from me and to God. To consider again who God is and what that means to truly begin to embrace who He reveals Himself as. A lot of those questions started away from me and centred on God.
After a while some familiar hymns that I had not heard in my head for a long time began to crop up in my heart. Some other songs also came back to memory. They got me to think again about the wonderful story of the Christ who died for me. They got me thinking again about why Calvary was so significant and what the Cross meant and how the Resurrection made such a supreme difference.
It was no overnight transformation. There was no sensational, earth-shaking turnaround in the situation. It took a while, but I can recall clearly that because of that love and kindness shown and because of the timely intervention, someone got me to a place where life was not about complete darkness.
It’s a real privilege to be able to go though some dark seasons of life and have good people around you to support you and wait with you. They wait with you in the night season until you get to that place where at least you get to see the breaking of day.
(Photo by Cristofer Jeschke on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 