This is my last journal entry…
Welcome to “Summit Prayer Journal”, a series of honest and vulnerable experiences by members of the Prayer Ministry. Building a life centered around prayer takes practice and it's hard work. We have victories as well as defeats. We dedicate this series to celebrating the victories and claiming the challenges in the reality of the daily battle that we call prayer. We pray you are encouraged to dig into daily communication with God through our members’ stories.
“This is my last journal entry.”
I took the time to write that in my journal one night. A little dramatic, I know, but that is what I felt. Nothing was working, nothing was going right, nothing I tried was making a difference. I wanted to hide, soak in the sadness and hope things healed.
Nothing was working, nothing was going right, nothing I tried was making a difference.
I’m a survivor of depression and PTSD. I survived the ebb and flow of depression for the last 10 years to different degrees of impact, but I survived and will continue to fight it. I survived because of the knowledge of the love God has for me, my wife’s support, and the self awareness of the triggers that cause depression. I recently experienced a few months of depression triggered by a series of events and it was hard.
I reached the point where I became apathetic and lived with a defeated perspective. I didn’t have it in me to keep trying the things that are usually so life-giving.
I survived because of the knowledge of the love God has for me, my wife’s support, and the self awareness of the triggers that cause depression.
One of my favorite films is a movie by John Hughes starring Matthew Broderick called “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” It’s a cult classic, no, a cultural icon. In fact, in 2014 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
A quick recap: In suburban Chicago, Ferris, a high school senior, fakes illness to stay at home. He convinces his best friend, Cameron to skip school and to borrow Cameron's father's prized 1961 Ferrari. Cameron is dismayed when Ferris takes them in the car to spend the day in downtown Chicago. Cameron remains worried about damaging his father’s car and getting caught. Undeterred, and confident he can change Cameron’s mood, Ferris drags him through numerous adventures.
While they experience the same events together, it's their perspectives that differentiate each other. Cameron experiences the events through a lens of fear and apprehension; Ferris chooses a lens of adventure and excitement. Same events, different perspectives.
The film wraps up with one of my all time favorite movie quotes that still resonates with me: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.” Take note: this isn’t a call to take risks, it’s a call to look around at the goodness that already exists.
Just like Ferris or Cameron, when we land in a tough stretch like this, we have the choice of how to view our experiences: resigned to defeat or hopeful for healing. Chip Dodd writes about the gain of hurt In his book “The Voice of the Heart”:
“Hurt is not just about what somebody did to me (or something that happened to me). It’s about me taking ownership of how I feel about what happened to me.”
It’s the perspective that we view our experiences that determines our ability to gain from our experiences.
Dodd goes on to write: “We need to lay claim to [hurt] and acknowledge it with a simple admission: “I hurt.” In order to have full life we need to acknowledge our need for healing. The most intimate relationships are those in which we acknowledge to one another our vulnerability of hurt. ‘I’ve got a wound and I need you to lean on.’”
“Hurt is not just about what somebody did to me (or something that happened to me). It’s about me taking ownership of how I feel about what happened to me.”
- Chip Dodd
Once I realized how hurt I had become, and recognized my flawed perspective, I petitioned friends to pray for me. I believed in the healing power of their prayers and committed my recovery into their trusted and loving hands. I’m fully aware of God’s love and care for me, but I didn’t own it. I didn’t take the time to see it. Like Cameron I was so blinded by my own perspective of fear and the hurt all around me that I was too distracted to look around at the goodness of God in all of the situations. I didn’t take the time to stop and look around. I was missing the reality, which was filled with God’s presence, grace, mercy, patience and love. I took ownership of my feelings and I was lifted up and surrounded by others who walked alongside me, prayed for me and encouraged me.
During this time of blindness I just wanted so badly to get out of it that I failed to pray into one of my core prayer principles. It's like the A-Team’s version of prayer, the prayer equivalent of: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. In hard times I encourage others not to pray to get out of it, but pray to learn what to get out of it. If we only pray to get out of a situation, we’ll never really learn what it is that God has for us. It’s in these hard times that we experience some of the deepest and richest periods of growth with God. I missed a lot of opportunities to experience God during this time. I failed in a lot of ways, as a dad, husband, a friend and a leader in the church. Lucky for me, there is never ending grace provided by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God, the renewed perspective was like a lightswitch. I stopped. I looked around and saw that He is good.
No matter the situation or season you are in, the hurt, the difficulty or the challenging experiences you may be facing, rest assured, God is in it with you. My hope and encouragement for you is to take ownership of your hurt. To stop and look around every once and a while, or else you could miss it.
A practice that has helped return my perspective to God’s provision and grace is a reflection of gratitude. I’m thankful for salvation, my “new” 1998 Jeep, gravity, the breath in my lungs, my job, my house, my family, my favorite sweatshirt, the grass, my friends… You get the point. Give it a try, it's hard to have a negative perspective when you’re filling your mind and spirit with gratitude. Take some time today to pause and run through a list of things you’re grateful for and thank God for them. Nothing is too big or too small to be thankful for.
