So, everyone has lost someone. I lost someone. The most important someone to my heart, like ever. Ok, so there in lies my mistake: putting someone above the One. I may or may not go into detail about that; but not now. What I'm wanting to type about is the pain. Or rather the worship. Never, ever, have I been so low and broken, not only from losing this person; but by God showing me how everything I counted as 'me', as who I was, was worthless and did nothing but create a barrier between me and Him. Here's how it went.
I'd just lost this person, right? Love of my life. The one, from where I was standing. Person decided it wasn't what it had been cracked up to be. So, first you start off numb. I didn't care, I really didn't, about anything, anyone, other than myself. I was so lost and stupidly soaking in my own pitiful state of being, that I didn't even see just how many people came to my side to help me through it. Two days, just two days after this separation goes down, God moved. In my selfish state of self-loathing and world-hating, God found me. Again. Without going into the bitter details, God found me in a person's most vulnerable state (the shower) and took my heart up in His hand. At that very moment, all that numbness, all the lack of feeling vanished like it was never there and the pain came in like a rushing tide. Or, at this point I thought it was pain. Boy if only I knew. What actually hit me was the sorrow, the realization of what I had done and what I had been doing. Oh it hurt; but it wasn't true pain. That came later. What I was feeling was the sorrow for my sins. God laid out everything, in exact detail, how I had separated myself from His people, and from Him. I mean, God spoke. Ladies and gentlemen, don't ever let anyone tell you that God no longer speaks or shows Himself. His voice was so clear and alive, not only could I hear it; but I could feel it. When someone reads a dialogue with music behind it, it's so much more meaningful, right? God didn't need music though, His words were so deeply penetrating that my very soul could understand what He was communicating so well that it was received as raw emotion. He said, "Zach, you have done this, this and this, and you have lived this way; which you know is not right. You have done it and you know how much it hurts me, and yet you revel in it. You love it, you think you are alive; but you are dead." Then He said something key:
"Beside all this, I still love you."
He told me that no person, no substance, no lifestyle, no earthly thing, no relationship, no car or hobbie or TV show or sport will ever not let me down. Everything of this world will fade. Everything will let you down, will peace out, will rot and decay. But His love is everlasting. In all of my selfishness and all of my sense of hopelessness He was there. He had been there the entire time, watching over me. Loving me. And when He decided to step in, it was big. Through this process of realization, I ended up on the floor of the shower, face down, in my own vomit and tears, as broken and low as a guy can get. God really slapped me in the face because all I could do was sit there and blame Him, blame myself, blame her, blame blame blame. And when He spoke to me, I saw just how rotten I was, and how that His love is everlasting and will never fade or falter. Ever. It didn't matter to Him that I had fallen into the trap of life. It didn't matter that He didn't matter to me. I was, I am His son, His child, His family. So, face down, I did the only thing I could do. I gave up. More specifically, I gave up to Him. I said, "Lord, you've broken my spirit and my heart has been crushed and torn and I have nothing, I am nothing at all without You. So here am I, You got me. Cause I ain't got nothin else left, nowhere else to turn besides you."
Since having made that decision, I cannot tell you how much my life has exploded into joy. God has introduced me to Josh Wise, one of my best friends who will be helping me manage the establishment of a ministry called Drawn on campus at CNU in the fall. God has connected me with brothers both at school and here in Richmond that, simply put, are men. They are men like no others, because they are men of God. God has shown me through them how to run after Him with reckless abandon. God has really showed me what it means to pray without ceasing as Paul describes. Not out of guilt or obligation; but because His love is disarming, overwhelming and all-powerful. God has shown me how to speak with Him, how to pray with fervor and power. To pray expectantly. To really live my life in a Hedonistic Christianity.
But my real point in writing all this down is to get to the deep emotions, and what I choose to do with them. The pain I felt later, in my room or with my friends or when driving, it crippled me. I'm not talking about crying, or weeping or mourning. I'm talking about your heart, the deepest reaches of your soul crying out in agony, because you are lost. Because you are empty, without sustenance, alone. And through that pain, the shirt soaking tears, being able to turn a smile and turn the pain into shear joy. A joy like I've never known, because you know what? As much pain as I feel for my loss, that pain that I've earned through my choices, the emptiness and loneliness, the bitterness and judgement I try to throw on others, all of that pain; it is nothing compared to the pain that God feels for me. His pain, for me alone, is so much more than I can imagine. And, conversely, the joy He feels every time I glorify Him is so great that I cannot hope to understand it. And then, through my tears, my soundless screams, my release, I realize something. I remember that understanding of God's unimaginable pain, and remember that He feels that for every. Single. One.
Now here is what I take from this. I take the pain, and I relish it. I enjoy it so much, in fact I look forward to it, simply because the deeper the hurt the greater the glory to God when I turn the suffering into praise. To sit and cry a river in the name of God, to cry out without a sound to be heard and do so lifting up His Name, that is the most honest praise a person can give. It doesn't get anymore real than that, any more alive and relevant than that kind of emotional suffering - that your physical body and the core of your soul feels. This pain, it's not something that will just go away. That kind of experience is something sticks with you for years, and it can shape you. God has used it to shape me; but instead of being stuck in a rut for years, I now have this drive to push myself so much further. Every night that I cry myself to sleep, every afternoon I stall out because of the memories, they are all for His glory. And the best part is that it gets better. It is going to take a long while; but I am healing. And so God has taken every single aspect of this loss that would debilitate so many, and shown me how to deal; and how to worship.
Worship, for me, has evolved so wholly; it's an entire way of life. That is how and why we were designed. To worship. We are always worshiping something, and the main thing that I have learned through all of this is that the only thing that is entirely worth one's worship is the very Creator of our world. And He only deserves our very best. My promise is that no matter how low the feeling, how painful the loss, or how meaningless you feel, you absolutely must turn that pain over to Christ, and turn the suffering into worship. It might not immediately be easier, God uses the pain and the suffering to refine each of us; but His promise is that He will provide for us, not allow us to go through more than we can handle, and that He will always be there. These promises are absolute, and without question. Revel in them, because there are few sure things in this life. Glorify God, through all your suffering, and may His blessings overflow your cup as He has filled mine.
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