When You Feel Abandoned By God

I'm taking a quick break from my nutrition series to talk about this topic, and to also let everyone know that I've missed writing these posts. Sometimes you need a break and you know it's not a good time to be offering up your heart. I usually don't post even when I'm this thick into a difficult time, but I wanted to at least put something out there.

The first thing I need to do is take back what I said in my last regular post “What Doesn’t Kill You Will Try Again Tomorrow” - I said that the people who are meant to stay will stay in your life. I wholeheartedly don't believe that anymore. I don't think people are "meant" to lose anyone important to them. I think some people leave you in the dust in the most heartbreaking, life changing, inexplicable ways - and nothing good really comes from it. That was an ignorant thing for me to say, and I apologize. 

Being rejected by people doesn't mean you don't belong. It makes you wonder how you could, though. At least, that's how I feel.

To be honest, I've faced so much rejection due to my mental illnesses, from the people who were most important to me at multiple different stages in my life. So, I started to believe that my brain wasn't meant for this world. How could it be? The people most loving and committed just didn't want to be around me anymore. 

Sometimes, it just feels like I have no place of belonging. Do you ever feel that way?

You just live in a different place than everyone else does. They are HERE, and you are somewhere else. 

"There's a road left behind me I'd rather not speak of, and a hard one ahead of me too." -Brandi Carlile

There's a lot that's happened lately, keeping me from writing. Not just to all of you, but at all. I've been afraid to write. Afraid of what would come out. I've been afraid to have the truth on paper because that makes the words real, it makes it all true. I didn't want the truth to exist, it is just so horrifying. I'm trying to overcome that fear, but not by writing about what's going on. I'm not ready for that, maybe I'll never be. 

I want to leave my past behind. But my past haunts me. Does that make sense? All you want to do is woman up, take some breaths and power through as if you've never experienced trauma, as if you don't have a bunch of diagnoses. 

You can't change the color of your past, but trauma doesn't have to paint your future. I'm trying to internalize that. It always feels tinted, though. 

I'm going to be honest, the word "hope" really bothers me right now. I believe it has its place, it gets a lot of people through a lot of things. For me, I find it a cruel word. It's torture, waiting for something better to come than what you already have. Sometimes, as reality goes, things just get worse. Things can always get worse. I fear hoping for better will leave me crushed when something even more unimaginable happens than what happened last. My battle right now is finding peace and contentment in my current pain. 

I've done a lot of soul searching specifically over the last 4 months. A lot of what I believe has changed. It's difficult not to harden my heart. I have very little fear, because most of my fears have come true. A few months ago I went to the bottom of the Grand Canyon at 1 in the afternoon, a 16 mile round trip. I came back up in the pitch black with not a soul to be found.

I didn't feel fear, not once on that trip. I didn't feel God either, not once. That was confusing for me. I've always believed in God. I've always known he was with me. 

When you start believing your brain wasn't meant for the world, you kind of start questioning how God could have possibly designed a brain like yours. You start to wonder if she or he is real. If they're real, if they're cruel. They couldn't possibly be both all good and all powerful. Maybe they're just not all good. Maybe they were never there to begin with. 

The Bible scripture that has always been the most powerful to me was when Jesus was hanging on the cross, and it was the one moment when he needed his father, his closest support and confidant who was always there, and God couldn't be there for him. In the moment he needed him the most. 

He says, "My God my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46)

The truth was the he couldn't be with God in his darkest moment, so that God could be with us in ours. It always makes me cry to read. 

Then it leads us to the scripture where God says to us, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

That used to bring me so much comfort. It was my only comfort at times when I felt abandoned by the world and everyone who loved me in it. When I felt humanity and men were cruel from their actions and the way they could treat me and others. I thought surely, my God knows this is wrong, and he would never treat me this way. 

Never had I felt abandoned by God. 

Until this year. 

This is all difficult for me to write and admit. Truth be told, I don't have it fully worked out yet. 

I believe in God, but I feel abandoned by him. And that's not the God I used to know. 

That's not blasphemy to think, feel or say - it's just real. 

I haven't been able to update all of you because of what's been going on with me over the last few months, and I can't really share it either. I did want to be able to share something since I haven't made one of my regular posts in a while. 

It's hard to find peace in a world full of pain. In a brain that doesn't keep quiet, in a life that feels like it keeps falling apart. 

No one can tell me there's an answer to this, because no one can actually know. That's the scary part about life. 

You can't give someone directions to a place you've never been before, which is their life. Which is the road ahead. None of us have met God. This is a personal journey. Spirituality is experienced by each individual differently. 

You are allowed to not believe the exact same things as everyone around you, because the same things might not be true for you as is for them. We are all inherently different. So truth may be inherently different, to an extent, for all of us. It's an uncomfortable thought, but it's something to think about. 

This is a very honest post. 

I believe in goodness - absolutely. I have incredible friends surrounding me, I have the most understanding and caring professors. I have the best mom and many family members who love and support me. For crying out loud, Brandi Carlile is in this world, if she's not a symbol of goodness I don't know who is. 

In fact, she's partially keeping my faith alive. She tried to get baptized when she was young, but they wouldn't let her because she was gay. All she wanted to do was commit her life to God and be closer to him. Faith rejected her, but she didn't reject faith. She knew that wasn't God, that was people. She still believes and loves God and lives that way. 

Yes, I believe in goodness. And I am fighting with my life to keep my faith alive. There's just a different feeling when you know that nobody gets you. When you feel like you can't be known and loved. You can't be understood. You need to be medicated for people to feel more comfortable around you. It's unsettling. It makes you question your worth and value. I need to change in order to be loved. Who I am is truly not enough. To the world, at least. 

I used to believe I was enough for God. I think in my soul, I know that's one of those things that is true for everyone. But it's hard to grasp in a cruel and dark world that seems to just keep taking away what matters to you and your sense of belonging, no matter how hard you try to get better. When you have to "get better" from how you naturally are designed. 

That's really hard for me. I wonder if anyone relates to this. If you do, I'd love to hear from you. 

In the meantime, I'm working towards figuring out what "belonging" means. Someone told me that she believes there's room for a lot of different brains in this world, and I strive to believe that. I believe that for everybody else. I also believe that it's more difficult for some brains to exist here than it is for others. But that just means we fight harder and use our voice to get what we need. And if we're feeling it, we can even try to make change. It's not fair, but it's the only way.

"You have a voice

It is loud, it is clear

It's stronger than your fear

It's believing you belong

It's calling out the wrong

From the silence of my sisters

To the violence of my brother

We can, we can rage

Against the river feel the pain of another

I have a voice"

-Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile

Stay tuned for my next Nutrition Post - I have 3 more. Talk to you next week.