Fear of Falling

 you want change with no sacrifice. you want peace without struggle…

that is impossible:

Death is a natural part of life. So is fear. So are feelings.

If we deny our feelings, we will become filled with fear. And fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Sadness is better than hatred.

But letting ourselves be sad is possibly the most frightening thing to face in the existence of the human condition. I think this is because  sadness leaves us so vulnerable. So naked. So afraid to let others know how desperately we need them. And so afraid of their rejection.

Because I struggle with depression, when Joel died I was afraid I would fall into that deep hole I am all too familiar with. Only this time, I was afraid I would not be able to summon the strength climb out again. What would happen to me then?

I really cannot describe how it feels to be in that hell-dwelling. I know there are worse things people have to face. There is easily as much suffering in this world as there is joy. I know because I have seen this suffering with my own eyes. In famine stricken parts of Africa. In unspeakably horrible refugee camps. In countless war zones created by wars that make no sense.

The only way I can describe the hell of the worst depression I have known is this: I can no longer love myself. I even begin to hate myself. As a result ~ I actually push myself away from myself. What then? Who will love a person who cannot even love themselves?

God will.

Even if a person logically doesn’t believe in God, there are times when it’s okay to take a break from logic and just go ahead and believe that there is a God. What is there to lose at time like that? To quote Bob Dylan, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”

In my case, I was 20 years old when I realized God loved me. I was at the bottom of one of those already familiar hell holes of depression. I was not the least bit interested in logic at that moment. Although to be honest, I’m not certain if I ever am. It was as if I looked up and there He was. It was as if He just allowed me to see Him. And I had never seen anything or anyone as irresistibly beautiful in my short but desperately mentally and emotionally painful life. So that was easy.

There He was. There I was. There we were. 

I’m not a theologian. So I can’t understand what happened to me at that second. Or explain it. And I don’t really need to. I remember the main feeling I experienced was one of profound relief. It felt like finding home after wandering around since my adolescence in a state of terror, thinking there was no home.

Obviously I’m not going to say that since that August night in 1977 my life has been easy. It hasn’t. There are many things that make no sense to me at all. And the jaws of that awful hole of depression are still there. And I still fall into that hole; sometimes for what appears to be for no particular reason. But I think the main difference my trust in God has made is the knowledge that I don’t need a reason. I know He is the Daddy and I am the little child. I find great comfort in that knowledge.

Pain is still pain. Loneliness is still awful. Cruelty is still real. The razor’s edge of life’s suffering is still just as sharp. But it all doesn’t seem meaningless or random anymore.

I don’t know how many more times in my life I will be able to keep climbing out of that hole. But now I don’t have to worry about it. Or why life is like it is. Because He is the Constant. And somehow, in or out of that wretched hole… I know He loves me.

The Darkness Can’t Own Me  

I’m scared of swimming in this sea,

as slithering shapes encompass me.

Pretended fearlessness is worse,

for pride-lies leave you hanging.

And  you become your own lonely curse.

So every fear I deny and swallow

only makes me false and smaller.

Inconsequential things occur,

becoming a desperate scream unheard,

as unwanted memories are stirred.

It’s not the way it has to be.

I won’t let fear have control over me.

Yet I’m afraid of what I do not know;

I hate being so misunderstood.

I try to stand beside myself ~

to be confident that I am good.

When even I can see,

no one else can hear that cry.

I am alone ~ to do or die.

I can’t let fear have

control over me.

I am walking

through the undergrowth

to a house in the wood.

I feel completely alone,

rejected and misunderstood.

The deeper I go

the darker it grows.

I knock on the door.

I peer through the window.

What will happen

I do not know.

But despite how weak I seem to be,

I own my fear.

so it doesn’t own me.

.          ~ tricia woodworth 3/2017