How does one praise God in the depths of insanely hurt drenched tears that fall from the face of one who has been betrayed and has lost the love that was promised? Life can be so cruel that one can doubt the very existence of ones worth even in the eyes of God? Part of my story is the struggle to want to claim with all my heart, that it is indeed well with my soul!  However the life stories are dictating another script and my heart is broken.

Many years ago I swallowed twenty – four of my prescribed anti – depressants; four at a time six times. It was a bid to escape the pain of discovering what my diagnosis was in name and the absolute fear of how I would ever be able to live with such a condition coupled with the deep hurt of abuse that I had been subjected to at the hands of strangers and friends.

I felt that my life was over and living with schizophrenia at that time would be more then I could ever cope with. I believed it would be a life of aloneness, being alone in reoccurring bouts of psychosis. A psychosis that at that time consisted of a terror that made me feel trapped in a pitch black so physically dense that one begins to reach out into it, as in hallucinatory notes of disfigured reality.

It feels with all of ones being as if there is a strong hold totally around ones soul, like being consumed with the darkness of a mal informed inferno - directed internally from which there is no escape: only a deeper intensity of terror.

This terror is experienced from within not from the outside but it informs the senses from the inside out - as if there is no adequate release. It is an experience without valve or at least it was for me. Therefore I created a valve in which to challenge the depth of the experience of the darkness and in doing so mistakenly challenged the light.

I was found after the overdose and taken to hospital where they filled my stomach with tar and pumped it. As I lay there I could feel myself falling into a different kind of darkness that was reality and in turn I blacked out, to awaken the next morning some twenty hours later attached to many wires and machines around my heart and body. Stunned into stillness like a rabbit in the headlights, I have contemplated my actions in a time frame so slowed down that years have passed in the interim without speaking from my inner heart.

The desperation of what I had done to myself was realised in slow motion, after the time given back to me was received in grace. I  vowed to love and live and not allow the darkness to win. I chose to listen to the voice of God as much as I could and do hear him - but only after I had tried and tested his love. I was wrong.

I had thought that I needed to know that there was a way out of the situation and self- hatred and in doing so caused loved ones such anguish and fear in my selfish expression of my own fear of never being loved, never loving myself and never loving others or being loved by God.
Later, by the grace of God in the time frame of the continuation of my life and before the conception of my child; Jesus found me!

I received an experience of Truth in light. It consummated my whole person and spirit. It was so intense in its purity, strength and beauty that I would not recover from the intensity of the reality of that truth to this day.

It was I believe, the power of God who ever lives to intercede for us in the heavenly realms releasing to me and into me; his full acceptance and forgiveness. It was a timeless moment of extraordinary perception of God’s Truth; of pure love toward me: who did not deserve to experience such a moment. Thank you God for what you have given.
 

He made it well with my soul through His Holy spirit directly to my spirit.

Today in personal heart ache of loss, I absolutely know love is real. It was perhaps a glimpse of heaven or perhaps he stepped into darkness to free me personally from my sin. I will never forget it as He valued me above that which I valued.

At times the living with the schizophrenia and other illnesses that have plagued me and my family have caused such relentless stress, anger, loneliness and deceit and miss- communication  of my true heart that it has has meant that there has been a great personal cost for which there are no adequate words to describe.

I have battled the forces of this world without the full understanding of the word of God; yet, He has hung onto me through his Holy Spirit in his grace and tender mercy. The mind has yet to be renewed fully yet I am still here, even in such heart breaks of tribulation, that I can only say with my will ’It is well with my soul’!

My heart silently screams and loudly groans to my God, my friend and beloved ‘ It is well with my soul’  in spite of the outward circumstances, as my faith,  such as it stands,  is challenged in this day beyond my wildest thoughts or actions or actions of others.

He makes me to lie in pastures green and speaks to my spirit through his Holy Spirit of things so deep that I can but groan utterances back to my Saviour and praise his Holy name.

I have felt like running away and am free to do so, yet ….. ‘It is well with my soul!’ There is indeed a better day.

For He values me when I am sadly unable to do so, as the hurt experienced at times is too much for me without Him!

He really must be the love of my life. He is indeed the love of my life; a love stronger than the grave and He has promised never to leave me.

Anon