Catch up here with Part 1 and Part 2!

There’s a lot of us who can testify to rock bottom. To wet faces pushed down in the carpet. Some of us have been there more than once. For me, it’s this place where the superficial foundation I’ve created for myself gives way, and I fall hard, and fast, and deep. Sometimes I can sense it coming. I can see cracks and hear rumbling underneath my feet. Other times I’m caught off guard. Either way, the landing hurts. My pride is crushed. A relationship is broken. I’ve neglected promises. I’ve failed. Again. People are still driving to work, and buying groceries, and attending school activities. The sun is still shining. But I can’t see or feel any of it. I’m lost in a darkness that invades my body and makes a home in my heart and mind. Fear and pain own pricy real estate in rock bottom. If you’ve been there, you know.

And yet…
My most recent visit has reminded me of a few things. Rock bottom is a powerful place. It’s the place where noise and fillers and masks get ripped away from you, and you’re left stripped down with only two things to ponder: to stay down or climb out. It’s ironic that at your weakest and darkest moment, the best option in front of you requires a strength that you may not even have on your best day. Because climbing out is a journey. It comes with slips and falls and blood and sweat. And so, rock bottom is a place where determination and resiliency are born. It’s a place of coming home to the values and morals you once had. It’s a place of coming back to what matters and being reminded of what’s so ridiculously insignificant. The darkness triggers an exceptional form of sight that rarely exists in the normalcy of life. These are the things that make rock bottom beautiful and sacred.

But most importantly, it’s a place where God draws undeniably near. If you let Him. It’s where we get quiet and still and desperate enough to finally hear His voice. Feel His touch. It’s where I’ve been reminded of who I am without Him, and its where He teaches me who I am with Him. It’s where He gives me a strength that I couldn’t possibly have on my own, and feeds me heaping platefuls of grace and mercy. And it’s where He lays hands on my shame, and washes my black canvas back to white again.

No doubt this is where some of you will start backing away.

Because God is a tricky subject. He comes with unanswered questions, and mystery, and doubt. So He requires trust, which is simple and hugely difficult at the exact same time. And He requires faith in a world that wants everything proven by facts and evidence before it earns the title of “Truth”. Funny thing is, we can’t avoid faith. Even the nonbelievers. It takes faith to believe in God, and faith NOT to believe in Him. So in the end, we are all putting our confidence in something, or someone. We just have to decide where to invest it.

I’m 39 years old now, and there’s not much that I’m 100% sure of, except this….everything in this world is destructible. EVERYTHING. Strong, healthy people can get sick and die. Successful marriages can be ruined by betrayal. Friendships can fall apart. Circumstances can change. Money can be lost. Houses can burn down. Minds can be tainted. Hearts can be broken. EVERYTHING. Destructible.

Sometimes, the destruction breaks us down in the middle of picking up toys in the living room. It takes a hammer to our worldly foundation and suddenly we’re back there again. At rock bottom. Wet faces pushed down in the carpet. And it’s here. Right here in this moment, that I reevaluate…or remember….where I want to invest my faith.

And so, in a world where nothing and no one is immune from destruction, I choose to invest my faith in the only thing in existence that is indestructible….the only thing that has the distinct ring of truth. When I hear it, I’m overwhelmed by authority. When I read it, my eyes see strength and love. When I speak it, my mouth can taste life. And when I meditate on it, my soul feels at home.

So, that day in the living room I said a prayer to God. I can’t remember it word for word…but it was messy. I didn’t say please or ask to be forgiven. I didn’t sing the praises of a Savior who had never left me. I was broken, and my words were beyond raw. I challenged Him. I yelled at Him and said that I didn’t feel any evidence of Him in my life anymore. I told Him I was so damn tired, and that I needed Him to show up NOW if He actually loved me. I told Him that if His truth was THE TRUTH, I needed Him to reveal it to me in a way that went beyond the Bible stories I’d grown up with.

And then, I stood up slowly, wiped my face with my hands, yelled out an apology to the cat, and went to find a Bible.