Why it's so personal
I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I hope I never get over it.
TW: suicide
I sighed, audibly. The road through the mountains was utterly nauseating. It wound back and forth. The twists and turns were sharp. It was a cloudy January morning in Glasgow Kentucky, and I was completely annoyed at everything, in my full teenage angst. That year my parents, my best friend, and I took a trip to mammoth cave for my birthday. They really tried to make it nice. The cave was gorgeous, and it was my first time tasting peppermint hot chocolate from the service station. I was instantly hooked. In true road-trip fashion, we ate a German chocolate cake while sitting outside at sonic- yes, in the middle of a snowstorm. All of my favorite things at once. This is what birthdays are about, after all. When a child asks for a hodgepodge of randomness, it’s usually met with lightheartedness and laughter. But I was older. And there was a concerted effort in that moment to do whatever it took to keep me from breaking down. Or completely denotating. Like the RBG reference, I wasn’t fragile like a flower, I was fragile like a bomb.
They weren’t even aiming for smiles here; the bar was really that low. I was so on edge. As we sat huddled around that concrete picnic table in the middle of January eating cake off of paper plates we had packed from home, and all I wanted to do was cry. I was exploding and convulsing inside of my own head over and over and over. I wish I could explain it better than that. But I did all I could to hide it.
This was the day before.
So anyway, the next day we were moseying through the mountains, exploring a little. We came across a little mountain souvenir shop that looked like a log cabin and decided to check it out. Back then, most everything was closed on a Sunday morning. I’m pretty sure this was the only place open for miles. As we exited the van and looked around, the Appalachian mountains shot up on either side of the icy road. We kicked the snow off of our shows as we entered the building and fanned out as we began to shop. We were definitely the only customers inside this quirky & eclectic space. As I wandered around, I was drawn to a silver dragon necklace on a black twine rope. There were interesting looking geodes and crystals and a hodgepodge of dream catchers, rabbit fur and other tchotchkes. I walked around the corner and thought to myself about stealing the necklace. It wouldn’t have been hard. I rubbed it in between my two fingers and almost placed it in my coat pocket. Who would have even cared?
But as I peered over my right shoulder, I noticed my mom at the register. She was crying, sobbing actually, talking with the owner of the shop. The woman, the owner, had stopped my mother and asked her a series of invasive questions- questions that were way too personal for a stranger to ask. Her tone was frantic, yet insistent. She seemed a little nervous too.
The woman asked if we were from Marietta, GA. We in fact were from the little known southern suburban city of Marietta. I don’t think any of us had mentioned anything about home. I remember peeking out the window to verify which direction our car was parked. Maybe she saw our car’s tags? Maybe she watched us pull in. But then she asked my mother several more very specific very personal questions. She asked how many children my parents had which was confusing at first because they arrived with two teenage girls— but I grew up with a little brother. At first the woman thought she was mistaken, but then after learning that my brother was at home, certainty brightened her demeanor. We were the family that she was waiting for.
Excuse me, what?
Things were getting weird. My dad, who is usually calm and collected was standing next to my mom quivering his ankle anxiously. I found myself gripping the dragon necklace tightly and curiously creeping closer and closer to the woman until I accidentally made eye contact and abruptly stopped. She looked me straight in the eye and told me that she had been waiting for me— me.
I froze.
She told me she was waiting for me with a message from God. “God wants you to know he’s not done with you yet. Don’t give up.”
For most people, this might have felt fairly generic. Not particularly special. Maybe just weird.
But the rest of us knew.
The week before, one week before, I had attempted suicide. I failed even at that. My rage, my fury, my shame, and the humiliation I was walking in had culminated into this massive moment that I couldn’t see past. I hated myself. I felt worthless. Truthfully, I was a bully, and I couldn’t see how to fix the damage I had done. I couldn’t figure out a way to repair all the hurt I had caused, so I wanted out.
I hated God. I was at war with him. And I was heartbroken.
That was the week my parents took me out of public school forever and were just trying to keep me alive. This trip was a sorry attempt at a consolation. “Sorry we’re ruining your life. We know you’re miserable. We don’t know what else to do. Here’s some cake in the snow.”
So, when this stranger, this prophetess I guess, at a shop on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere hundreds of miles from home had the audacity to tell me that the God I hated wasn’t done with me yet- that he had found me… There was not an emotion to describe the fullness of my rage combined with disappointment combined with heartache. My world was shattered. My heart was broken. I craved numbness- but I felt it all. And this persistent God wouldn’t leave me alone. Didn’t he know I wasn’t worth the trouble?
But this God, that I sort of knew about, had grown up learning about and performing for and tried so hard to be good enough for, he found me, and he was bothering me. “Why on earth are you showing up now? You’re about two weeks too late” I thought to myself.
This was me roughly 20 years ago. An enemy of God. At war with myself. Angry with the world.
So, when western evangelicals write off entire groups of people as “enemies of God,” I struggle, y’all. Because there’s this part of me that identifies more with the emnitious that the pious. I vividly remember the ugliest parts of who I used to be. I remember when I was the enemy. And I vividly remember how tenderly and patiently God worked to heal my heart. So, when we talk about the ethics of enemy-love and peacemaking, its personal. When I think of Jesus instructing his followers to love their enemies, I remember how much God loved me when I hated him, when I hated myself.
The God I know, the God who rescued me from myself over and over, isn’t a God that wrote me off. God chased after me while I was his enemy, so that he could love me.
He didn’t chase after me to wipe me out or convert me or change me…he chased after me to wrap me in his love, heal my heart, and welcome me into his family. The transformation happened after that.
Scripture is full of invitations for people like me to think of ourselves and one another as more than threats, more than enemies of God, because our identity as image bearer bestowed on us by the divine will always supersede any earthly labels that we bestow upon one another. Because of who God is, and what God has done for me, I can’t help but take peace seriously, because the peace of Christ is what saved me from the war inside myself.
God will fill the renewed creation with former enemies, would-be threats, and misfits who don’t sit well in pews. This is a promise.
So, if I seem a little too obsessed with the power of peace— peace that is just and true— it’s because this is my story: Me, an enemy of God was met with the peace of Christ while I was still his enemy.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.
I hope I never get over it.
And I hope more than anything that every enemy is met with Peace.
— <3