Casey's Awkward Confessions: #4

Never do a statistics assignment at 4am.

You would think this would go without saying. Apparently not.

It was the last week of my second year at uni. We’d had a big dinner in honour of the third year residents who would shortly be leaving our hallowed halls for the sub-par cuisine and questionable hygiene of student-flat living. After dinner I went to bed while the party raged on. Unfortunately the party moved to a bonfire. Which happened to be right outside my room. No sleep for Casey.

At around 3:30am I gave up trying to catch some zzzz’s and decided I might as well be productive. So I dragged my semi-conscious body out of bed and decided to start my stats assignment (which, incidentally, was due in later that day). I’d been working for about half an hour when I heard a noise at my door. I got up to listen and was about to open the door, when suddenly the door was in my face. Literally. All up in my grill.

Let me explain. A few of the guys in college had a nasty habit of kicking in other people’s doors. With an almighty crack the door frame was ripped off the wall, my door swung into my head and I literally went flying back 2 meters and crashed into my desk. It’s a shame Jackass weren’t filming, it would have been quite spectacular. It’s strange how time slows down during those moments. I specifically remember careering backwards over my chair and as my feet lifted off the ground and my back smashed into my desk I suddenly realised I hadn’t breathed since I got hit. In an attempt to take a breath I let out the most awful, manly ‘aaargh’ which sounded suspiciously like a drowning sheep. Attractive.

Once I had processed what had happened I called my friend, who answered the phone with ‘who the f*** is calling me?!’ It took me three attempts to coherently ask him to come help. He found me with a giant lump on my forehead, a swollen purple lip, a gash on my back, crying hysterically. I had also made the unfortunate choice of wearing a warehouse polo shirt as pyjamas. Not a polo shirt purchased from the warehouse. The actual uniform. Great call.

There was a lot of fuss and bother and eventually it was decided that I probably wasn’t concussed so I could go to sleep, then go to the hospital in the morning (which was right next door. How handy). When my friend came back in the morning to take me to hospital I wouldn’t wake up. So he did what any resourceful person would do. He went and got me hashbrowns and pancakes and miraculously I woke up straight away. Fancy that.

So I went to the hospital and got my doctors certificate for a mild concussion (which also got me an extension on my stats assignment – win!). While dramatic, it didn’t really have any long-term impact on my brain functions. But that night was a turning point. Suddenly I didn’t want to do anything. I literally just didn’t have the energy or the desire to do life. I had never been so homesick. I didn’t even care enough to be miserable. I just had nothing. That night picked me up, spun me around 10 times, then dropped me onto a different path and dared me to walk. Dizzy and confused, I fell flat on my face.

Awkward confession #5 : I spent 10 years hating myself and, during a brief period of ‘relief’ I thought I was miraculously recovered. I thought once I’d reached the point where I actually felt like God loved me, I would stay that way and everything would just click into place. It didn’t. 2012 is PMSing all over my life and I didn’t see it coming. One minute I was all ‘crap God DOES love me and he CAN use me and it’s all going to be OK’, the next minute I was like ‘this is NOT how my life was supposed to be, it is UNFAIR and CRAPPY and I would like a refund please. Actually, I take back the ‘please’. Ha, take that.’ Why can’t we just reach a point where we are all fixed and happy and it stays that way? Yes, I know, it’s LIFE. It just makes my want to punch my own face a little bit.

The thing I don’t understand is why we are all so afraid to admit it. Why are we so ashamed? We are more than happy to have a whine and moan about the little things, but when it comes to the big life-changing stuff we think that being honest about the hurt and the fear means we are a terrible Christian. Because how could anything be bad when we have Jesus? Instead of being real we minimise our true feelings and cover it with a bunch of Christian clichés. If someone asks how you are, the correct answer is: ‘I’m great, Jesus loves me, He has a plan for me, His timing is perfect, He knows how I feel’ even though the real answer might be: ‘I’m devastated, everything hurts, I can’t see a way out.’

Many of you will know that I studied at Sydney University. The plan was to stay in Sydney for a couple of years after I graduated, save up money and head further abroad. Many of you will also know that instead I came home as soon as I graduated. Not all of you will know why. In a nut-shell, I came home for a boy. At the tender age of 21 I decided I wanted to get married more than I wanted to see the world. I am currently single. We can all join the dots on that one.

At the time, if you’d asked me how I was I would have said something like ‘it’s a bit of a bummer, but I know it’s for the best. I believe God wanted me back in New Zealand and He wanted me to be single because he has work to do in me that He couldn’t have done if I was in a relationship. I know God is going to use me and I’m looking forward to seeing where He is going to take me.’ While all of those are true, what I was really thinking was ‘!thi$%i$^f&*%in!^b%$#s@#$%^&*!’. I was devastated and I couldn’t see the bigger picture because all I could see was disappointment and heartbreak. It doesn’t mean I don’t trust God, it doesn’t mean I don’t have faith, it doesn’t mean I’m less of a Christian – it just means I’m human and have emotions.

Around that time we were given journals at church and were told to write pretty much whatever came to mind. I opened up that journal the other day and found my first entry:

‘I am tired. I’m sick of being in pain and trying to justify it by saying at least I learnt something. Sometimes the hurt can’t be rationalised away. Sometimes it just hurts.’

We’ve all been there, we’ve all been in that place where we feel like crap and can’t see a way out. We all reach a point where keeping it together is just too exhausting. But we only feel safe to admit it after we’ve got through it. We only share stories of pain and suffering if they have a happy ending. We will only admit to the hurt and disappointment if there is a ‘but’. ‘But I know God is going to use this experience for my betterment’. ‘But God is good’. ‘But God has a plan for me’. There is huge truth in all of those statements. In hindsight I can see how real those statements have been in my life. But only in hindsight. At the time I was so weighed down by darkness that I couldn’t even imagine the light.

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a rather glass-half-empty kind of way, is why are we so afraid to be real? And why can’t we let those around us be real too? I’m not quite sure when ‘coping’ morphed into ‘not having any bad feelings at all.’ We hide behind our ‘God is good’ culture and awkwardly dance around the fact that real, unexplainable, unjustifiable suffering exists. Everywhere. Every day. And I’m not talking about dramatic news stories, or that awful thing that happened to Johnny’s uncle’s colleague’s sister’s son. It’s easy to talk about suffering when it’s happening to others and it’s out of reach – poverty, famine, natural disasters, the list goes on. But I am talking about YOU. What is happening in YOUR life?

I love hope. I believe in hope. Hope reminds me that the crap I feel right now isn’t my future. Hope encourages me to face my problems. Hope promises me that, whether it be in this life or the next, it will get better.

Hope doesn’t take away the pain of today. Hope isn’t the cure. Telling someone that ‘it will get better’ doesn’t mean it is automatically better now. It just means there’s something to work towards. There is something to fight for.

Hope is what makes me not give up.

My challenge to you is be real. Feel what you are feeling. Experience the freedom of being honest about the fact that sometimes LIFE SUCKS! It’s OK to feel overwhelmed, it’s OK to feel hurt, it’s OK if you don’t see the light right now.

Just don’t give up.