A Note to Ignorant People at 5 in the Morning

Dear every person who says that a mental illness is not a valid reason for not being able to finish schoolwork or attend a "normal" school,

Say that to the boy who sleeps in every class because he's too tormented to sleep at night.

Tell that to my teacher who had to talk my friend out of suicide on a school night at 2 in the morning.

Tell that to my bio teacher who saw almost our entire class break down during a suicide prevention assembly.

Tell that to the man on the phone the morning I called the suicide hotline because she was home alone and I thought she was going down.

Tell that to my youth group leader who tells me I look so alive now in comparison to how dead I looked sophomore year.

Say that to any friend who has had to calm me down after an anxiety attack.

Say that to every friend that has ever come to me afraid that they're going to self-harm.

Tell that to the kids who have failing grades because they can’t focus, the ones who can’t make it through a school night without having an anxiety attack, the kids who sleep right when they get home and straight on until morning, the ones who have more breakdowns a day than meals a day, the ones who have spent more time staring at hospital walls than school hallways.

Tell that to the kids who cry every night.

Tell that to the teenagers in psychiatric wards and treatment centers. Tell that to the family of someone who has just committed suicide.

Tell them that school is more important than their sanity.

An Untitled Prayer

There's a whole lot of uneasy hearts around me lately, Lord...

And it's gray outside and it feels like this winter will never end and my spirit is slumped and parched and exhausted...

Life. I need, we need...life.

I believe that's what You came to give and I've been so confused lately because I am Yours and yet I feel so empty...

I feel constantly trapped in one spot on one side of this wall

and You over there and I really need to connect with You and what's going on in Your heart but my prayers are muffled in my head and I can't make sense of myself, much more You...

And I don't know what I'm doing with my life and I am trying to believe that this good work that you have begun in me will be completed...

But it all seems so distant...You know?...

There are scars on my arms and scars on my heart and...scars on Your wrists for my scars that You came to heal but I feel like I've wasted it, all of it...like You've handed me a glass of water that You've traveled so far to bring and in a blink I've tossed it at the wall and crumpled to the ground, crying that I'm thirsty...

I don't know how You do it.

Or why...

You want me, yes? You created me in my mother's womb on purpose, yes?

I'm not forgotten, abandoned, forsaken, given up on...

I'm Your own...yes?...

Your own created messy one.

Breathe in me again, reach far beyond me and gather all my shards and meld together my broken pieces...

...and maybe we can just be broken together for a minute or so. I'm broken over me and them and this life I never saw coming and I can feel Your brokenness over me, much as I've tried to avoid looking You in the eyes.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I'm small and that I try to hold this huge, huge tear at my center together on my own.

I'm sorry that I freeze whenever You get too close.

I'm sorry that I shut myself to You.

I'm sorry for holding what he did to me against You, as if You were the orchestrator of it all. I haven't really loved You, I do see that now, for doesn't love believe the best, not the worst?

I don't know how to believe.

I don't know how to believe these things that have been pounded into my head since I was small. "God is good all the time! Jesus loves me! I've got peace like a river, I've got peace like a river, I've got peace like a river in my soul..."

I don't know how to believe that You won't just up and toss me away when You get sick of this game of hide-and-seek.

I hear Your hold on me is stronger than my hold on You and I need You to breathe that into everything in me when I'm losing myself...losing You...

My hold on you is stronger than your hold on Me. 

I'm slipping and sliding and the snow is falling even harder outside and...hold onto me...

I don't know where I'm going or what to do with everything happening around me...

And I know You're here, somewhere, Your wounds holding mine tonight, Lord...

And maybe I don't need more words or proof, maybe I just need You to be here with me silently. Sometimes when someone is going through a storm they don't need a wind of words, just the stillness of a hand in theirs. So hold my hand?

I don't know how You do it, I've said it before.

But thank You. However You do.