Chapters

There was a time in my life when death was a viable option. Years when deep lies were believed that I would fail as a person, that I was not worth anyone's love. At 18, I gave in. I said okay, you're right. I'm not fit to be alive. I'm never going to be. Time to end it. I tried. I shook out as many pills as I could from their containers. I washed them down with a gallon size jug of water. And then I waited. My mind became foggy. I remember my dad coming in my room. I remember my mom asking me questions and "calmly" taking me to the hospital. I remember lying there in the hospital bed, hallucinating. Seeing animals dance across the ceiling, the large spotlight over my head. I remember the hushed talking, the decisions being made about my care. Drink charcoal, they said. If that doesn't bring it up, then we'll have to pump your stomach. So I drank the thick, black, sickeningly sweet charcoal. It didn't take long. The heaving. The pain. The excruciating, neverending night. But then the morning came and I was still alive. The charcoal had done the job. There were some physical side effects from the pills I had swallowed. So I had to stay. Social workers came and went. Asking question after question. I pulled whatever I had left together and danced the sanity dance for them. I'm fine, I said. It was a stupid decision, I said. I'll never do it again, I said. And they let me leave.

I wasn't okay. I left for college later that summer. And I wasn't okay. I had a fiancee who soon became my husband living, breathing by my side. And I wasn't okay. I began to envision other ways of ending it. Could I jump from this window, I asked. I would inspect my wrists. Could I end it in this gory way, I asked. These thoughts were a part of me for years.

Time passed. And passed. It was not one thing that healed me. A series of events. People calling me forward at church services. Proclaiming truth over me. My husband's fierce loyalty, not letting me go when many would have walked away. Quiet times with the Lord. Revelations of His sweet Love. Calling me His Precious Jewel. The birth of my firstborn son. A series of events that slowly turned my thoughts. If this One has called me Beautiful and Wanted, who am I to disagree with this?  You never disappoint me, He says. Who am I to turn by back on that?

This part of my past no longer creates grief in my heart. It no longer causes shame. It's my story. And I'm grateful. I look at the precious faces of my children and I am grateful. I'm glad I've never been the one with the pen. I have chapters yet to be written. Whole chapters.