Alone, a chapter from my unfinished book, "Underage"

PREFACE

This morning I was catching up on some work and noticed the date. A smile spread across my face, and I realized it was the first time I've ever seen today's date and a smile was my immediate reaction. A smile I couldn't shake. I went searching through my laptop's archives to find some pictures from the trip I took to Kenya 16 years ago today, but I found this instead.... A chapter I'd written for a book I started writing while I was in college. I never finished writing it. The title of the book is "Underage," and it's for teenagers. 

This is the chapter where I share the bit of my testimony regarding Kenya, but it was written while I was in my early 20s- so at least 10 years have passed since I last read these words. 

I'd like to point out here in all caps A LOT OF HEALING HAS TAKEN PLACE since I wrote this chapter. I now better understand how this impacted my entire family and that my perceptions of others, although they were my reality, were not what was actually happening. I understand a lot more about mental health. I understand the church is made up of broken people- and until Jesus back, the church will always fall short. (Do not put your faith and your expectations in the church- put them in JESUS.) 

The voice is a little different than my writing voice is now, but the truth and anthem of it is the same- God will not leave us, and He will never waste our hurt. 

I realize teenagers are dealing with an entirely new basket of things than they were 10 years ago, but maybe something here still resonates with them.

I hope it encourages you... even if you're not the target audience for whom I wrote it. 

Praise be to God, forever and ever. 

<3 Lindsay

ALONE

Sometimes home isn’t where the heart is.  Sometimes, home can be a stressful place.  A place you don’t want to be; a place you find excuses to stay away from.  There are endless reasons why this may be the case.  I don’t know your’s.  But, it hurts your heart when they start to fight.  You’re scared you might say something wrong, or that they’re going to yell at you when you show them the report card, the bent bumper on dad’s car, or if you didn’t load the dishwasher just right.  If she’s not asleep, she’s drunk.  The money isn’t there, and they’re stressed about it.  Comments are constantly made about how expensive this or that is, and you really need some supplies for a project in school.  They’re never home, and you feel alone.  He picks on you, maybe even pushes you sometimes.  They make comments about the extra pounds you’ve put on as you hide inside your t-shirt.  Your room isn’t a safe place because she shares it with you, and usually kicks you out so she can talk on the phone with her boyfriend.  

 

For a while you tried to be the pleaser.  You tried to say nice things, help out around the house.  You really went out of your way so they’d see you loved them, with the hope that they’d be a little nicer to you, or things wouldn’t be so stressful.  But, it doesn’t help.  She still gets mad at you.  He still yells.  You sometimes catch yourself feeling scared.  You can’t talk about how you feel with anyone else who lives there, and you’re embarrassed to talk to your friends at school.  It would make your dad look “bad” if people knew he lost his job.  They’d get the wrong idea if you told them your mom constantly had a bottle of wine by her side.  So you keep it to yourself.  Meanwhile, you continue to feel even more, and more alone.  Depressed.  Sad.  At one point you actually thought it might be better not to be living anymore.  Maybe if you just died then you could escape all the pain you felt inside your home, the place that was supposed to be safe.  

 

Maybe you decided you wouldn’t go to that extreme – actually killing yourself.  Maybe you’d just cut your wrist.  You try it so you can feel something besides the emptiness that consumes you.  You try it to numb the feelings you do have that you can’t stand.  

 

One cut doesn’t do it – later you still feel the same way.

 

You’re not alone.

 

You, you precious child of God, you are not alone.  

 

Both David and Jesus cried out to God, “Why have you forsaken me?”  

 

Every day teenagers, adults, even children in this country are killing themselves because they feel so alone, and depressed, and scared, and hopeless.  

 

You are not alone.

 

Psalm 9:10 tells us that the Lord does not leave those who seek Him.  That is a promise!  God promises not to leave us.  Never.  See, you are not alone, even if you feel like you are.

 

I know what it feels like to feel alone.  

 

I was 17 years old.  I had the incredible opportunity to board a plane and fly to Kenya, Africa, where I’d work with Campus Crusade for three weeks.  With me were eight other Americans.  On our sixth day we were on our way to a school outside of Nairobi.  So far we’d eaten our hearts desire of pineapple, learned that white people can’t dance, and had finally adjusted to the time difference.  We stopped at a gas station on our way to the school.  I was videotaping.  Nothing was going on, so my teammates told me to save the battery and put the camera away.  I announced to the future viewers that “Nothing’s going on, so my team wants me to turn this off.”  I probably said something like, “We’ll see you later,” and pushed the off button with my thumb.  As I was pushing the camera into it’s case and under my seat, windows began to slam shut.  A lot of yelling in Swahili began outside the van.  I looked to my left and saw a man wearing a black, leather jacket pointing a black gun in through the window at one of our team moms.  Within a few seconds, four gunmen had taken control of our van and were driving us at an alarming speed away from the gas station.

 

During the next thirty minutes, bags were searched, people were searched, and guns were held an inch away from heads.  

 

The van eventually turned into this forest.  

 

The grass was as high as the windows on the van.  I couldn’t see over it.  It was this green-yellow colored grass.  The trees were becoming thicker.

 

I realized just about as soon as I saw the tall grass that I wasn’t coming out of this forest.  

 

I tried to keep thoughts of torture out of my head.  I repeated “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come…”  Over and over and over I said those words.  

 

Then the van stopped. 

 

More yelling.  The carjackers jumped out of the van.  Someone yelled for us to all get on the floor.  Four of us teenagers in the back of the van cramped into this tiny space in between seats, as our team nurse hovered over us in an attempt to protect us from whatever was about to happen next.  I mentally prepared myself for the shooting to begin.  

 

More yelling, this time in English.  The engine started.  I sat up in time to watch the man who had searched me disappear into the tall grass with the other three men.

 

Our van turned around and drove out of the forest…

 

I spent the next two years of my life scared.  For a long time after we returned to the States I couldn’t watch much television.  Commercials would come on for the evening news, which usually involved a shooting.  I only watched chick-flicks and comedies.  Nothing with guns, nothing with kidnapping.  

 

That fall I began my senior year of high school.  We managed to read the most violent books and stories that semester in my AP English class, two set in Africa, another about a carjacking.  We learned all about fight-or-flight in AP Psychology, and how your body responds to dangerous situations.  By the time I got to calculus for fourth period, I was usually pretty worked up inside.  I spent many calculus periods fighting flash-backs and calming triggers.

 

The next year I began college in down town Atlanta – whose dark one way streets proved a source for triggering every feeling I’d felt in that van.  I had flashbacks as real as this book is in your hands.  In a second I was back in Africa, speeding down the pot-hole filled road, turning into the jungle.

 

During those two years, I felt pretty scared and alone.  My family was as supportive as they could be, but eventually I felt like they expected me to be better.  I felt like everyone expected me to not have problems anymore with guns, or gas stations, or questions about Africa.  I got to a point where I felt like I shouldn’t talk about my feelings anymore.  I should be a pleaser, and deal with it myself.  Alone.

 

My heart hurt.  I was scared.  I was dealing with the fact that I had been violated by that man in the black jacket.  

 

And I believe it hurt God to watch me live in emotional pain.  

 

People would say to me, “Lindsay, God is in control.”  That just made me mad, because that meant God let these awful things happen to me.  And that was hard for me to wrestle with.  “God let that man touch me? … God let that gun come so close to my head?”  

 

Yeah, He did.  But, what’s more important than that He let this awful thing happen, is that He was there while it did.  He didn’t leave.  Did He really allow that terrible, awful thing happen to me that put me in therapy for two years?  Yes.

 

The same is true for you.  When those terrible things are happening to you in your home, those things you won’t tell anyone because you feel so shameful – He’s there.  It breaks His heart to see you suffer.  Is He letting it happen?  Yes. Are you alone?  No.  

 

When you fight with your mom, and nothing you do will make her happy, is He there?  Yes.  Are you alone?  No.

 

When you cry and throw things because you’re so upset that your dad wont stop cheating on your mom, is He there?  Yes.  God’s still there.

 

You have to remember that while humans have been given free will to make our own choices and act out our own behaviors, God is still in control.  What does that mean?  That doesn’t make sense.  God has the power to intervene.  He has the power to stop bad things from happening.  But, sometimes He chooses not to.  Why?

 

Jesus told us in John 15 that the world will hate us (Christians).  He gave us the heads up that life wasn’t going to be easy for Christians.  That bad things would happen.  No where in the Bible does it say that God has a wonderful plan for Christians’ lives that is full of happiness and possessions, and most of all is stress free!  That’s no where in the Bible.  We should not be surprised when we’re going through rough times. 

 

So, where have I gotten you to?  I’ve pretty much acknowledged that for you, home might not be a happy place.  You probably have a lot of deep hurts.  You are very young, yet you have already experienced more pain that people twice your age.  You might not feel like there’s anyone you can talk to about what’s going on in your life, but God is always there, because He promised us that He would be.  

 

Now you’re saying, “But I still hurt.”

 

God doesn’t waste hurt.  God can turn every bad thing into a good thing.  I tell you the truth.  Not only can He turn every bad thing into a good thing, but He does.  

 

I remember during one of my times of feeling alone regarding Kenya stuff, my dad told me that God was probably using it to prepare me for something.  He said, “Lindsay, God might be using this time to teach you to turn to Him first.  There might come a time when you’ll go through something worse than Kenya, and you will physically be alone, with no one to turn to but Him.”  

 

God will use your hurt for a good reason.  I can’t tell you what it is.  But it is through the hardest times in life when we tend to find ourselves closest to our Maker.  Don’t keep God pushed away from you right now because you’re mad at Him for letting this bad thing happen.

 

If you feel alone, cry out to Him.  I pray for you right now that as you pray that you would feel His presence.  God can do big things with you, and with what you’ve been experiencing.  

 

“Where can I go from Your spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.”  Psalm 139: 7-12