I Will Never Leave You

August 19th,

  So many ideas have flooded my head today.  So much to write on and yet..... there remains a still hesitation.  I might say that I will write on relationships but that in fact, for many reasons, is being kept for something much deeper than a blog....... In fact a book.  As for now I have one unsettling, and tremendous hill to march in my writing and through my life and it is best expressed now, with pose, tact, and honesty.  Please know that as I write this I am stable.

  In September of 2012 my life changed dramatically.  My best friend Nathaniel I. Tennant left for great purposes to CAP but none the less.... gone.  My family began to feel the overbearing, practically crushing weight of the work to financial status ratio and things were getting rough..... really rough.  I was mad at God for seemingly leaving me in a place with no future, no hope, and crushing responsibilities.  I seemed to watch my friends fade away like the ashes of an old memory haunted card, scattering in the wind.   I hated my life through and through.  The stress was intensifying, but in fact...... it became too much.  As of my eighteenth birthday, October 16th, I was anorexic.  Now this didn't dawn on me at all, after all i'm a guy, I didn't need support, hell I could do it on my own..... so, so Wrong.

  I functioned as many others did and even above and beyond that of many. I woke up relatively early, I worked a minimal eight hour day, sometimes fourteen, and then as evenings came I would begin my ''other life''  chatting with friends, youth group, sleepovers... all that.  Meanwhile avoiding the obvious.  On a daily basis I would wake up in the night and hear screams outside.....they weren't there.  I would begin my day in cold sweats, doubled over in pain, my sides were being ripped apart and my head spun as if receiving a cold brick of ice in the jaw.  I was in pain.  I couldn't run a hundred yards for my life, I could barely stay awake through my days and when I did fall asleep,  I was haunted.  I was unsure which was worse, conscious pain or subconscious hell.  I was hell bent I needed to loose weight, run more and eat healthier.....the only problem is I only did the first and I did it well.  I found myself lying about how much I had eaten to my friends, denying food saying I was "sick" or nauseous.  It wasn't out of spite for anyone really, I just.....hated food.  Something had to change because I began to feel tightness in my chest, I was having heart palpitations, and crying became my way of saying goodnight beneath the pillow.  I came too close to ending things the easy way.  I wanted an end, and a quick one but Christ said, "No Carmen, hold on one day longer, I will help you."  So I held on one day longer, each day, fighting my mind and giving little sway in my heart.  Finally after eternity our PCC  CAP trip rolled around and I found momentary rest but, as some of us know, it's not the slow descent that kills, it's the brutalizing relapse...... And I did.  At the end of April I hit bottom with a resonating force.  It was then I began to question my faith, my motives, my reason to exist.  I needed someone to hold me,  and validate my pain, I desperately needed to know someone.....anyone cared.


  One month of black hell passes.... and somehow I begin to see a small, small light. So small I didn't even set my hope's on it at first for fear of being rejected or denied. All I wanted now was acceptance..... from any crowd.  I was days, maybe closer, from relieving my pain in a way I knew of all too well when Christ said once more, "Hold on, don't give up yet, it's just around the bend." I don't know if I trusted him or not but at this point I had no choice, I left my razor on the dresser, the lighter on the desk and dropped to my knees and begged.... I begged God to take the pain away, I begged him to hold me, I begged him for hope.... just one drop of hope.  The next day after breakfast sometime I happened to be cleaning out my old school bin when I saw an application for CAP.  I took it before the page had ran through my hand.  In a week I was scheduled for an interview, by mid june I had finalized the details. And so I held on, I grabbed the rope with all I had and prayed it didn't break, I was simply.....surviving now, no emotion, no energy, no mind, just grabbing this life line God threw down to the bottom of the lake and holding on for dear life.

   It's two months from that day now.  I have a healthy BMI,  I can run, I can laugh, and I can eat.  I didn't need a rehab, I needed a restart.  I needed peace in life, I needed to lay down at night and know my God loves me unconditionally and that it's going to be okay.  I did little to nothing to get here, my God carried me in his arms when I collapsed.  He Never Left.  let me say that again. He. Never. Left.
I did the leaving because I fell for Satan's lie, I believed I could do it on my own, I thought I could take on the world without my God.  I was so painfully wrong and it took so much pain to figure that out.  If you're in that spot where worry, stress, and fear rule your life, especially as a guy, I know it's hard but you need to understand this. You cannot do it on your own. Cry to Christ for help! Trust in his love! I promise, with everything I am that he is there.  Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will  give you rest."   Joshua 1:5 ".......As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you."   He means never!  Please don't doubt him!   He knows your burden and he can shoulder it, all you need to do is ask!  He did for me,  I am victorious over my fears, I am victorious over my doubt, I am victorious over my anxiety.  Through Christ I have a new life and every day is for him.  That my friends...... That's what it's all about.    

- Christ Is Enough For Me -