For 57 years I survived, sometimes with passion, sometimes in desperation. I always saw life as hard work, something I had to earn. I depended on knowledge and willpower to help me overcome the abuse, neglect and pain I experienced at every stage of my life. Every new source of anger, fear or pain became the fuel for me to seek more knowledge and strengthen my willpower. I was convinced that if I knew more I could understand and, if I wanted to, I could change anything in my life to bring me happiness and love.
After losing my father to cancer in 1993, and caring for the next three years for my mother with Alzheimer’s, I started taking anti-depressants in 1996. I was told my depression was like having a chronic disease that I would need to medicate for the rest of my life. I believed my doctor who is a Christian and a friend, but, I still thought my knowledge and willpower would be enough to make a decent life for me and my family.
I thought that the “abundant” life promised in the Bible was almost a joke. And the one word I have always avoided as though it mocked and defeated me was “hope.” As I had looked to my future with expectancy, I had been let down, disappointed and hurt again and again and again. I had asked God, “Abundant pain? Abundant grieving? Hope of what? More pain?”
By February, 2007, I had come to the end of my knowledge of what to do and ran out of the will to try anything more. I just wanted to be free from the constant pain and weariness that made it hard to even breathe. On that February morning I believed that my body could not take any more and I would die. I was without hope. In His mercy, God gave me friends to pray with and for me. A faithful friend, Jo, and my priest, Fr. Rob Sanders, stopped by that day. As they prayed for me, Fr. Rob asked God to bind my broken heart as it is written in Isaiah 61:1. My spirit quickened and I knew immediately that was the truth.
I was broken-hearted, broken-hearted by a severely neglectful and abusive mother and an absent father, then, broken-hearted by the loss of those parents I worked so hard to make love me. I had been broken-hearted by the molester who lived next door and a priest when I had gone to join his church. I had been broken-hearted by my first husband who tried to kill me. I was broken-hearted by the bad choices I had made to find comfort, validation and love. All of that I grieved, but, it did not stop there. I was broken-hearted by the death of my sister who lost her fight with brain cancer. My heart cried out in anguish at the tremendous change and loss in my relationship with my husband because of his illness, multiple sclerosis. I was broken-hearted and grieved the distance in my relationships with my three children caused by my own illness. All the dreams and hopes I had were gone and I seemed as helpless and powerless as I had been when I was an infant abused by my mother.
And then there was that prayer. After Fr. Rob’s prayer, I fell asleep. When I awoke; I heard two words, “Rise, Lazarus!” I knew I had to choose to Respond, so I got up and got dressed. Then I heard, “You need a Savior.” Yes, I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior years ago, but I had still been trying to save myself, trying to make myself better, good enough, worthy, needed, wanted by people and God. Now I knew I needed more than all the knowledge and will-power I had; I needed Christ Jesus.
I realized there is nothing I have or can do that can save me. And there is nothing I have or can do that will give me a life worth living instead of a life without love in this cold, dark world. I had to die to be free, die to myself. I had held on as long as I could to my two idols: knowledge and will-power, thinking they were what I needed to survive. I had to lay them down at Christ's feet in total humble submission.
Jesus said that His people are dying from lack of knowledge, and as much as I valued knowledge, I was dying from lack of the knowledge of God’s Word and how to use it in my life. Now I am “seeing” and “hearing” the same scriptures I have read for years as if for the first time. I have learned that the world taught me that all the experiences of my life meant that I was not worth caring for, that my needs were not important and that there was nothing I could do to change that in the future. Just as I was going under, weighted down with concrete-like blocks of disillusionment, pain and regret pulling me into the murky sludge of this world to kill me, Christ cut the chains and I am set free! I have been washed and made clean! I actually have the abundant life He promised! I am rich with the overflowing joy of God’s love. Everything that had been hurtful and destructive is now the rich soil I am growing in daily to produce loving fruit to glorify God. Now that I have tasted real life, I know that any pain in my future is another chance for God to heal something more in me so bring it on. I want it all!
What I had learned from this world was in exact opposite to what God wants me to know - that I am His beloved! I am the apple of His eye! He has MY name written in the palm of His hand! He knows every hair on my head. Oh, I am loved! I do not have to prove my worth or earn His approval. I am His beloved child and the righteousness of Christ! And there is one thing that I learned that surprised me the most - Hope is the Truth!
This testimony was written by Nancy herself and sent to me to be posted.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D
2008
