by Chris Norton
Finally, Chris came rolling back into our apartment around midnight. A.P. came in and helped Chris into bed so that they wouldn’t disturb me, but I still heard them, which made me even more angry. I was having enough trouble trying to sleep, and I had to be up at 4:30 a.m. for work the next morning and now this!
As soon as A.P. left, I let Chris have it for how, once again, all he thought about was himself and how he was always choosing sports over me. I decided I’d had enough. I was sick of Chris ruining my life. I was done being the victim. I looked him right in the eyes and said, “Chris, I want you gone.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at me. “You know you don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it.” My voice was cold and hard. I didn’t feel a thing. “I am so done with this relationship. You need to leave. I want you out of here.”
I stomped to the kitchen and grabbed a handful of trash bags before heading straight for his closet. I yanked his clothes off the rack and jammed them into the bags as I spoke. “I’m taking you over to A.P.’s,” I said, stuffing a blue collared shirt into the bag, the hanger still attached. “Tell him whatever you want. I don’t care.”
I wanted Chris to argue or put up a fight, but he was silent. That told me everything I needed to know. If he really cared, he’d fight for me. I pulled out another bag and started packing his pants. Chris just watched me without saying a word. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to stop me. I must have been right all this time. He never loved me.
Then, in the middle of packing another bag, I stopped. It hit me out of the blue—if Chris were gone, what would I have? I had no one else. But I had just made this big show out of packing up his clothes. I felt too stupid to say, Oh, wait, never mind, I was just kidding, I really want you to stay. So instead I sat down on the floor by all of Chris’s clothes, frozen, as tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to stop them from escaping but failed miserably. Before long I was sobbing.
I didn’t look at Chris. I was too embarrassed. Then I heard him say, “Emily, come here.”
Sobs bubbled up in my throat as I curled up in his arms. I buried my face in his shoulder and cried unabashedly. How could I have ever thought I didn’t want him? How could I have come so close to throwing away everything we had?
I felt him hold me closer as he whispered, “Em, I don’t want to leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave either,” I sniffled.
In that moment I realized I had become a person I never wanted to be. I needed to change, not just for me, but for everyone else in my life. I knew I couldn’t change by myself. Something told me that only God could help.
But I didn’t know where to start. I used to feel so close to God, back when I was helping others and writing almost every day in my prayer journal. I could look back and see all that he had done for me and how I had relied on him. Those prayers stopped right after our graduation walk. The only prayers I prayed now were usually just asking why, or were sometimes the dark prayers I prayed on my worst days. I could hardly admit to myself that I’d prayed them, much less told anyone else, but I had. More than once I pleaded with God to take my life because I didn’t want to live anymore. How could I go back to God now and start over?
But I knew I had to take a step somehow.
A short time after nearly throwing Chris out of our apartment, I drove to a Catholic church and slipped silently into a pew. Chris was out of town at a speaking engagement. A Catholic church felt like home to me—it was the denomination I grew up attending, but more than that, it represented my grandma’s faith. My grandma was devoted to the Catholic church her whole life, and I never knew anyone with a stronger faith.
I was amazed at how the old habits came back to me. I remembered the proper responses and when to kneel. When the priest began his sermon, it was obvious God wanted me there. His whole message was about prayer—the very thing missing from my life. The feelings I spent so much energy pushing down came bubbling up, and I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. This is where I need to start, I thought. I need to just start praying. God can help me with the rest.
Right after church I stayed in my car and listened to Christian music. The song “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again” by Danny Gokey came on. The words expressed exactly what I felt. Like the song, I felt shattered, as if my life were broken into a thousand pieces scattered across the floor. I sobbed. It was as though God was speaking directly to me, telling me to get back up, to take a step out of the darkness in which I’d lived for far too long, and to follow him on the journey he had laid out for me. “Tell your heart to beat again,” the song said, and that’s exactly what I needed to do.
Tears poured down my face. For the first time in almost two years, I wrote in my prayer journal, pouring out my heart to God. I wrote:
I hate admitting that I’m not strong enough and that I need help. I know how detrimental it is to not only me but everyone around me. Somehow I still do it because I have this terrible fear of being vulnerable. It’s honestly why I feel like I’ve been struggling with depression for over a year and a half now. I feel like I have lost myself, and most days I feel completely hopeless about ever becoming “me” again. I wonder if it’s been too long and I have forgotten who I am. If I can’t be me, then what’s the point of being alive? I have stopped living, but life has not stopped. I want to be me again! I know the only way to do this is to let you back into my life and to let you take away my pain and help me feel alive again. I think I have tried to be strong, hiding my insecurities and vulnerabilities for too long. It’s time to know I can’t do this alone and I am not alone. I have Jesus, and Jesus is all I need. I believe that all the hard days and the pain I have had and I am experiencing are for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is, but I sure hope I find out soon.
I felt myself wanting to pray. I kept opening my prayer journal again and again. Something stirred inside me that I hadn’t felt in ages. I also knew one church service wasn’t enough. If I wanted to get closer to God, I needed to find a church to attend regularly.
I liked the idea of going to a Catholic church. I liked the traditions and felt closer to God there. Plus, there was a parish near our apartment that would be perfect. Chris, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in a traditional service, and I knew Whittley would be bored out of her mind. I wanted to do this together. All of us desperately needed God in our lives, and I would go anywhere that made them happy.
Then one day I noticed a new church open up across the road from our apartment as I drove home. It didn’t really look like a church, but the sign outside read “Christ Fellowship Church.” Maybe this would be a good place for us, I thought.
CHRIS
“We should go check out this church I found,” Emily said out of the blue.
Emily’s words should have surprised me, but something told me this was exactly what was missing from our lives. When we first started dating, we both talked about our faith and how important God was to both of us, but our lives hadn’t reflected that priority in a long time. God was more of a last resort; faith had become something we’d turn to only when we needed to break glass in case of an emergency. I never questioned God’s existence or the Bible’s truth. But up until this point, God had never been a vital part of my everyday life. I turned to him when something bad happened, like my football injury, but I never made an intimate relationship with him a priority in my day-to-day life. Our relationship was more like the one I had with my fire extinguisher. It was there if I needed it, but it’s not as if I took it out and used it every day.
I knew this needed to change. Emily and I had also talked about how important it was for Whittley to find a relationship with God. Until this point in her life, every experience with God had been negative. I knew she was angry at God for all the horrible things that had happened to her. She’d also gone to church a few times before she came to live with us, and had horror stories to show for it. Yet, in spite of the bad she’d encountered, I knew nothing woul
d be better for Whittley than discovering who God really is and developing a relationship with him.
So when Emily mentioned checking out a church she’d found, I was open to it. “What church is it?” I asked her.
“Christ Fellowship. It’s literally half a mile from our place.”
I thought for a minute. “Is that the building that doesn’t look like a church?”
“I think it used to be some sort of film studio. But now it’s a church. We should go check it out.”
I nodded. “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s go this Sunday.”
I was excited for the three of us to attend together. Not surprisingly, Whittley was less than enthused. I expected a battle, and she did not disappoint. We ended up bribing her with Dunkin’ Donuts and coffee if she came with us. Begrudgingly, she agreed.
The next Sunday was New Year’s Day. That seemed like God’s perfect timing. What better day for making a fresh start than the day everyone in America is busy making New Year’s resolutions? We dragged ourselves out of bed and made it to church only a few minutes before the service started. We were stunned by how many people were there. We immediately felt welcomed by the greeters, who said, “Welcome home.”
As we walked into the church, a gentleman with a Christ Fellowship polo and a name badge asked us how many spots we needed. Within seconds two chairs were pulled up to make an extra row to accommodate us. A countdown appeared on the projection screens, and I glanced around nervously. I hadn’t sat through a church service in a long time. Sitting here felt so familiar and yet strange all at once.
Energy filled the auditorium as young families, elderly couples, and everyone in between packed into the seats. Music swelled, and a worship leader invited us to stand and praise God with them.
I looked at Emily, amazed. I could tell from the tears rolling down her face that she felt the same way I did. I’d been to my share of church services that felt forced and fake, and even more that were lifeless and boring. Christ Fellowship was none of those things. Everyone in the room worshipped as though God was right there in the room. I had never experienced anything like that. I couldn’t help but wonder what I had been missing out on.
The service didn’t let up when the pastor took the stage full of energy and joy. He then directed our attention to the screen to watch today’s service, which was live from the main church campus in Palm Beach Gardens. Emily and I looked at each other with furrowed brows. We are seriously going to watch church on a screen while at church? I’ll be honest. I was a skeptic. However, I had never heard a message that was so relatable and easily applicable. I expected to be bored but instead found myself wishing I had taken notes. The message was about new beginnings and fresh starts, that if you want to see things you have never seen before, then you need to start doing things you have never done before. Don’t let your past keep you from getting to your purpose. It was the best message I had ever heard at church. As I looked at Emily, neither of us had to say a word. We both knew we would definitely be coming back the next week.
Afterward, we took Whittley out for the coffee and donuts we had promised her. “So, what did you think of the sermon, Whitt?” Emily asked between sips of her iced coffee. “What did you take away from it?”
Whittley didn’t look up from her box of donut holes. “Nothing. It was boring.”
I forced myself not to roll my eyes. Her answer was so predictable.
“I really liked the part where Pastor Todd said we need to align our thoughts with God’s Word. That really hit me hard.” I said.
Emily chimed in, “I also loved the Bible verse 2 Corinthians 5:17, about how if anyone is in Christ the old is gone and your life is new.”
Whittley shrugged. “Whatever.”
EMILY
Over the next couple of months, I cried through more church services than I can count. For longer than I could admit, I had felt so unloved and worthless, as if I would be better off dead. Now I heard God telling me I was loved and accepted just as I was. Even in my darkest moments, God was right there all along. The One who gave his Son for me had never abandoned me. I was the one who had turned away from him, but now I knew I didn’t have to stay that way. All I had to do was give him my life and lean on him, and he’d do the rest.
My prayers that first began after that Catholic mass became integrated into my everyday life. The more I prayed, the more I realized how desperately I needed God. I wanted to spend time reading his Word and listening to his voice. I wanted to take my deepest needs and concerns to him. For the first time in years, God didn’t seem far away.
The tears that started at the New Year’s Day service didn’t let up. After nearly a year of numbing myself to my grandma’s death, I finally allowed myself to grieve. I allowed myself to cry hysterically and unleash the feelings that I was convinced would make me weak.
As I spent time with God, I couldn’t stop thinking about Philippians 4:13 (NKJV): “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That verse means so many things to so many people, but I knew exactly what God was telling me to do. The verse does not mean that all I had to do was pray more and trust God more and my anxiety and depression would magically disappear. Meditating on the verse assured me that God would give me the strength I needed to seek help. I felt him telling me, You can do this. I’ll help you. We’re in this together. I won’t leave you.
My hands shook as I dialed the mental health clinic I’d researched. When the office manager told me the therapist was booked, I didn’t panic and hang up but made an appointment with a nurse practitioner who specialized in mental health.
“Now, we have an automatic one-hundred-dollar charge in case of no-shows,” the office manager told me. “So if for some reason you need to cancel, we need a twenty-four hour notice or you’ll be charged one hundred dollars.”
Ha. That is the least of my worries.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cancel no matter what. But when the day came, I sat in my car in the parking lot of our apartment, my hands glued to the steering wheel, unable to move. I can’t do this, I thought.
My stomach lurched as I thought about being vulnerable. Then I remembered the one-hundred-dollar charge for no-shows. I don’t care, I thought. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I can’t do this.
I was so sick of the fog, the panicked thoughts, the racing heart, and sleepless nights. Still, the idea of telling a stranger what was happening inside my head terrified me. No one knew the extent of my depression, not even Chris. How could I make myself vulnerable and admit everything? God, I can’t do this alone, I prayed. I need you to be strong for me. Philippians 4:13 flooded my heart once again. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Somehow, those words gave me the push I needed to turn my keys in the ignition and pull out of the parking lot.
I cried the whole way to the clinic. This is going to be awful, I thought. I don’t know how I’ll get through this.
I could barely see through my tears as I parked my car and climbed the stairs to the office. My heart pounded, and I took a deep breath as I opened the door and sat sniffling in the lobby. Help me, God, I prayed. Give me the strength to get through this.
“Emily?” a nurse called. She took me through a hallway to an exam room and asked me a few preliminary questions. I managed to hold it together until the nurse practitioner knocked on the door and sat down in front of me.
“So, what seems to be the problem?” she asked.
Where do I even start? I thought. I couldn’t talk. Instead, I completely broke down.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. “Let’s just start with easy questions.”
I calmed myself as we talked through my family history. When she asked me again about my problems that had brought me to her office, it all came pouring out. “I haven’t been myself for almost two years,” I told her. “I’m depressed, and super tired, and I just want to sleep. But I can’t sleep. Sometimes I only sleep an hour a night. My heart rate is way too
fast, and I feel anxious, like something is really wrong all the time, even though there’s no reason for it. I feel like I’m suffocating and can’t come up for air.”
She listened so kindly, and patiently asked questions. Her diagnosis wasn’t surprising—I had read enough articles to know I probably had depression and anxiety. But hearing someone else confirm how I felt gave me a sense of relief. “Sometimes our bodies don’t make enough of the chemicals we need to feel happy and at peace,” the nurse practitioner said. “A lot of people think you can only be depressed if something bad happens to you, but it’s not true. Anyone can have a chemical imbalance that makes them depressed or anxious, or sometimes both. It’s a medical condition that requires a medical response.” I understood now that you don’t have to have something happen to you to feel depressed. All the fears I had that something was wrong with me and that I was weak disappeared. I felt so thankful that I finally had the strength to accept help.
I went home with antidepressants and antianxiety medicine in my purse. The nurse practitioner told me they wouldn’t work overnight, but I could expect to feel more like myself within three weeks.
Three weeks. I was miserable for two years, and all it would take was three weeks of pills to feel better? How could that be possible?
CHRIS
I was stunned when Emily told me she’d seen a doctor. I knew both of us had changed since we started going to Christ Fellowship, but I never expected her to take such a major step without telling me.
I was almost afraid to get my hopes up. I’d experienced too many moments when I thought Emily was back to her passionate, healthy self only to be crushed when the anger and depression quickly returned. I had thought moving to Florida or taking in Whittley might be catalysts for change. Each time, I was bitterly disappointed. But this time seemed different.
