The Storm and the Savior

I made another trip to rock bottom recently.

That’s not an opening line I’d ever hoped I’d have to write, but I need to write it. I need to share what I did, and my hope is that you, my sweet friends, can learn from my mistakes. My hope is that you can see His goodness in a new light and that perhaps you can see that you’re not alone in the struggle of faith.

Before we go on, dear reader, please know one thing: there is no distance you can run that will ever sever you from the precious love of God. Lift your eyes to Jesus. He comes running the moment you turn to Him.

---

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

-Matthew 14:22-33

---

Life is a weird little thing. One moment, you’re on the top of a mountain and looking down at all the goodness and beauty God has placed in your life. But in a split second, you find yourself down in the valley, crying out to anyone who will listen.

I found myself there in that valley over the past few weeks—desperate, hopeless, and riddled with crippling depression.

I’m in a really weird place in life right now. I’m less than a year away from graduating with my master’s degree at just twenty-two years old, yet I still have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Sure, I want to be an author, but that’s a hard route to take, especially when I keep receiving rejection letters. I want to be a wife and a mom, but I’m as single as single can get. I want to go out and see the world, but I can’t afford it. And, more often than not, I feel hopelessly trapped in the mundanity and uncertainty of my life. So what do I do when the only things I want are out of the picture? What do I do when I know what I want but have no way to get there? What do I do when my hands are completely empty and I have no choice but to surrender my dreams to the Lord?

Well, the good Christian answer is simple: take it to Jesus. Surrender. Trust God and His good will.

But that path is so much easier admired from afar than actually taken.

I woke up on a Monday morning and absolutely lost it. I realized that the only reason I was getting my MFA is because it’s the one and only thing in my life that gives me purpose. I realized that I had no way of moving my life in the direction I wanted to go. I realized that where I’m headed isn’t the place I want to be. To say the least, I was scared out of my mind at such a lack of control that I hit rock bottom fast and hard.

Instead of taking it to Jesus, though, I gave into the fear. I let the depression root itself in me, and it quickly began suffocating my hope and stripping me of the rest I’d once found in the Lord. Everything shifted, all for the worst.

It didn’t take me long to start retreating into myself—wallowing, if you will—and licking all the wounds I hadn’t realized I had. I was depressed to a point that getting out of bed was a chore. My smile was a million miles away, and all I could do was lay in bed and doom scroll through Instagram. Worst of all, I put walls up around my heart and began pushing away the people who wanted to help me. My parents. My siblings. My church. My friends. I hurt them all because I was afraid of getting hurt. Because I was afraid of who I’d become. Because I was afraid of what was to come.

I was in the depths of the valley, lost and hopeless.

I’m reminded of Peter, the disciple we all know and love, in Matthew 14. In the midst of a vicious storm, Jesus called him out on the waters. Peter, with great faith, left the boat without any further question. While his eyes were on Jesus, Peter walked on the water—he stood atop the waves, trusting that Jesus would stay true to His word and keep him afloat. But the moment dear Peter took his eyes off Jesus, the moment he focused more on the storm than the Savior, he sank. Swallowed by the storm and deathly afraid, Peter cried out to Jesus.

And what did Jesus do? He didn’t watch Peter with an I-told-you-so kind of look. He didn’t cock an eyebrow and give a snarky response. He didn’t sigh or take his sweet time getting to him. Jesus was there immediately, pulling Peter back to the surface.

Friends, the moment we take our eyes off Jesus—the moment we focus more on our surroundings, problems, and circumstances—we’re going to sink. Our faith will diminish when we fail to look at the source of it. Depression and anxiety flood over our heads when we stop trusting in the power, will, and goodness of Jesus.

I was—no, I am—Peter. I took my eyes off Jesus and immediately sank into the depths of depression. I let my fears speak louder than God. I put my dreams above His will. I let my vision of comfort and joy distort His good plans for my life, whatever those may be.

I called out to Jesus, and He so graciously—and immediately—rescued me, but my journey doesn’t end there. I was still frustrated with God, still angry and hurt and confused because I couldn’t see anything concerning my very near future.

Wrestling with God was something I’d heard of plenty of times, and I thought I knew what it meant. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but He taught me these past weeks just what it means to truly wrestle with Him.

Sometimes wrestling with God looks like crying on my knees, asking God for help and clarity. Sometimes it looks like silence. Sometimes it looks like asking Him questions.

Other times… Other times, wrestling with God means getting angry at Him, letting out all my frustrations on Him in verbal fist punches. My wrestle with God was fits of rage and grief, asking Him why He had the nerve to create me. It was sobbing, screeching, questioning. It was me showing God my broken heart and confusion and demanding an answer as to why He was letting me face it all. It was ugly, to say the least. Very, very ugly.

But I am so thankful that God isn’t afraid of whatever I bring to the table, whether that be grief or anger. I’m so thankful He doesn’t turn me away because I’m upset. I’m so thankful He never gives up on me, even when I give Him every reason to.

In the midst of my strife with Him, God so subtly reminded me of Jacob in Genesis 32, when he physically fought with God. And then came the psalms that clearly outline David’s consistent struggle with God. Wrestling with God is nothing new, and it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Two things struck me about those two men, though. One, in Jacob’s wrestle with God, it was God who was victorious. Jacob fought with God, but he didn’t win. It ended with surrender, with God sparing Jacob’s life and God giving him an entirely new identity. Two, David’s struggle with God ended consistently with praise, and David’s perspective always changed in such a way that he shifted his focus to who God is.

While wrestling with God isn’t pretty, sometimes it’s necessary. It’s bloody and it’s fiery, but it’s in those moments of wrestling desperately with God that I came to see His love in new and beautiful ways. Because in that wrestling, all God did was remind me over and over and over, “Leah, I’m still good.” He never hit me back. He never turned His face away from me. He never threw in the towel and gave up on me.

No, friends. He pulled me close to His chest, listened to me sob, and uprooted the anger I had let consume me. He picked me up, brushed the dirt away, and dried my tears.

“I’m still good,” He reminded me. “I’m still good.”

And after everything I yelled at Him for, after everything I threw at Him, He still pulled me close. His goodness didn’t end, His kindness didn’t fail, His love didn’t run out.

I won’t lie when I say the coming future isn’t something I’m comfortable thinking about yet. I’m still scared. But God is still good.

Where I am now isn’t comfortable. I’m not where I want to be, and I’m headed for a place I never wanted to go. But the here and now is a wonderful place to be, is it not? What an honor it is to serve the Lord in the exact place He needs me to be—what a humbling pleasure it is to stand on the very foundation He has intentionally called me to stand upon. I would rather be uncomfortable in His will than be comfortable somewhere beyond it. I would rather be where He wants and needs me, even if I’m scared, than place my dreams above His.

He knows so much more than I do. His ways are so much higher than mine.

My prayer over myself is that God teaches me how to live my life on my knees, to live wholly and completely in surrender to Him despite my fears, worries, and sorrows. My prayer is that His will draws me closer to Him, even if His will never aligns with mine. My prayer is that I learn to be faithful and patient, trusting that I am right where He needs me to be.

Friends, God is still good despite our struggling and wrestling. He isn’t afraid of our fear; in fact, it’s His perfect love that drives out all fear.

If you need to wrestle with God, do it. Yell at Him. Cry out to Him. I promise you’ll be met with His goodness and kindness and forgiveness. You’ll be met with the God who loves you beyond anything you can fathom. You’ll be met with the God who is rich in mercy, abounding in love. You’ll be met with your Father who cares deeply about you, who cares about the desires of your heart and the things you cling to.

There is absolutely nothing you can ever do that will separate you from the precious love of Jesus. Call out to Him amidst your struggle, and let His kindness and goodness immediately consume you. Let His perfect love drive out your fear.

And, my dear friends, do not hide from Him. He longs to hold your heart—don’t withhold your hurt from the Healer.

He is still good, and He always will be.

All my love,

L. Taylor