"We Fight Together"
Finding Support In Dark Alleyways
As the season of Fall settles in and the leaves fall in our paths as we walk, we are reminded that Fall is proof that change is beautiful and necessary. Sure, it’s not all sparkly and new like Spring or relaxed and carefree like Summer but it has it’s merits and one of those happens to be as a teacher.
For me, Fall has been a teacher for a long time and sometimes the lessons have not been chosen by me and have come at a great cost to my mental health. As such, the trauma inflicted by said lessons have caused the classroom quality of Fall to be categorized in the “advanced placement” category pretty often. This Fall is one of those times.
The Bible talks about seasons and one of the most well known places in which it does that is in the following scripture:
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
2 A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
4 A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
7 A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
8 A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
This scripture is completely indicative of where I have been at, and am currently residing in, especially when it comes to mourning and a time to break down and to heal. For the last few Fall seasons I have admittedly sailed through the twilight days when a more southerly located sun and early darkening days limited the day in an etheric way for me. I have had seasons of peace after a lifetime of toil in this time of year. However, I have always noticed the shifted sun track and perceived it as a change in lighting that marked a change in myself and this year that change has further elicited a gloomy highlight over my path that I am walking.
You see, in my grief over the loss of my niece and the chosen estrangement from my family, I began taking paths into my own personal darkness and wasn’t learning well from the lessons I learned as I emerged from each dark alleyway. I took the lessons I was learning and held them just close enough to ensure a few more days of sound living before I teetered off the path and back down another dark alleyway into the darkest regions of myself. I was being pulled and simultaneously succumbing to the attraction of the darkness and a lot of that had to do with a lifetime in the company of that familiar friend.
Perhaps this concept is difficult to understand if you have never suffered from depression or protracted grief but darkness can, and does, become a friend just like anything does if you spend enough time with it. I’m not here saying it’s a great friend but what I am wanting to illustrate is that it is a teacher that you can choose to listen to or ignore. Fortunately for me, I have trained myself well enough at this point to view everything and everyone as a teacher though settling into the classroom is where I often falter. The settling in has been a struggle this year that has resulted in weight gain, loss of energy, increased physical pain and a return to a medication to help with my anxiety and grief. It has ultimately felt like a defeat and one in which I have finally reached a point where detouring down that dark alley is intolerable and is no longer where I want to walk.
The decision to change trajectory hasn’t been easy and it took a good swift kick in the rear from God to get me to do it but He didn’t fail me in setting up some road signs to follow and even threw in some sound guidance from a new but incredibly wise friend that unexpectedly entered stage right and brought with them a solid foundation in Christ to help me.
My appetite for spiritual growth and correction is voracious and it is deeply revered when served by hands backed by a pure heart. So few Christians have what it takes to take on the unwinding of the damage that was done to me yet God always manages to find someone who’s willing to step in my reckless path and shake me awake. It takes a bold and solid soul to stand against programming put in place by the adversary. My bold friend has a low tolerance for the adversary and his schemes so they have stepped up and they have come also swinging a sword and stating clearly,
“We fight together!”
Imagine how that sounds to ears unaccustomed to hearing loud pronouncements of a willingness to stand toe to toe with the enemy, beside you and on your behalf! I run into more people who want to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to evil and the few who do recognize evil’s existence don’t have what it takes to move beyond a frozen state of acknowledgement that in fact evil exists and worse yet, it has no boundaries. That is a scary prospect when you face something seemingly limitless and you’re ill-equipped with a strong foundation in Christ to deal with it. You, yourself, can probably attest to how gross it feels to be wrapped up in a relationship without boundaries where someone runs roughshod over your attempts at autonomy. It can feel out of control and stifling and lonely and it’s similar to what it feels like when the adversary it roaming about the borderlands of your existence seemingly unrestrained.
So I am feeling currently quite blessed, and quite a bit less stressed out, as I begin my new work on myself. This post serves as a proclamation that I’m done with the segue off into the darkened alleyways of my inner self unaccompanied by my Savior and my appointed helpers in life. I can say, “I’ve got this,” all I want but the truth is, I don’t.
I need help.
We all need help.
We need each other and ideally we need a good friend or two that are grounded in Christ, aware of the adversary and willing to stand alongside you and fight. For me this fight will look like further dismantling of programming done to me throughout the first 25 years of my life and while it’s daunting to face deprogramming and its inevitable tripwires, I feel ready to face it. I’ve done the necessary decision making, shoring up and hunkering down that it takes to proceed and with the last entrance to a darkened alleyway behind me now, I step into the light currently carried by Christ with a small cheering section shouting encouragement along the way.
“We fight together!”
This Fall, there are no more beautiful words than those three.
I am currently running an outreach center through this Substack and also from my own front yard in the form of a little library full of mental health resources. If you would like to help me help others, please consider donating to it.
