Fighting Through the Thorns: Hope on an Unchartered Path
There are paths in life that you would never plan to walk. Paths you would avoid because of the nettles, bushes and brambles. No one would choose to use that path because it is marred with danger and the unknown. You aren’t carrying the right equipment to navigate it, you’re uncertain of its destination and it has the potential to take you completely off course.
We came face to face with a path just like this - one we didn’t choose, but instead we were unwillingly dragged through. It was painful, the thorns left scars, the path did not go in the direction we wanted to walk, and it felt extremely lonely.
Our walk down this path was hard.
A Battle With Mental Health
On some mornings we woke, hoping it was just a nightmare, only to have to face another day of pain, upset and the unknown. Each morning, we had the terror of having to check to see if the person, who was suffering more than us, was still alive. We had the anguish of watching them crawl down the stairs, without a morsel of energy, wasting away from the poison of anorexia.
One day I was walking down this thorny path and I lifted my head up just slightly above the nettles. There was someone calling my name, telling me they were here with their garden shears ready to help part the way. My God, my Father, my Saviour! It was as we focussed on God and gave ourselves to prayer that the Great Gardener began his work of healing.
We can’t walk these paths on our own, we are not made that way. So for all who suffer with mental distress or have friends and family who are struggling with their mental wellbeing, you are not alone. There is someone far greater who wants to help clear away some of those brambles on your path. We are praying for you!
I once spent an hour on a video call with other parents of children with an eating disorder. It is an hour I will never forget. I watched as each mother and father broke down in tears as they shared their journey, as they described this feeling of fighting through brambles. I was only a couple of months into my journey looking after someone suffering with their mental health but I watched others who had been on their journey for years, with no faith and no hope. My heart broke.
How could I watch my own loved one slowly deteriorate for months and years more to come? I watched hopelessness on all those faces on the screen - a mother crying out in so much pain, whilst her husband's tear stained face held her tight against his chest.
There is Hope!
My heart breaks with the pain that people face, for the destruction that is left in the wake of mental illness. I know, above all things, that my God is greater, my God is stronger, my God is healer, my God is power, and my God is HOPE!
Cheryl