Desperation

The day I went to my first AA meeting I felt I was desperate for God. I thought for sure this was the darkest and deepest desperation there was. It’s been exactly 5 months since that day and I now know that was not the darkest and deepest desperation I would feel.

What I didn’t know is that if you are desperate for God, but still not reaching out and seeking Him completely, if you are not asking everyday for His will in your life, if you are not asking everyday to hear His voice, if you are not everyday focused on Him, if you are not everyday searching, there will always be the possibility for deeper, more painful desperation. I want to say that again. If you are not everyday seeking God and His will and voice there will always be the possibility for deeper, more painful desperation.

I thought that the last day of drinking Tanqueray and tonic until I couldn’t see and I felt like I was going to die, was desperation. I thought the next several days of shakes, sweats, and one day of hallucinations caused by delirium tremens was the most desperate I would be. The brokenness and depression was like a pit trying to swallow me whole. I prayed, I started AA, I blew through the steps with relentless pursuit. I found victory in my desperation. I found freedom. My desperation was over and I was on the up. A new man and a new life.

After two months of sobriety I made the choice to be in a situation that triggered my codependency and wounds so strong it was like a lightning bolt to my core. It was so violent and sudden, the shockwave didn’t hit for 3 months.

It was like I was in a vacuum for those three months. The split second before a stockwave rips through everything in front of it where all the oxygen is sucked into the middle and for that millisecond there is total stillness. It was peaceful, it was quiet. It was calm and devoid of the immense grief and sadness and depression I had been feeling for years prior. I mistook the absence of sadness and depression for the presence of joy and peace. I stood in this vacuum knowing something was wrong but ignoring it because of the silence and quiet.

There were emotions in the vacuum, of course. Times of elation and joy. The feeling of my new self and new normal. This of course was my destiny as a sober and new man. This is where I belonged. I was home. It was here that I was to be for the rest of my life and I would stay in this place forever happy and satisfied.

Three months after the vacuum was created the clap of the shockwave lifted me from my vacuum and ripped through me. Shrapnel tore through every single aspect of my existence and shredded my soul to ribbons. My vacuum, my peace, my new quiet and sober destiny was gone and I was standing in the crater created by the explosion.

The desperation took me like a tidal wave and flooded over me. I hit my knees and cried out to God truly desperate for the first time in my life. This was the desperation of my heart. My soul cried out with great despair. I argued with God, I cried multiple times a day till my eyes were sore and my throat was raw. I started out so well, the first two months were so amazing. What happened? How did I let myself go so far off track, knowing it was not what I thought it was and not what God wanted in His perfect plan?

If you are not everyday seeking God and His will and voice there will always be deeper desperation. If you are standing in the vacuum and not on your knees seeking Him there is always deeper desperation.

I am still broken. I still cry, sometimes multiple times a day. I am truly desperate for God’s healing, His will, His strength, His love. I am not being punished, I am being forced through desperation to go home to the Father. God is not being cruel, He is bringing me home. I’ll suffer consequences for standing where I stood. I will suffer pain and have caused pain to others. I pray that they get healing and love beyond their wildest imaginations.

I am desperate and I am going home to the Father.

And with that, I will take another 24