Why It Matters (Pt. 1)

I have tended towards being an open and honest human for the majority of my life.  I don't like to hide things, or at least haven't since I graduated high school.  Most of my friends and family will tell you that I divulge (or seek to discover) the deepest parts of myself more often then maybe warrented.

However, there have been many secrets I have kept from select groups of people for long periods of time:

My being bullied through out my primary, junior high, and high school years,
My suicide attempt,
My sexuality,
My depression,
My loss of faith,

Not because I was never willing to discuss them, but because I never felt they were important to share unless directly asked...


I lay in the sun.  Trying to recover after experiencing another crippling panic attack from trying to walk to the market to buy groceries.  I couldn't get past the second road marker.  "Iwona will be here tomorrow, seeing a familiar face will help--she'll talk some sense into me," I thought to myself. Iwona was a Peace Corps Volunteer, like myself, but seemed somehow hardier.

Tougher.

This was the fifteenth panic attack in the last week, since moving to site. I needed some form of peace-of-mind.  I entered my closet and picked up the copy of Jesus Calling my mom insisted I bring with me.  I had tried several times earlier to read the bible I had brought but it's words were too dry, to cerebral.  I needed encouragement;

Conversation.

I remember in church being constantly told that American culture was too ernest, too productivity-centred, too noisy, to hear God's voice.  That I, as someone seeking to Hear, needed to find time to be  still, quiet--seeking.  This was the perfect time to truly listen for it.  Kilometres from 'civilisation', minimal distractions, and open sky.  So, I did.  I prayed, I sat in silence, I wandered in the wilderness. Sought peace and the Voice of God, and found;

Silence.

It was devastating. My faith had been a cornerstone of my life for so long.  It kept my chin up when I was continually punched in the gut, and name-called, and isolated relentlessly.  It guided and focused my healing process after losing hope.  It exposed me to the injustices of the world and gave me reason to push for change and the future.  It also made me cry myself to sleep at night; praying that I could be someone, something, different then I was; wishing beyond wishes that the roof would fall in on me so that I would no longer exist and find peace from the internal turmoil that was me vs. what the bible said people like me were.

Sinner.