2 years, 5 months, 22 days.
That’s how long it took for a word that God spoke over me to come to fruition in my life. To come to the smallest beginnings of the seed turning into something more. Something tangible and real.
Let me start at the beginning.
January 3, 2021
The first day of “RE”, a 3-day event at my old church to help us start off the new year. I was coming into it, and the new year, my 24th year of life, not in a great headspace. Feeling defeated, abandoned, struggling, thinking life couldn’t get any harder. And oh, but it would. I didn’t know pain at that time. I felt like my life and my relationship with God was broken and I was lost.
Side note: I have so much grace for that version of me, and yet immense grief for the version of me sitting here today writing who has experienced more pain in the last 2.5 years than I ever thought possible.
During this experience, we were encouraged to lean into what we felt like the Lord was speaking to each of us, particularly if there was a “re” word God was declaring over our lives. You know like redeem, renew, reforgive, release, etc. And I felt mine pretty clearly, and pretty early on if I’m remembering correctly: REBUILD.
On one of the three days, we were worshipping along to “Promises” by Maverick City Music, an all-time favorite song of mine. I’m not normally a crier or emotional person, it’s not how God wired me. But I was bawling my eyes out as I used every muster of energy I could to sing those lyrics. Sad tears and happy tears. Grieving the pain I was feeling, yet filled with hope that God had spoken that He was REBUILDING that which was broken. End of 2020 and beginning of 2021 (all 3 days of it) may have started out rough, but this year everything would turn around and my broken self was going to be put back together.
Or so I thought. Turns out that was the very beginning of a long downhill road that I seemingly fell down and could never quite seem to get my balance or my feet under me. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but March 2021 – January 2023 was absolute hell for me. There’s no other way to put it.
March 2021
I was diagnosed with severe chronic depression. I was hopeless, lost all joy for anything, was exhausted, and cried 10-12 times a day. Remember, I’m not a crier so this was my first sign something was deeply wrong. That continued despite trying 3 different medications and seeing a therapist.
June 2021
My battle with chronic fatigue and exhaustion started. I thought I knew exhaustion before—that was simply child’s play compared to the battle that raged before me here. Utterly exhausted no matter how much sleep I got, never ever felt rested, would fall asleep at my desk (luckily, I worked from, home) 4-5 times a day. Add to that the still severe, chronic depression.
So I entered into 2022 pretty exhausted in all capacities and feeling all around defeated. But I did my best to not lose hope. To walk in 2022, firmly believing that this would be the year God was going to rebuild. He had just spoken it a year in advance to prepare me.
2022
2022 held a lot of pain and dark, dark moments. Sleep studies, blood tests, iron infusions, supplements to take, countless doctors visits, treatment plans that were not working for me mentally or physically. Growing farther from God. My depression (which had left a bit in June 2022) coming back October 2022 even worse than ever before. Passive suicidal ideation and begging God to take me in my sleep. Then to take my parents too so that they wouldn’t have to suffer the loss of me. Cursing God, feeling 100x worse every time I tried to spend time with Him. My heart breaks and grieves for the me I was 7-9 months ago.
And so it seemed as if the breaking continued. There was no rebuilding, just the shattering of the pieces that had me already convinced couldn’t be split anymore. Brokenness was all I knew, in just about every area of life.
June 2023
Flash forward to this last Sunday at church, June 25, 2023. I won’t go into everything I’ve done and been through in the last 6-7 months…that’s a story for another time. But at church, during communion, the band played “Promises” (different church than I was at before) and non-crier me started crying. And immediately, God brought me back to January 3, 2021. Which made me cry more.
Because I think I am finally at a place in my life where I can say, see, and believe that God is rebuilding. In reality, God has been rebuilding this whole time, it just wasn’t visible in my life yet. But I thought to the me that desperately clung to God’s spoken word of “rebuild” all of 2021….just to be disappointed come 2022. Then the me that still clung to that word all of 2022, albeit a little less tightly as I grew weaker…just to be disappointed come 2023.
And yet God. Yet 2 years, 5 months, 22 days later, God. Lord knows that took way longer than I would’ve liked or expected or seen as “good” (and there is still much rebuilding to be done by God and by me). But the Lord knew just how long it would take when He spoke “REBUILD” to me in 2021.
And I had this overwhelming sense while worshipping this past Sunday, that that’s why God allowed me to do and go through all that I did Fall 2022. That’s why He allowed my cursing and anger and seemingly slipping away; my questioning and doubts and almost walking away; my complete disregard and disinterest to have anything to do with Him. Because He didn’t see me as any of that. Of course, He saw me and was holding me that whole time (often to lack of my knowledge or experiencing). But He allowed all of that because He saw June 2023 me, and He knew who I was becoming. Who He was crafting me to be according to how He created me.
Man, thank you God.
Everything He spoke, every vision He gave me, the Truths He poured into my spirit…all of those were true. Just maybe not visibly yet. But God is and was working behind the scenes, waiting not in frustration, but anticipation.
Isaiah 55:11 says “‘so my word that comes from my mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.'”
God spoke this over me the day He spoke rebuild. It’s not the fact that it took 2 years, 5 months, 22 days to return, having accomplished what God sent it out to do. It’s the fact that it did accomplish what God spoke it out to do. God’s faithfulness is not in His timing like we often think or whether bad things happen in between, but in the fact that at the end of the day, what God says will happen, will in fact happen.
Genesis 15: God Alone
Before taking communion, our worship pastor relayed the story from Genesis 15. Abraham knows God has promised him a son, but Abraham is old and it’s been years since God’s initial promise, so he is beginning to doubt what God has spoken. God told Abraham to look up at the sky and count the stars because Abraham’s offspring would be just as numerous. But God doesn’t just use His words, He creates a covenant. In those days, two people would lay slaughtered animals across from each other and both walk through to make a covenant. Essentially saying that if either of them didn’t hold up their end, the other could do to them what they did to the animals. So Abraham brought the slaughtered animals, but then God put Abraham into a deep sleep as the Lord Himself walked through alone. Solidifying that regardless of what Abraham did or didn’t do, God would uphold His covenant perfectly. Which He also signified through Jesus on the cross thousands of years later.
Upon hearing this story and worshipping to “Promises”, God reminded me of a sort of vision He gave me when I was praying one day back in January 2021. It was this visual of God stacking bricks up, in essence rebuilding, but whenever I would sit next to Him to talk or spend time with Him, He would stop stacking and just be with me. As if to say, “not only am I the one who will rebuild, but also that I can take breaks whenever I want because you are more important to me and I am powerful enough.”
These are all things I’m only starting to uncover and understand now. But as Isaiah 55 also says in verse 8, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways….For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.'”
And it’s His higher thoughts and ways that got me here today. Yes, I fought, I battled, I pushed my way through even when I had nothing left. I stood up for me. But so much of what I did, and even that which I couldn’t do, was because of the Lord’s enabling and empowering. Because of His grace.
There’s probably so much more I could say here, and yet for some, there will be nothing more I could add to help them believe. Just know, that was me 2 years ago. That was me a year ago. Heck, that was me 7 months ago. And I can almost guarantee that will be at other times in the future.
I’m not writing this for you to suddenly believe or to shame you for not being at this place. I think I’m writing it because the quiet whisper I felt this weekend was overwhelming, the revelation too beautiful to not share. I even pray that this will speak to my hurting heart in days, weeks, months, years to come.
God doesn’t speak just to speak, just to make us feel better. God speaks knowing full well that the power behind His words and Holy Spirit living inside of us will produce fruit; that those words will not return to Him empty or pointless. His words have purpose, even if they aren’t to be revealed for years to come. I can look back and so much that happened—both good and bad—since January 2021 is exactly what has allowed me to see and feel the rebuilding beginning, continuing, and multiplying. Those years were not wasted—God was tending to the soil, sending water and light, removing the weeds so that the “rebuilding” seed could actually grow when the time was right.
To end, I’ll leave a picture of the last vision God gave me on January 4, 2021 as I was praying about my broken pieces that I saw surrounding me. He showed me that if I zoomed out and got His bird’s eye view, I would see that my broken pieces all around me were in the shape of a cross. Because while I continued to break and break and break, Christ’s work on the cross and God’s love and grace for me held me together. They still are.
2 years, 5 months, 22 days later… it’s time to rebuild.
