Everyone everywhere has at some point found themselves in a place of struggle. They’ve seen rock bottom and felt like they’re walking through crap piled as high as their shins with no hope to be found. No matter what it looks like to each individual, every rock bottom feels like absolute and utter shit for each person (and I’m not going to censor on my blog because I believe that the truth needs to be relatable and sometimes, words may offend certain sensibilities, but they may be exactly the ones someone needs to be able to hear in order to feel like someone can see them and know what they are going through before you come at me for saying words like “shit” and such) and that no matter how hard they try, all they receive in return is more stabs in the back or kicks in the face. These last few years have been some of the hardest, yet some of the most rewarding for me in terms of lessons. I know it isn’t a popular take, but those rock bottom places aren’t there to punish you or crush you, even when it feels like it. I’m only just now figuring that out myself though. They’re meant to teach you lessons and give you strength and resources to build the future you are meant to have; and whether you believe in God or not, in my opinion, it is His way of trying to help you appreciate and understand the true value of the life you receive from your hard work and take true joy in it.

In July of 2022, my grandfather, who you will probably only ever know of as “Pop”, passed away. A little bit of backstory: I had a crappy life with almost no one in my corner for most of it and grew up in a very harmful and abusive environment. The one and only person in my life who gave me love as it is meant to be given, the one and only person who never hurt me was Pop. This man, despite his own disabilities and struggles, would have moved mountains for me if he thought it would have made my life easier. He would have laid down his life without hesitation for me and he was my hero and my idol; the foundation on which I decided I wanted to mold myself to be instead of becoming like the rest of the people in my life who were selfish and cruel and cared about only their own pleasure and nothing more. This man was the biggest influence of my entire life and I’ve got to be honest, I held him in such high regard and practically worshipped him to the point of idolatry. As this is a blog titled “The Sinning Christian”, I hope you can understand that I’m going to dig deep into issues like this and why they can be so devastating for the everyday person and maybe (hopefully) help offer insight into how to not suffer the agony quite as harshly as I did in my journeys through this life.

Growing up with abusive stepfathers and a circus of boyfriends of my also abusive mother, I was threatened with death and given bodily (and other types) of harm throughout much of my childhood and for some reason, as such, I was rarely ever afraid of my own death itself. On the contrary, I often, sadly, welcomed it. However, the thought of other people dying was absolutely horrifying to me, particularly in the case of my grandfather. I had a nightmare one night as a child that haunts me to this day of Pop having died and for some reason, he was being carried through the streets of my town in a cardboard box. I woke up inconsolable and the very idea that the one person who was always there for me could somehow not be there was so scary and angered me so much that I went to my special tree on the property where I could always be alone and climbed up into the branches and I prayed a prayer that I know will sound ridiculous to most, but I was so serious, I didn’t give a damn WHO I was threatening with it. I told God that if He ever took my grandpa, He had BETTER take me too, “or else”. I left that tree, feeling confident that everything was worked out. I idiotically assumed that it must mean that I had somehow convinced the mighty God of the universe that when Pop dies, He has to take me with him too or I’ll somehow do something drastic that the Lord Himself can’t control, stop, or prevent. Yeah, I was a weird kid, and I had no sense of fear in terms of my own well-being.

However, in 2022, my worst fear, the only thing that I didn’t think I could live through, despite having survived loss before when my husband passed away (which I may get into in a different post, but for now, this is about a different sort of valley), came to pass. I had finally gotten my life in order, I had finally felt safe to move out and start living my own life and allowed my mother and her shitty husband to take over care of Pop and Granny (who, by the way, only ever cared about her own self also and allowed Pop to go untreated so she could be catered to because she couldn’t be bothered to enforce that Pop received the care he needed too and I’m not going to lie, I’m having trouble forgiving that at the moment too) and was on my way into building a career out of the job of my dreams, living with the man of my dreams, just everything was going perfect. I didn’t notice at first when Pop stopped calling. I didn’t notice at first when radio silence was happening from my family, in their effort to cover up their own mistakes. One day something didn’t feel entirely right, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it because out of nowhere, my grandma was suddenly texting me, giving me updates on life as though there was nothing to be concerned about, however, it didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t know what was happening though because I was more than 500 miles away and no one else was telling me anything, so I tried to blow it off.

Then, I got the phone call from my family saying that Pop was in the hospital, that he had been airlifted out near where I was and that they wanted me to see what was going on and figure out what the staff knew. I was filled with fear, all that was ringing around in my head was “Pop isn’t okay, there’s something wrong with Pop.” I couldn’t focus on anything other than the knowledge that I needed to know how bad it was, to know if he was going to be okay. So, I drove home early from work that day and was planning to go immediately to the hospital to see him, but I was in so much disarray, I ended up forgetting about a particular curve and drove my car into a ditch and couldn’t get it out on my own. My fiancée ended up getting the car towed out of the ditch the next day, but I couldn’t see Pop until after we got my car out and it drove me insane. I was too afraid to go alone, thinking the worst and knowing that if I saw him in too bad of a state, I would probably end up driving off the road again or something. Thankfully, without me telling him, my fiancée offered to drive me to see Pop. It was worse than I imagined it would be. He had pneumonia and had developed sepsis from a bedsore and the sepsis had reached his brain before they ever even took him to the hospital. For some reason, his entire left side of his body was covered in dark bruises, and he could hardly move or breathe or even hold anything on his own. Seeing the strongest man I had ever known reduced into such a state put me back into feeling like that frightened child, awakened from that horrible nightmare. I couldn’t see anything but the possibility of a life without my favorite person on this planet; the man who I wanted to both walk me down the aisle and preach at my wedding. The only father figure I’d ever known who didn’t cause me irreversible harm.

I did what I always do with the tough stuff though: I buried it and went into “Punkin Doodle” mode, tending to Pop, trying to get him to be aware of what was going on around him and seeing what I could figure out about how to either fix or make easier his struggle and suffering in the moment. My fiancée and I took turns holding his water cup for him to drink and we stayed with him a while, adjusting pillows and the bed and such trying to bring him comfort in an unfamiliar place in the most dreaded of places for him (a hospital). He recovered enough to be taken out of ICU and was in a regular hospital room for a while and I decided to make him the potato soup recipe he always made for me whenever I got sick, but with my own personal twist to it to suit his tastes a bit better after asking the nurses what he could have in the way of food. He didn’t recognize the names of any of the rest of the family when they would call him, he didn’t know his name, he didn’t know much of anything, but according to the nurse the day I showed up, he perked up at the mention of me coming. I didn’t think much on it at the time or really even notice much about her interactions or reactions to things, but looking back now, I can see exactly what she saw, and it breaks my heart and swells it at the same time to know that even when he forgot about everything else he possibly knew, his Punkin was something that brought him hope and joy in his valley. She kept lingering around to watch us interact and told me that my potato soup and me feeding him was the most he had been able to eat his entire stay and all I could think was how terrifying it was that he only had a few bites before he couldn’t eat any more, but she was tearing up and I didn’t get it at the time, but she saw him finally clinging to something for once in his valley when he had previously given up.

When I left, it wasn’t long before they had to do a tracheotomy, and he could no longer eat physical food. I often wonder if my potato soup was the last meal he actually got to taste. After that, he had to go back to the ICU and when he again stabilized, he was airlifted closer to his home and the rest of my family. I tried to get back to life as per the usual and continued going to work, trying to trust my family to give me updates on Pop, but it was hard, and I didn’t have that same focus as before. I had remembered about him having developed a bedsore shortly before I had moved across the state and stopped being the primary caregiver and doubts began to overtake my mind; “was it the same bedsore?” One day, out of the blue it seemed like, suddenly Pop was in such a bad shape that he was about to be taken off of life support and that we needed to make preparation to come say our goodbyes and it felt like my lungs collapsed or something. All of the harsh anger and doubts and fears I had, all of them turned to malice; all of them directed at the people also going through what I was going through. Not all of my family had ill intentions or awful plans, but I had grown so fearful and distrusting of everyone except for Pop that I allowed it to cloud my judgement, and I felt it was my duty to be there and help him, once again, to be heard. I felt a gnawing need to fight for him to be and stay alive, but little did I know that the only thing tying him here, the only reason he kept holding on when he was in desperate need of respite in the Lord’s hands was fear that I would not be okay or survive without him.

In his valley, when he was ready to give up at the other hospital, I brought him a reason to keep going. In this hospital though, I was the one in the valley and had the strongest desire to cling to him and hold him and force him to stay alive with me that I was holding him from being on his mountain, where he earned the right to be. It all clicked, for a single moment. That single moment was all it took. It felt like everything underneath my feet had been taken from me and as though I were somehow still not falling, almost like a cartoon, where the character has to look down before they fall. Everything I felt, all of the anger and malice I already held towards God for taking my husband from me and now taking my grandpa too yet still leaving me alive felt unbearable. It felt absolutely a crime and punishment against my idolatry of Pop. In a way, it may have been, but not entirely. See, God never once promised that Pop would survive and make it to see and be there for all of those things I wanted and needed him there for. He never once told me that MY life would end when He took Pop either. He also allowed my husband’s suicide to have such an effect on me that I simply could not bear the thought of causing that pain I felt over it to anyone else. However, He promised to be with me in it all; to love me through it all. He promised to heal me from it and take it from me and to cast the sins I had with it as far from me as the east is from the west.

I’ve very recently been in the valley again, desperately seeking peace, love, comfort, solace, healing; but refused to turn to the one and only Being that could give those things to me because despite all of the people I had hurt, all of the people I had lashed out at, all of the anger and rage and hatred I felt towards myself for all of it, I was too ashamed and too afraid to turn to Him and trust Him to actually follow through on His promises. However, He’s been the only one who could follow promises. Even Pop, the almighty and most beloved human I’ve ever had in my life, broke promises to me and though they are forgiven, they still caused damage when broken. Humans will always fail. Everything and everyone you know will fail you at some point. However, the only one who won’t fail you is Christ Jesus because for me, at least, He’s never broken a single actually biblical promise other than sparing me by being merciful towards me for not punishing me the debts I was supposed to pay for each and every sin and every punishment described in the Bible for each sin. I used to read the Bible and see nothing but contradictions everywhere, but now, I see that those “contradictions” were merely nothing more than God making more and more compromise for the very nature of the way He created each and every one of us to show us the love and mercy He’s truly a wonderful God for and should be known for extending.