I was going to pick up with the last story today, but then I felt like I needed to write this story today.
I often wonder if God has given me a gifting to be led to the people that feel the loneliest in this world. I had a peppy, outgoing friend a few years ago at church, and I assumed she had many friends. I got her number and how I could pray for her, and invited her to church events, parties, the church band playing at the bar, etc. One day she finally told me that nobody else ever invited her and felt left out. In that same year another one of my friends said he had stopped attending my church to go to a church closer to his home, since he didn't own a car to make it to my church. He had asked some other guys if they could consistently pick him up on Sunday mornings, but they forgot about him. He told me that in the 6 months since he had left, no one from the church called to see how he was doing. People would stop and ask me questions on Sunday as if my friend was going through a spiritual warfare and had fell away from God. I invited over for my dinner parties and clue him in when social events were going on. I naturally was friendly not thinking anything of my actions. He said he didn't make friends very easily, but it was simple with me.
Years have passed since I collected phone numbers and asked how I could pray for people. Until my move to Chicago, and I started collecting numbers again. People told me to give it a month to make friends, but I made friends in 5 days. One day after church I met another attractive lady, presuming she had many friends. I got her name to look her up on Facebook. She later that day told me that I was the only person that didn't leave her to go and talk to somebody else. I think sometimes people don't understand the impact they have. It's easy to meet a new person, then jet across the room to talk to all of your friends that you just saw last night, leaving the new person feeling ackward and uncomfortable by themself. As time has gone on I have come to know this girl's background, and struggles growing up. She is striving and searching for love and attention, but the harder she tries the more hopeless life seems.
A couple months ago she tried to take her life. As selfish of an act that suicide seems, it's completely different when you are on the other side of the fence. I have experienced the pain of depression. It can be so debilitating that you have no energy and you feel like the very oxygen you are breathing is running out. It physically gets difficult to breathe. Yes it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. In the midst of it you don't feel that it is temporary. Imagine being in a torturous physical pain, maybe being whipped day after day, unable to die, but hoping that somebody will come along and stop the torturer. You don't know if it'll happen. The pain gets so intense you want out to make it go away, and you don't care how selfish the act is. That's when the Lord has to step in.
For some reason I kept hitting her speed dial number on my phone and calling her. It was a prompting from God that he wanted me to talk to her. About 3 weeks ago I had the conversation of life with her. The cruel ways people treat us aren't always because of who WE are, but because of who THEY are. She stopped coming to church, because she felt like God did care about his creation. She stopped taking her depression meds, because they made her sick and she couldn't study. She stopped being social, because she wanted people to approach her first.
In the time since that talk I've seen her return to church, be more involved socially to meet people, and she sent me a text message yesterday saying that she couldn't stay awake. She was able to sleep for the first time in months. Praise the Lord for these huge steps away from zero.
For the first 20 years of my life, I went by my nickname Amy, as you pronounce it in English. In the bible when there is a change in name as in Sarai to Sarah, it always signifies a change. It signifies a change of heart. As one text reads, it's as if sirens are going off and something big is happening. The summer I got saved I began going by my birthname, Aimee (Ah-may). It began 2 or 3 weeks before I got saved. I'm sure sirens were going off in heaven to get the angels' attention to watch it happen. I was not only given a new name, I was made a new creation. Shortly afterwards my depression spells that I had in stressful circumstances fled from me. I used to sleep 13 or 14 hours a day. It all stopped. 9 years went by, then last fall I experienced the severity of depression again. Allowing me to remember the pain of it and empathize with my friend. At least for me it was due to circumstances not chemical imbalance. She's a believer, but I pray the Lord can transform her into a creation that no longer has to deal with depression.
Does Anybody Hear Her
By Casting Crowns
She is running
A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction
She is trying
But the canyon's ever widening
In the depths of her cold heart
So she sets out on another misadventure just to find
She's another two years older
And she's three more steps behind
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
Or does anybody even knows she's going down today
Under the shadow of our steeple
With all the lost and lonely people
Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
By Casting Crowns
She is running
A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction
She is trying
But the canyon's ever widening
In the depths of her cold heart
So she sets out on another misadventure just to find
She's another two years older
And she's three more steps behind
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
Or does anybody even knows she's going down today
Under the shadow of our steeple
With all the lost and lonely people
Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
She is yearning
For shelter and affection
That she never found at home
She is searching
For a hero to ride in
To ride in and save the day
And in walks her prince charming
And he knows just what to say
Momentary lapse of reason
And she gives herself away
If judgement looms under every steeple
If lofty glances from lofty people
Can't see past her scarlet letter
And we never even met her
He is running
A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction
For shelter and affection
That she never found at home
She is searching
For a hero to ride in
To ride in and save the day
And in walks her prince charming
And he knows just what to say
Momentary lapse of reason
And she gives herself away
If judgement looms under every steeple
If lofty glances from lofty people
Can't see past her scarlet letter
And we never even met her
He is running
A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction
