“Now, at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. Now this valley is a very solitary place.

 (John Bunyan // The Pilgrims Progress)

At some point in life, every person must walk through a deep, dark valley. The valley itself may look and feel different for every person, but we can be certain that it involves some sort of pain, sorrow, uncertainty, loss, doubt, unseen obstacles, or fear. This is the image that we find when reading the story of Christian in John Bunyan's classic allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress. Christian finds himself in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, utterly terrified and unable to trust even his own voice. He cannot be sure of what is around him, but the sounds and feelings cause him to believe that if he takes one step off of his path, he will certianly lose his life. And isn't this how our valleys feel to us? We feel as though if we continue in this way without something to guide our paths, we may never make it out.

Just as it was for Christian, so it is for us: solitary. It is in our Valleys, when we have our deepest needs, that we feel most alone. Bunyan makes sure to point this out to the reader. He calls the valley "a very solitary place". He describes Christian as alone, and unable to to trust himself or his surroundings and with no person to lean on. Yet, if we read on, we find that Christian is comforted when he hears a stranger in the distance quote "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4) And in this moment, Christian is strengthened for his journey. He understands that someone else is in this valley, and is surviving, therefore he can also survive. Knowing that we are not alone in our valleys gives us hope of survival. It gives us hope that we will soon make it out. 

Therefore, one hundred people have gathered to tell their stories as a reminder to those that are currently in the Valley that they are not alone. Even when we cannot see one another, we are traveling through the Valley together. These have gathered to lay down stones of remembrance that give testimony to how they’ve been brought out of the Valley, and to give hope to those within.

These 100 images are made up of one hundred valley stories, each of which is told with imagery chosen by the person in the image. Each person was asked to take a photograph that represented their valley and then those images were projected on them. Just as each person's valley looks different from their perspective, it is also seen differently by those around them. Friends tend to see the effects of the valley, yet not the valley itself, this is why the projected photograph in each image seems distorted and why each photograph is taken from a different viewpoint. 

As you click through each image you will have the opportunity to read the story each person has written about their valley


“My valley story is about my story of my weight loss. The low point of my valley came about when I made the decision to have the Lap Band with Plication surgery done. I looked back over photos of myself and realized that I was destroying myself and had no signs of changing my life. I thought that I was fine and that I was happy with my weight but seeing all those photos at once hit me like a brick wall. I broke down in my room one night after a doctors appointment in which we discussed the surgery as an option. I decided that the surgery would be the best option because all the other strategies I’ve tried for weight loss have failed. As I went about preparing for the surgery I met the team of doctors i would be working with for the next 5 years of my life. They were super supportive of me and very anxious all at once because i was the youngest person to have this type of surgery done. The surgery went well and the recovery went smoothly. Now as i go back for follow-up appointments and seeing how my life has changed for the better, I’m very happy to have gone through my valley. Because, honestly, if I had not gone through that valley and made that important decision I may not be alive today.


Philippians 4:6-7

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’"


A deep dark valley that I found myself in was during the time I spent in Arizona. My family moved there for a job position as well as to be with our grandfather, who was up in his years. This valley was filled with crass dirt and pretentious cacti, but more than that it was a place of desolation and grief. During this time, my walk and pursuit of Christ was not where it should have been. The unnecessary weight I was carrying was exemplified through songs I wrote, that called for me to lay down my burdens. These strongholds which kept me from Him, were forgiven through turning away from sin and asking for a renewed relationship. By His grace I stand, looking back to that dark valley I see where He has provided overwhelming forgiveness and grace




I was married for 22 years and separated for 7 of those 22. One evening after visiting with Misti and myself, he and I talked on the driveway. He said he couldn’t go on living this way. My response was he was living the way he wanted. I had given him 7 years of space. His next response was I just can’t do the hour drive to and from work. I told him I would meet him halfway. He was surprised at this.. I said you never asked me and I didn’t know he didn’t want to drive. Then he preceded to say IF he went to a lawyer, he wanted to be fair. He said I needed to get my own checking account. This really surprised me since we had separate accounts when we married and all he did was complain that I didn’t want to share the checking account. So I gave in and we had a joint account and now he wants separate ones. I reminded him of this. He left without saying much more. One Sunday afternoon while Misti was on campus he came by and told me he had filed for divorce. Of course I cried. He put his arms around me and asked me if I was ok. Really?!!! I told him to leave me alone and get out of my house. He filed on irreconcilable differences. Obviously that was his view. He didn’t try to work things out. I knew someone he worked with had tried to break us up when Misti was 3 years old. I grew up with her and I knew her history. I had no proof she was behind his behavior but I knew something was up. He told me there wasn’t anyone else - he lied. The worse moment of the divorce was the day we signed the papers. It was a death sentence. My family was dying, my husband was dying, and my life was dying. Divorce is a death - He was my best friend and he has (literally) died. I discovered pictures posted on FB she had posted and they were dated 2 years earlier so we were not divorced when that happened. Once Terry introduced her to Misti ( and Misti already knew her) she removed those pictures on FB. Never tell someone who is going through a divorce they have to move on. They can’t move on. They don’t know how or where to start. The way I got past some of the pain I started ballroom dancing. It helped me get out of the depression that developed after the divorce. I had to learn who I was without him. That’s so hard when I worked to keep our marriage together but it takes two people and God. He didn’t want the marriage- he just wanted to do what he liked to do and he left us behind. It took 3 years to start feeling better. Dancing helped me forget the world while on the dance floor.I started to laugh again and enjoy life.


"My grandfather, Alan Paul Northwood, died in February of 2007. A week before he died, while in the Humboldt Nursing Home, paid to me the most honorable compliment a grandparent can give to a grandchild. He was talking to his nurse, with me standing beside him, and said: “This is Stephen, my grandson. He is a straight A student. He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t do drugs. He not dating any girls because he’s saving himself for marriage. He doesn’t know it, but I’m very proud of him.” And for years after he died, I succumbed to those desires (all but the sex), and I felt that I was failing his words. I have found solace in those words, for I am a changed my through Christ. I feel as if I the Lord was using him in that moment to prepare me for where I am today. I am reminded of the baptism of Christ.

 

'And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”' (Matthew 3:16-17 ESV)

This is my strength. It was a dark valley, but now a strength and encouragement. Praise God."


My valley was apathy and depression. My walls grew higher than ever before and I was scared to death that I didn’t care anymore.

 “To try to pray is to pray. You can’t fail at it. It’s the only human endeavor I can think of where trying is doing.” Rick Hamlin.


Smoking has always been a major vice in my life, and is truly my darkest valley. I began smoking at the age of 14, and from there I struggled through a life of pain and suffering because of the addiction it placed on me and the addictions it opened up for me. I smoked cigarettes all the way through high school. In 2010, I nailed down my salvation, but the temptation always lingered, and I fell three months later succumbing to the stresses of finishing my senior year of high school. Since I have come to Union, I have fairly overcome my false dependence of smoking and have found solace in Psalm 46.

 

To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A Song.

 

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

he utters his voice, the earth melts.

The LORD of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

Come, behold the works of the LORD,

how he has brought desolations on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

he burns the chariots with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!”

The LORD of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

    (Psalm 46 ESV)

Every now and again, stresses will arise and I will be tempted to smoke again. Sadly, sometimes, I have, but I have also found strength through the support of my friends, family, and through prayer. This is a powerful strength and encouragement, and one day, I will be free. But now, I will continue to fight in the trenches with the “very present help” of the Lord by side side


I’ve been dealing with depression and anxiety since 5th grade – since I was 10 years old. I was so young when I was diagnosed, still just a kid, and was terrified; I had no idea what was wrong with me. I was nervous and scared all the time, knowing, even at that age, there was no reason to be so. I would break down when I got home after school or when my mom got home from work. We’d set in her chair, me in her lap, and I’d just crying and shake. My mom has dealt with depression since she gave birth to my sister and I, so she knew what to look for and took me to the doctor. I’ve been on a variety of depression pills since then.

Dealing with depression is still a daily struggle that sometimes I don’t even realize I am making. I’ve been sad and anxious and scared. I’ve questioned my self-worth and importance to the point where I’ve thought of running away from home and escaping it all because no one would care anyway. I’ve thought about ending my own life. I’ve looked at kitchen knives and cleaning chemicals and thought through how I would do it. The scary thing is that doesn’t scare me. Yes, I’ve thought these things, but I’ve never attempted them and never will. I generally have less energy or drive than a “normal” person and getting through each day can be exhausting. Certain smells, places, and times (generally the afternoon) can trigger panic attacks that I won’t even realize I’m having at first. I have concentration and focus issues and often kid that I have ADD / OCD, when I know depression is the cause.

While its not easy, I’ve come a long way since I was diagnosed. Now most days, I feel quite normal, even if I tire quicker than I’d like. I still hate that I am so dependent on a pill to make me feel “normal”. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I am supposed to feel and force myself to do it. But, my self image is better and, though I dislike it still, the depression is a part of me. It has forced me to examine myself and learn who I am from a very young age; while I may not always like myself, I understand myself. It’s made me strong so, in a way, depression has changed my life for good.

 

“Maybe sorrow was the thing. 

The, can’t quite put your finger on it, 

tap the tongue to the roof of the mouth, 

search for the flavor without a name, 

secret ingredient,

to all this me I have become.

Maybe sorrow was the rain

to the seed of happiness planted

the moment I became aware,

that there isn’t much fair

when it comes to life. 

Maybe sorrow was the thing.

The, if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger,

never yet broken promise inside myself that no matter how hard it gets 

I can survive it, 

extra bit of rope

when I thought mine had run out. 

Maybe sorrow was the thing. 

Maybe it is all the bending

and pushing these hearts

to their breaking point 

that grants flexibility to the grace

we spend our lives building.

Maybe only those who have danced

with melancholy and ache

can actually hear the music. 

Maybe sorrow was the thing. 

-Tyler Knott Gregson- 

 



My story with that was that last semester, I really struggled with a drinking problem. But by the wonderful grace of God, I let go of all of the things I did last semester and basically had a fresh start. And my life has definitely gotten better.


My junior year when my grandmother died and we started to clear out her stuff from her home. I felt like my family and myself were objectifying her by fighting over her things.

Serendipity


“My parents very intentionally raised me in a dark place in need of light. When I was little we moved from a safe, predictable, comfortable place to a community that was different, incredibly dark spiritually, and anything but predictable. The four years that I lived there as a nonbeliever were so hard! I craved the projection of God’s grace as I struggled with a darkness that seemed like it was overcoming me. I was scared and broken and knew that there was nothing I could do to alleviate my suffering and the suffering of those around me. Then the LORD began to draw me to Himself. He began with my need to repent and follow Him and sustaining me through the death of friend. He continued to woo my heart and draw me out of an oppressive gloom. His Word and His creation became balm to my weary, broken soul. He taught me of His majesty and power and showed me His grace and gentle, redeeming love. Through the crashing of waves, He constantly whispered “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46) He taught me over & over again that He choose me and that my salvation was an act of His grace and not a result of anything I had done and therefore there was nothing that could separate me from His love. (Romans)”


My “shadow” was a severe four year long bout with depression brought on by the death of a family member, other deep-seeded family issues, damaged friendships, guilt from past and current sins I felt like I was being punished for, and an altogether hopeless feeling that God was nowhere to be found and He did not care what I was going through. Because of my personality, I didn’t share any of these feelings with many other people, which led to all of said feelings ending up on the pages of the journal in this picture. There was no exact point where God just made everything ok. Instead, it was a four year long series of revelations from God. Things like reconciled family relationships in which I got to see my mom come to a real understanding of Christ. He used close friends, with whom I had shared no details of my depression, to tell me that He indeed saw and heard me right where I was because He was there with me and He understood what I was going through. He used the same people to reassure me that there was no more condemnation left for me, and that no one pulled any wool over His eyes while I snuck into His good graces but that He knew every bit of me and chose to keep loving me anyway. He allowed my heart to be run through in new ways by certain Scriptures I had heard hundreds of times (Isaiah 1:18;Romans 5:6-11;Romans 8:1-17;Hebrews 4:14-16;Philippians 1:6 just to name a few.) I also got to see God repair friendships damaged towards the beginning of this period of time which I thought were realistically past the point of reconciliation. The most accurate way I know how to describe it is that God filled those four years with a gentle and constant urging which eventually reached a climax when He seemed to ask, “Are you ready to let go of it all now, son?” God took my depression from me and, in return, gave me the blessing of a huge victory of His in my life as a reference for future days that He never did, and never will leave me alone, especially in valleys or times of shadow.


My valley is a combination of my dad’s lack of a job with my search for God’s will for my life, and specifically my life at union. I feel helpless and a burden at times; other times I try to forget about the situation and pretend it’s not there. I’m not out of the valley but the fact that God cares for all His children and will provide for them all gives me comfort. Also that I need to be constantly in His word and seek His will.


How should I begin my story? There is so much to tell, but today is about '' The Middle." First off,

I was the middle child of three and really felt unwanted at home with my family. Mentally, I assumed that my mother loved my older sister and younger brother more thane me. Now, with that in my mind constantly, I was also bullied all of my public school years.(k-12) After a while it, the bullying and doubt of worth, began to take a toll on me. In middle school, I tried to commit suicide on multiple occasions throughout those three years. The urge of death died down my freshman year of high school, but they returned my sophomore through senior year. Then the day came when I gave up on my life and tried one final attempt. I should be dead ,but I'm not. Shortly after, as in days, I had listened to a song called The Middle. For years I had heard the song, but never listened. When I finally sat down and listened to the song i cried. "If only I had listened earlier," I thought. I would have been a different person now; however, it wasn't time for me to understand, but my time came.

Now, I am here today


When I found out I was pregnant I couldn’t have been more surprised or overjoyed. I was over the moon in love with my sweet baby and I had never even seen her. My pregnancy was incredible. I never got sick, I had no complications, and I felt better than I ever had. I loved being pregnant. My labor and delivery was also incredible. I had very little pain, pushed for 6 minutes, and a beautiful baby girl came out. I could not have been happier. However, I never could have anticipated the valley that I experienced over the next two months and how God could restore my soul through it. I have never struggled with depression or anxiety until I had my sweet baby. The intense happiness I felt through pregnancy and delivery soon faded and was replaced by a cloudy blur. Baby girl was not the easiest baby. She cried almost 24 hours out of the day. As a new mom I had no idea what to do. I felt so guilty for not knowing how to make her happy. We got little to no sleep, and my post Partum hormones were running wild. When my husband went back to work I would just sob on the couch and stare at my baby, terrified of the next 8 hours alone with her. I had no idea how to be a mom and I was so fearful that I was doing everything wrong. Four weeks after she was born, she was still sleeping roughly zero hours a night and we were still zombies. One day, My husband came home with a migraine, which was pretty normal for him. Over the next few hours he started acting so strange, getting his words mixed up, calling me the wrong name, and moving very clumsily. I got very worried so I packed the baby up and took him to the doctor. The doctor sent him straight to the ER, which began what would be a week long stay at the hospital for him with a 4 week old baby. I had to drive back and forth from my house to feed the baby and the hospital to hold my best friend’s hand as he endured intense pain. I felt so inadequate as a wife and a mother in those moments. I was anxious, tired, fearful, and angry that this was happening. This experience sent me into a full-blown depression. I just wanted to rest. I just wanted it to be easy. I didn’t want to be a mom or a wife, I just wanted to be a little girl again. Three weeks later we endured two more trips to the ER for my little girl. She was so sick and I honestly didn’t have any energy left to know how to help her. Thankfully doctors stepped in and gave us answers and wisdom. I felt ashamed that I was dealing with depression after being given the greatest earthly gift I could ever receive. I was ashamed that motherhood was really hard for me to adjust to. I was ashamed that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Thankfully The Lord sent his daughters to minister to me in those hours. I was humbled like never before to be in need of other people. I have always tried to be the helper and the fixer, but I needed my church body in those weeks of despair. There are too many verses to list that The Lord used to bring me out of that valley, but I cling constantly to Isaiah 26:3 “you will keep him in perfect peace, he whose mind is stayed on YOU”. He taught me how to depend on him to care for my daughter. He taught me to finally depend on him to be a wife. He taught me more in those few months about dependence on Him and faith in His grace than ever before. I can honestly say now that motherhood is the biggest grace in my life in this season and I could not be happier or more in love with my daughter and soon to be second child. I have learned to I have to keep my mind fixed on Him and His truth to stay in His joy and peace


This picture reminds me of all of the times that I went back and forth between here and home and had to process through all that was going on with mom and dad at home and the fact that I was not there to be with them, yet The Lord so faithfully cared for them and still does.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.” Ps. 23:4



One valley I’ve experienced is the closing of my beloved Lambuth University in June of 2011. I was a senior and was expecting to graduate in the fall of 2011. I knew Lambuth had been experiencing severe financial problems, but I never expected that it would actually cease to exist as an academic institution. The students were called to a campus-wide meeting on April 14, 2011, where we were told that the school would be ceasing academic operations on June 30, 2011. That news was quite possibly the most heartbreaking I’ve had to deal with in a long time. Students and teachers were sobbing, but the teachers were doing their best to console the students. I was able to graduate on June 30, 2011, but was so caught up in the whirlwind of trying to finish my two majors that I couldn’t truly enjoy Lambuth’s last days. For some reason, the Lord saw fit to allow a precious college to close after being in operation since 1843. Lambuth’s closing still haunts me today. I feel like an orphan- the place that God ordained as my home for four years does not exist. The campus still stands, but the loving atmosphere of my Lambuth is forever gone. The one thing that brings me peace through all of this is the Irish Blessing. Lambuth’s Concert Choir, of which I was a member, ended each concert with our school’s alma mater and an arrangement of the Irish Blessing by a former choir director. The words are as follows: May the road rise to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the sun shine bright upon your face And the rain fall soft upon your fields And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.


My valley is my parents’ divorce and my poor relationship with my dad. I’ve never had a solid relationship with my dad, but the choices he has made in the last decade have negatively impacted my thoughts, my heart, and my self-esteem. My dad left my mom and me in 2004, but did not file for divorce until 2009. He never tried to come home and restore our family; rather, he pulled farther and farther away. Our relationship is mediocre at best. I struggle with my self-worth daily, and many of the issues I struggle with have their roots in my relationship with my father. He broke apart our family when he chose to divorce my mother. Similarly, he is uninterested in the consequences of his actions: we do not talk about how hurt I am and he cannot understand the pain I have been through. Quote: From Hanson’s “When You’re Gone” Well, the voices fall like timber And the fear it pours like rain And my heart is crushed to cinders Underneath this kind of pain Well, there is no resolution When the revolution’s dead So I’m left with no solution For the voices in my head


I believe one of the biggest lies that Satan tells and humanity believes is the lie that we are alone: alone in our sufferings, alone in our weaknesses, alone in our sins and left alone without hope, without love and without communion with God or one another. Although there are many lies that I have believed throughout my life (that I am not good enough, that I need the approval of man, that I needed to have certain people or a certain weight in order to be worth anything, or be loved.), there was one lie that I still clung to after God had mercifully exposed others. After being out of the hospital and recovering a lot physically, I think most people thought I had moved on and that everything was alright-I had smoothed things over and we could go back to answering every salutary greeting with the required, “fine. And how are you?” But for me it appeared as though no one could see my pain at all, as though they all pretended that my eating disorder had never happened. It was like no one could see that the pain that goes on in the world changes who we are and who how we love. I believed the lie that I had been left alone. One night, like many others before it, I couldn’t sleep. I paced the room, trying to pray, trying to cry, trying to figure out why I couldn’t banish the voices of lies from the echoing lockbox of my mind. Trying to feel alive. Trying to feel anything. Although the lies shoved me towards other options, something else drew me to a previously blank journal on my bedside table. I began on the first page and scribbled out the emotions and lies that I had accepted as truth. I don’t remember much of what I said, but I do remember the contents of the last page, “I’m not ok. Please don’t leave me alone.” I’ve never shared this page with anyone. The first part is true. I am not ok, and I am not going to be ok when I’m on my own. But we are not meant to be alone. And it is the truth in the second part that brought me out of that valley, and what brings me out every day. As a follower of Christ, my faith centers around the truth that we are not ok... but we have not been left alone! God Himself comes to us in our fallen estate. He has promised He is will never leave us nor forsake us. He is faithful when we are faithless for He cannot deny Himself. As Zephaniah proclaims, “The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.” And, as Christians, we have God Himself in our midst, who is the light in our darkness and the voice assuring us we are never alone in the valley. In emulating Christ, we walk in light. Because of the life of Christ in us, even when all we see is darkness, we can be encouraged in proclaiming with the Psalmist the truth about our God, “If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”


My picture is of a sunset. It comforted me through my adoption as a child & reminded me that God provides us with new days.


I was raised in a home filled with brokenness, addiction, and chaos. Eventually I just shattered under the pressure of it all. I have lived with mental and emotional instability for the majority of my life. My epiphany: I realized that I can rise above the stigma of mental illness and find my own healing through my relationship with God and others. I continually find peace through learning and creating new things. My past is something I will always have to deal with, but the more I discover about myself the more empowered I feel each year.


My brother had leakuima. He was really sick and it seemed like he wasnt going to make it. The Lord showed me he is faithful but I am still healing from the trauma. Romans 8:28 - For the GOOD of those who love them



This is a valley that I will never be able to get out of as long as I am alive. All of my grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and most of my great aunts have alzheimer’s disease. None of them remember who I am and if they are told, they will forget in a few minutes. I am at a great risk for having this. That is why I try to live such a carefree kind of life because I don’t know how long I have until I get it myself.


This represents my valley of nothingness. For the majority of my high school life I felt neither empathy nor happiness for most people, including my family. I didn’t even feel sad at my grandfather’s funeral. I shut myself off from nearly every emotion except for the negative ones.


Both pictures included represent the same valley, my mother's struggle with Alzheimer's disease and her death. The picture of the sunrise was taken the morning of the day she passed away. Mom loved the Lord, and had served alongside my dad in Papua New Guinea with Wycliffe Bible Translators. She had written in a journal once that: "I did not become a missionary because I am a good person, I became a missionary because God is good." Mom showed that she believed this with the way she loved our church, my dad, and us. Watching her health decline rapidly following a mini-stroke in 2011 was taxing and lead to a lot of bitterness on my part. By the time she entered the hospital for the final time in January of 2013, God had done a lot to remind me of his grace and goodness. The sunrise that morning, as seen from her hospital room served as a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. More than any other person I have ever known, my mother wanted to be with the Lord. That day, her race ended and she finally saw her beloved Jesus face to face. My bitterness turned to rejoicing when I remembered Ecclesiastes 3:11A: "He has made everything beautiful in its time..." The second picture is of my mom's name inside her copy of the Lord of The Rings. I am a Tolkien fan because she first introduced me to his work, and even though she is gone, I take comfort in reading her copy of a book we both loved.


For four years in my life, I struggled with self-injury as a way to cope with confusion, isolation, and changes that were going on throughout my life. “We are all a people in need. We are not perfect. We are not machines. We make mistakes. We need grace. We need compassion. We need help at times. We need other people. And that’s okay” Jamie Tworkowski


The summer of 2013, was my first summer to spend taking classes and living in Jackson, and over than summer and the semester to follow, some of my closest friends began to deal with weights and burdens unimaginable. The more time I spent around them, the more weight I tried to bear. However, I couldn't bear my own weight and theirs as well. I tend to feel the burdens of those around me deeply and like a chameleon, my personality changes along with them, not to be more like them, but I become more of a counterpart or leveler. Following the ups and downs of my closests friends drained me entirely, and rather than running to Christ to be my strength, I ran to those friends, who had little to give at that moment. I drained them as they drained me and we went spiraling together. As I attempted to level myself out, I pushed people away. I think it was partly because I still had a busy semester with an on campus and off campus job and a 16 hour semester, partly because I couldn't handle being around anymore people, and partly because I was afraid that they would find me cracking under the pressure. Whatever the reason, I spent most of my days with a select few people, and a old enemy, a "passion of my former ignorance", my need for approval, began to tear me apart. 


As the semester became more and more difficult, some of these friends moved away to work through their valleys, and the Lord asked me distance myself from those peolple. This meant losing close friends, and feeling the weight of that pain deeper as I was also causing them pain. Those relationships were torn apart while fear, confusion, and agony set deep. At the same time, everything at my off campus job was nearly falling apart, and all of my classes were coming to a dramatic head. My art projects were physically shattering, and my head and heart were so weary that I my vision was blurring on a normal basis. Tears would not dare to come when needed. I felt cold and distant, but the pain was real. My need for approval pushed me farther alone, and there were several people that I was sincerely afraid to speak to. I was afraid of being unwanted in their world. During this time, Jesus kept telling me to keep moving forward and I held to John Bunyan's quote from the Pilgrim's Progress,

"This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;

The difficulty will not me offend,

For I perceive the way to life lies here:

Come, pluck up, heart, let's neither faint nor fear!

Better, though difficult, the right way to go,

Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe."


The January term that followed brought peace that I never expected. As I pleaded with Christ to heal my broken and weary soul, and as my parents were no doubt doing the same, He heard our pleas for mercy. 


"Today was the day! The day the sun finally broke through the winter clouds and melted my frozen heart! Jesus spoke to my soul today! He answered my cries! And it may be only a single warm day in the winter, but it's enough to remind me of what the sunlight feels like on my face and that it's waiting just behind the clouds to break forth whenever this season ends and Spring brings new life!" 


... I cannot begin to tell you how much peace January 7th brought. There is such a drastic difference between the 100-some-odd pages in my sketchbook that came before this one and the ones that followed. Praise the resurrected Shepherd that this not just "a single warm day in the winter", but the changing of the seasons!


It all started this past summer when I broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years. It was the hardest time of my life. I had to detach myself from someone I loved and someone that I thought I was going to share my life with. He was the only person I felt that I had truly loved, and now I had to erase him and the past 3 years from my life. I cried every day for months and fell into depression. During this time, I kept trying to get back with him. I wasn’t ready to let go. As the weeks went on, I came to the realization that things were never going to be as they were. He wasn’t going to come back to me. With this realization, came the want to forget him. During the daytime, I was too occupied with school to even have him cross my mind. But when the nights came, I found myself constantly thinking about him. I started drinking and acting reckless just to get my mind off him. My behavior started getting worse, and I started sleeping around with guys. I wasn’t looking for affection. I knew these guys would never give that to me. What I was looking for was the ability to forget. Oddly enough, it sort of worked. I forgot him. Over Christmas break, I met a guy that was probably the sweetest guy I have ever met. We had so much in common, and he was just so good to me. I hadn’t felt that way about someone in a long time. I really had hope in us. I calmed down for him and told myself I wasn’t going to sleep with him because I really wanted it to work. Two months later, he broke up with me. Although he gave a list of vague reasons as to why he wanted to break up, a part of me still thinks it was because I would not have sex with him. This was around 3 weeks ago. When he broke up with me, all my feelings built up from the prior semester just came flooding in. All the guilt, shame, loneliness, and heartache just hit me. For about 4 days, I sunk into rut. I felt horrible. When I was with him, I had started to feel better, happier. But once again, all that went away when he left, and I was left alone. Reverting back to my old ways of coping, I started sleeping around with guys again. Somehow, this seems less damaging to me than drinking. Now 3 weeks later, I’m in the same place I was last semester. I’m numb to everything I’m doing and can’t seem to stop. After all the pain of the last few months, I don’t ever want to be in a relationship. I don’t want to love again, because oftentimes I’m not loved back. I don’t want to hope again, because that always leaves me disappointed in the end.


All through my childhood, my father had big jars of quarters in his office. An avid coin collector, he had begun saving the state quarters as each was released by the mint, and buying rolls of them that hadn’t been circulated, with the goal of someday selling them to help me pay for college and to buy me a car after my high school graduation. Seeing those jars around my house made me feel special and loved. As my graduation neared, I started to really look forward to college (and to having a reliable mode of transportation.) One night I came home to find out that my older brother had taken every jar that my dad had collected over more than a decade, and used them to pay for drugs. I fought against my anger toward my brother for so long. I still do. I couldn’t believe that my big brother, who was supposed to watch out for me, would let himself be so consumed by his need to get high that he could justify taking this expression of my dad’s love from me, and more importantly, that he could crush my dad the way he did. I still have a hard time looking at quarters. And hearing my brother try to justify himself still hurts. He’s right, I don’t understand what it’s like to be addicted. But he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a brother who is. Living in fear of being manipulated and lied to killed our relationship for many years. But it has also taught me how to love people where they are at. Letting go of my anger was incredibly difficult to do, but in place of the anger, God has given me compassion, and allowed me to understand the pain that addiction brings. Acknowledging my anger and my trust in physical possessions had humbled me in ways I never would have thought possible. I still fight the feelings of resentment from time to time, but instead of letting those thoughts explode into self -righteous anger, God has given me the strength to forgive. “But store up your treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust decay, and thieves do not break in and steal.”


My valley was dealing with one of the hardest losses I've ever had to deal with. The "Things I love about you" list represent's my feelings of failure to live up standards and promises I made to someone I care deeply for.

My peace came from praying for healing and strength; not only for mine, but for her's as well. Two hearts were damaged, not just my own. Bitterness has no place in the heart of someone bearing the name of Christ.


Isolated, unlovable, lonely, hopeless, invisible, fragile, helpless, abandoned, self-harming, and insecure; these are the words that describe my deep, dark valley. These are the words that describe the deep depression I walked through my sophomore year of high school. Though surrounded by the people I loved, I did not feel loved. Though in a crowd of people, I felt lonely, invisible, abandoned, and isolated. Though once confident, I found myself fragile, helpless, hopeless, and insecure. And yet even despite self-harming and thoughts of suicide, I am not healed. This valley ensnared me for months and even though I felt alone, I was never alone. Now, I stand on the mountaintop looking at what God has done and seeing the victory He has won over my valley. Sometimes though, I feel like I am starting to slide right back into that deep, dark valley.


I chose the Brooklyn Bridge for my photo because it was a physical landmark that also marked my year long valley. My visit to NYC came at a moment when I thought that I was leaving my valley behind. I had made a long series of negative choices based on what other people thought, and also what I felt I was worth at that time. One negative perception led to another leaving me feeling isolated, and also Godless. By the time I was in New York, I had realized my mistakes, but rather than relying on God to fix them, I was trying to handle everything myself. After going to New York, I was still very much “trying” to fix things, and I thought everything was improving. What brought me out of my valley, was literally my entire personal life falling apart in a 24 hour time span. At this point, I realized that “trying” wasn’t getting me anywhere. Over a series of conversations with a dear friend, I was brought back to the love of Christ, which wasn’t based on anything I could do or achieve.


My parents divorced when I was in second grade, and I was hoping that I’d finally get the dad I always wanted when my mom remarried a couple years later. He was a lot of fun at first, but when I was about 13 years old, he began sexually abusing me. This continued for about 5 years. I finally got the courage to tell my mom when I was at the end of my junior year of high school. By that point, a few women—his patients—had pressed charges against him for inappropriately touching them. It was on the front page of the local newspaper, and my mom asked my three younger sisters and me if the same thing had been done to us. Knowing that the same man who was hurting me was also hurting other people was what compelled me to break the silence. I worried that he might also hurt my sisters. I had to protect them.

My mom immediately took action, and a long, hard road lay before us. I pressed charges against him. I gave my testimony to detectives, attorneys, and social workers. Twice the defense attorney deposed me, and many times it felt like I was the one on trial. The case finally went to trial at the end of my senior year, and I testified to a 12-member jury. I felt 100 pounds lighter when I stepped off the stand, feeling like I had purged years of disgusting secrets. After much deliberation, the jury found him guilty on all charges. Just 12 days before I left for my freshman year of college, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Although I had been seeing a counselor during my senior year of high school, I continued therapy during my freshman year of college. I read books written by psychologists on the topic. I did group therapy and also saw an intake counselor, and I experienced a lot of healing and growth that year—even though it was very painful. In group therapy, I learned that I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling. The aftermath of the abuse for me and those other girls looked very similar: depression, anxiety, PTSD, perfectionism, etc. My faith was what I talked about when asked what gave me hope. It seemed like the other young women in my group didn’t have that same faith, and it broke my heart. But through that group, I learned that I am a survivor—not a victim. I also began to realize that even though my past has shaped me, it does not define me. Only Christ defines me.

After my freshman year, I transferred to Union. That summer, my mom remarried again. This time, it was the kind of man I needed as a dad. In the summer of 2012, he adopted my youngest sister, Maci, who my mom had with the previous marriage. Maci was so excited about this! I felt like my family was finally whole.

Then on January 1, 2013, my mom and sister, Kori, were on their way back home from dropping me off to start J-term. My sister, Mekenna, was already here at Union for her RA position. A couple hours later, I got a call from Kori. She told me that our family had been in a bad car accident. My step-dad, grandpa, grandma, step-brother Caleb, and Maci had gone to pick up our aunt from the airport. On their way home, they were hit by a drunk driver. Maci and my grandpa were killed. My fiancé, Jonathan, drove Mekenna and me to the Little Rock Children’s Hospital. It was there that we were told that Maci didn’t make it. I barely remember that January, and I certainly didn’t do J-term.

Now, a little over a year later, I am amazed at where my family is. We still have hope and joy. We are going to give glory to God through it all. He has given us strength for each day. Taking it one day at a time and being grateful for the everyday blessings has given me peace.

This verse has brought me a lot of comfort in my valleys.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.


My valley was a valley of doubt and despair. I felt so frustrated, confused, and guilty because I thought I could never be totally sure if I was really saved. On September 18th, 2013, my roommate shared some familiar scriptures with me. In God’s timing, this was the night it would all click: tetelestai. It is finished.


I used to feel dirty all the time. "I will never feel attractive to another person. How can I? Sure, I haven't 'done it,' but I've done enough." The only thing that could heal me from my mistakes was time. It took time for the words "You are forgiven, clean, pure, no matter what" to sink in, even after hearing them over and over again. Now, I believe it. I am clean because Jesus Christ is bigger than my past. I can't say I don't still struggle or feel guilty, but I can say for sure that my past doesn't control me! I always come back to truth. It just took time to get to this place. Sometimes, you just have to wait it out and keep waking up each day. Eventually, you will get there, too. Why? Because God is faithful and patient. He is. When you fall back down, you just get back up again and keep moving forward.


When I was in my early teen years I was in a valley of terrifying transition—middle to high school, one church to another, seeing faith as a religion to seeing it as my salvation. My parents and family went through a dark and bitter time of nearly constant fighting and lack of communication, and even though I sought distractions and beauty, nothing satisfied. I’ll never forget one day opening my Bible for what I remember to be my first time outside of church in search of something. knew very little about the Bible other than that the Psalms were in the middle, so I started there, not knowing that it was filled with prayers and promises that would bring me to a true understanding of the gospel; God was not something I claimed—He was Someone I needed, every hour of every day. I renewed my faith, my parents got counseling, and our family went through a season of healing that I will never be able to explain. Hallelujah.

 

My assurance of peace: I have a few, but this is a verse that ended up basically being my theme song for my entire high school experience and perhaps my life: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” (1 Peter 1:8)


After a 3.5 mile detour on our hike, Daddy and i jumped back into his little black truck and drove to the Kisatche Bayou. it was the first day of the year and the two of us had planned to spend the fresh start in the fresh air. we started on the Carolina Dorman trail- one that he had never been on, but decided after two miles through the pine forest, he didn't want to finish the rest of the 9. in search of a more exciting view, we continued down the road to what he called 'the falls'. for a man who spent most of his life in Louisiana, the rushing creek was, in fact, the most of a waterfall he had ever seen in his life. and there it was- a creek nestled in the middle of the national forest. clear water running over rocks and boulders. glimmering in the sunlight. it talked to me and went on about the joy it was having. and i listened. i even joined the fresh, cool water and kept from rock to rock careful not to interrupt it's chatter. once i reached the middle. i found myself on a large rock and sat down. there on the edge of this rock i pulled my knees to my chest and watched the water hurry over it's brothers and sisters. and there my thoughts ran at the same pace. one could think as long as the water ran. forever and ever. with a whole year ahead of you there is so much to think about when nothing has happened. especially when it follows a year when so much has happened. or a month or a week or even a day. i reflected upon the content of those things. of friendships. of working. of Love. of no rest. of mistakes. of those pills in the orange bottle. some of these things made me smile. others crowded my mind like fog and i couldn't really find my way in the midst of them. but even when i was miles away in my head, i was still there at the creek where the water falls over the rocks and anyone would agree that it seemed to be quite peaceful there. then i realized that Daddy was no longer sitting on the sandy bank across from me, but had walked back to where he began. when i met him there he suggested that we travel down the creek a little bit more. i agreed and we climbed up to the hill to the trail and walked. what we found was beautiful: a few hardwood trees(whose names i do not know) gathered sparsely. several of their leaves fluttered down with amber sunlight into a bed of their relatives who have gone before them. we walked through and discovered another sandy beach. however this one was smooth and expanded horizontally. there were no footprints and the waster was completely still. it wasn't until then that i realized that it was just as silent. i didn't hear a single sound since we met the trees. i couldn't even hear my feet and the steps i took. everything was settled into its proper place. then there was a cypress tree. it's bark stripped, roots gnarled and tangled above the sand, and branched pulled over itself from years of the creek rising and rushing over it. it looked pathetic, but also majestic and comforting. i actually stood int the embrace of the concave branches. it was there that i had no thoughts, no weight in my feet or my chest. i suppose, while i was there, there was peace.


In high school, I wrestled with depression, anxiety, and a sense of feeling trapped and powerless in my own life. My struggle with learning to drive came to represent those fears for me, as I was terrified my incompetence would cripple me forever--or worse, take a human life. I saw plenty of therapists, but the only thing that ultimately healed me was returning to and waiting on the Lord. He has restored my joy, and I love to sing to Him while I speed down the freeway.


Valley: Fear itself. I think too much about things I can’t control, things like the dark side of myself, the future, whether or not I’ll find true love, how I can possibly finish what I’ve started. Sometimes I succumb to fear so fierce it’s paralyzing.

 

Relief: Trusting that it’s not all on me. The support of people friends and family, who believe that I can show up everyday and trust whole-heartedly. When I succumb to the fear I’m forgetting that God has a Plan, capital “P.” I do trust that He knows what’s going on, especially because I don’t.


Though I have been through several difficult things, this valley seemed to be my most difficult. On the last day of January 2013, I had some esophageal spasms that made swallowing excruciatingly impossible. I went to the ER that night, but the doctor told me that it was probably minor and that it would subside fairly soon. They did, but not until a few weeks later. That same night, my boyfriend told me that we needed to think about things- about whether or not we should continue on in our relationship together. Later that week, my boyfriend and I broke up. The few days leading up to the difficult, but grace-filled conversation were some of the most difficult that I have ever had. Not only was I in physical pain from the clenching and unclenching of my throat muscles and the increasing pain in my stomach, but also in the panicked agony of waiting and letting go of my stubborn control over the situation to God. Because my stomach and throat pain, I was not eating, and barely sleeping. I was begging God to not let us break up during those five days, but also that He would teach me to trust Him. I was angry, tired, and so confused. Right before we broke up my laptop stopped working and earlier that week my bike was stolen. It was a really rough week. But, during the months leading up to this, I had let fear creep into my heart, and it had become my constant friend. Now that I had lost my bike, my laptop, and my boyfriend for security, as well as having rough health, I had to turn to the Lord. I had selfishly and pridefully relied on so many other things, panicking when they failed me. It was a long healing process, but one that I am thankful for. Thankful for the wisdom that the Lord had given my ex in breaking things off, and thankful to the Lord for bringing me back to Himself. This picture is a picture of me in a national park in Ireland taken by one of the dear friends that I became close to when I went last summer. I went to Ireland in summer 2013 to do relational ministry with 2 organizations hosted by 2 churches that I worked with as well as one other church in the cities of Strabane, Letterkenny, and Derry for 7 weeks altogether. As soon as my boyfriend and I broke up, I decided that I wanted to go to Ireland that summer. What started out as a desperate means of escape from facing what could have been a difficult summer, was transformed into a means of ministry, learning, community, healing, and adventure. Our God’s plans are so much greater and larger than we are, and I am so grateful.



One valley I’ve gone through is the continual struggle I have in being vulnerable and open with people - I usually stay quite guarded, private, and closed. But I’ve realized that vulnerability is vital in order to connect and love people and live life fully. Sometimes this vulnerability leads to more valleys of being hurt and losing people you let in, but I’ve learned that this risk is a necessity. And I’m still trying to figure out if it’s worth it. 

 

Quotes:

“Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” Brene Brown

 

“Blue skies are coming, but I know that it’s hard.” -Our Window, by Noah and the Whale


One of the valleys I find myself in is the struggle to reconcile my faith with my sexual orientation. Trying to find a truthful balance between what I know about myself and what I’ve been told about myself; between what I know about God and what I’ve been told about Him. 

 

I chose a pendant of the virgin Mary to represent my valley. Mother Teresa gave it to my uncle when he piloted a plane she traveled in. My uncle and I shared the same valley, and he eventually decided to take his own life. This pendant is a reminder of my uncle and our shared struggle with our faith, but I find that it has a comforting presence as well, and because of this I find myself wearing it often. Mother Teresa wrote of a darkness in her soul—a struggle to feel the presence and the comfort of God. For whatever reason, this comforts me. To know that someone so devout also struggled with her faith. Struggled to feel God’s presence. It reminds me that faith isn’t something that’s achieved, or a joy necessarily met—it’s a constant process of persistent searching.


As with most things in my life, spiritual realities have physical counterparts. Often, the cares and worries of life often consume my thoughts, blot out my joy, and usher in pain. In a similar way, the clouds swallow the sky, smother the sun, and herald the storm. The clouds don’t simply give an outward picture to my inward thoughts, though. They hold sway over them. They work in tandem to drown me.

In those days when the sun is darkened and those moments when all seems bleak, I sing songs. I sing songs that remind me what I am, weak and “made of dust”, but loved anyway. I sings songs that remind me that contrary to what I feel, I’m not “the only one waging my wars above my face and above my throat”. I sings songs that remind me that I’ve made it this far, and that “I will overcome someday”. I sing songs that remind me to persevere “hold on to the plow.” I sing songs that remind me that “I’ll soon be done with the troubles of the world.” Until the sun back comes out, I sing songs that remind me of truth.


Two years ago, I began what I remember as the worst year of my life. I was living with a few people who either simply didn’t agree with me or who mocked my beliefs openly. Consistently feeling derided for my faith, I slipped into despair. I felt overwhelmed, unsure, forgotten and forsaken. Yet something within me would not let go of the hope of Jesus.




“my God my God why have you forsaken me? why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? oh my god, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One. you are the praise of Israel. in you our fathers put their trust. they trusted and you delivered them. they cried to you and were saved. in you they trusted and were not disappointed” (Psalm 22:1-5)


2011 was a hard year. We lost a lot of things...a job, a child, innocence. And God gave a lot of things...faith, grace, blessings, wisdom. "You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be Your name." Realizing that He comes to make all things new, we know we are made new through our sufferings and through His suffering on the cross! The pine cone, what we lost and the flower, what we received! Joy came in the morning! The pine cone is from a wreath I made remembering our year of Jubilee. "When you see a child set free, makes you sing of Jubilee. When you see your family free makes you sing of Jubilee."


My valley has really been a lifelong struggle and will always be. It is for many people. Sometimes I get caught up in my temporal life and I become more interested in what is right in front of me than in God and my greater purpose of glorifying Him. When I do this, I skip quiet times, I don’t listen in church, I ignore every spiritual discipline. The worst part comes when I realize and I try to come back, but the guilt is too great. I’m not sure where it came from, but I have grown up with an inaccurate picture of God and His grace. I always felt that whenever I had been away from Him, pursuing the world instead, that He was just waiting, disappointed and angry, for me to come groveling back, at which point, He would punish me like I deserved. I was going to have to do better from there on out for Him to love me. I didn’t understand His unconditional love and I felt I could never accept it in my sinful state.

 

Realization that brought me out: 

 

In the beginning ofThe Prodigal God, author Tim Keller is explaining the cultural significance of different parts of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He speaks of when the father calls for the best robe to be brought out to his just returned younger son. “The best robe in the house would have been the father’s own robe, the unmistakeable sign of restored standing in the family. The father is saying, ‘I’m not going to wait until you’ve paid off your debt; I’m not going to wait until you’ve duly groveled. You are not going to earn your way back into the family, I am going to simply take you back. I will cover your nakedness, poverty, and rags with the robes of my office and honor.’” Those words shattered my illusion of an ever-wrathful, vengeful God. I saw a God who loved me in spite of what I had done, so much that He didn’t even wait for me to make it back home. He comes after me. A perfect God, with more power and glory than we can fathom, comes after sinful, dirty me and pulls me out of the mess I’ve made. I still don’t understand that kind of love, but I can finally feel it.


Depression was a monster that ate at me from the inside out. I wasn’t sure there would be any light left once the darkness was full.

 

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

.Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder - Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues



“Satan is an arrogant, ambitious, deceiving, and manipulating opportunist who has been a ‘murderer from the beginning’. Over and over again I am astonished at the effectiveness of our enemy to deceive people into thinking that Christianity is bondage but his path is freedom.” - Beth Moore. 

Since the age of 13 the Devil has been lying to me. He so often told me what I wanted to hear and how to satisfy my greedy flesh which thrived on instant gratification. These lies often kept me from experiencing the fullness, the peace, and the joy that God had for me. I am so thankful that God loves sinners and that I am no longer defined by my sin but by Jesus! I am daily learning what it looks like to feed my soul instead of my flesh. I am reminded that we are in battle and I need to live like that. Ephesians 6:10-18



The cold winter months were a hard time for many. I had a rough start of 2014 especially. Last semester was a hectic semester packed with to do lists and projects that I felt as if I had no time for anything other than school. My walk with God was not my priority. I did not have time for invested relationships. After Christmas break, I came back to Union for J-term. It was cold and lonely month for me. I had too much time in my hands. I started thinking about my life and the temporary nature of my stay here. It was a tough time and depression-like symptoms started appearing. I started avoiding people and spent most of my days alone. In the start of the spring semester, I had a chance to talk to couple friends who spoke truth to me and God provided peace and comfort for me to escape the depression. Even if my stay here and friendship seems temporary, it is everlasting in the Kingdom of the Lord. I should enjoy and be thankful for what I have now and not worry about what the future holds.


Sometimes you think you know better than God about what your future should look like. So you have a plan in your head that you are set on. Then that plan breaks up with you. You’re crushed and bitter for a good while but you believe that it was for the best. And one day God wakes you up to the realization that the valley was one of His greatest gifts to you.


“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” - Colossians 2:6-7

- no matter what we go through, if we continue to live in Him, he will build us back up even stronger and with even deeper roots.


My valley was depression. It still is, in a way, because depression is not necessarily a valley you have to cross only once; sometimes you have to cross it several times before you can really get out, and even then you may have to come back to it one day. I left my valley for a short time, and now I have returned to it, but it is neither as deep nor as dark as it was before and I count that as a blessing that will make the crossing a little easier.

 

When my valley was at its deepest and darkest, though, I remember feeling as if I had done everything wrong up until that point in my life and would inevitably continue to do everything wrong, and that paralyzed me into doing nothing at all. I had no energy, and struggled to stay awake even on the best of days when I had slept well the night before. I woke up nauseous most mornings, and this after fighting to wake up at all. Every little thing that went wrong felt like my fault, even when I knew, objectively, that it wasn’t. And I was confused, because logically I knew none of this made sense, that I shouldn’t have felt this way and I shouldn’t have been so tired, but my mind and my body had decided to conspire against me and so I spent most of my time crying and sleeping and being angry at myself for doing those things even though I couldn’t make myself stop doing them.

 

And at some point, while I was crying alone in the stairwell of Jennings, a dear friend messaged me a quote from Batman.

 

“Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

 

The Lord works through more than just scripture; sometimes he works through people, and sometimes he works through Alfred Pennyworth. I am constantly reminded even now that I am learning to pick myself up when I fall, and I am learning that it is okay to need help to pick myself up, whether that help comes through doctors and medicine, or friends and family, or a quart of chocolate milk and some loud music at eleven o’clock in the evening. 

 

I have fallen more than once, and gotten up again each time, and I am reminded, because I have gone through the valley once and come out of it, that I will not be there forever. I am simply a traveler passing through.


My Valley was during my senior year of high school. It began because of a girl I fell in love with. I ended up pouring my life into her and ending up getting nothing back after months of spending time with her. We ended up not working out and I became angry at God because I did not get what I wanted. So that turned into anger and not only God but everyone else. My relationship with my parents and, with friends where very negatively effected. I had trouble choosing what school I wanted to go to for collage and my school work suffered as well. I pretty much stopped caring about anything and what I did care about I was angry about. 

 

Proverbs 3:5-12 helped me get through my valley. This passage opened my eyes to the fact that this life is not about myself and my own wants and desires. I learned that God’s will and timing is better than my own. And I was extremely humbled when I looked at myself and how I was acting. This lesson had a huge impact in my decision to go to Union. Ever since then I have remembered to trust in God when It comes to my future and anything else in my life. And if things do not go as I want I should rejoice because God is in control and I would much rather he be in control then for me to be left on my own. 

 

My picture is of my class ring. It reminds me of all the anger and depression I went through my senior year and It also reminds me of how I got to where I am now and how God taught me through that valley.  “There is not timing that God’s timing”. 


It is hard to fully describe about this valley, but there were feelings of loneliness, helplessness, weariness and a gradual increase of “cold-heartedness” (if there’s ever such a word) in my journey. I guess I would say that I was going through it for the two years since I first got into seminary in July 2011. Various aspects of my life formed this valley that I was going through, such as, family and some crisis, increasing workload in ministry, felt failures in ministry work in church and school, also, sense of loss of important friendships and spiritual support in the midst of all the struggles in this season.     

 

I remembered waking up every morning and when I first found myself going through those moments, I would see the sunrise from my parents’ room (the picture that I attach) and took pictures of it. Now as I look at these pictures, it also reminded me of those moments of yearning for God to bring a proper resolution to all that I was going through. I would pray earnestly for God’s help each morning I awake, but I found myself increasingly turning to worthless things for comfort and guide in those times too. 

 

Epiphany: God’s grace and sovereignty over all seasons of life   

What had probably kept me “sane” and be at peace is by His grace of giving comfort and revealing of Himself and His promises in different ways and occasions. Looking back I realize He has always been faithful, while I’ve been failing Him in many ways. There were moments when I felt extremely helpless and fearful, that He would show me Himself. There were also moments I would just simply keep feeling being uncertain and unsettled. And I know during those times I need to wait.       

 

I have always looked forward to coming to Union. Plans of coming to Union had been a two-year process, and the obstacles that kept popping each step of the way had almost stopped me from coming. Those days, I always see that if I were able to come to Union, it would definitely be a time of rest for me. And sure enough, it has been a time of rest. I am learning through every person I come across, I am learning anew on spiritual disciplines, and God is also using this time to bring healing to my soul.  

 

One of the beautiful yet simple ways that I see as an epiphany to my valley, is to experience the seasons here. I come from a place that is hard to comprehend and feel that change of seasons. I begin to appreciate and understand Psalm 1 more - a friend encouraged me with that Psalm awhile ago before I came to the States. And I remembered I really couldn’t wait for the day when it is time to bear fruit. Being here in Union specially in the time when the community is going through a difficult and dark times, I am even more convinced and assured God is really a sovereign God who will make beauty out of ashes.


The valley that I overcame had to do a lot with the environment I was in. I struggled with a lot of hate and anger and really lacked any greater understanding. God and I were not particularly close though I was aware of Him. I see a lot of this valley to be fueled by people and content I surrounded myself with, but also not knowing how to respond maturely. I was lost in a field too tall to see a clear way out and couldn't even comprehend that I was lost.

 

The summer after completing middle school, my family uprooted itself from the only place I'd lived and we moved down south to Tennessee. In a lot of ways I see this as God helping me to overcome this valley. I became much closer with Him and was blessed with the people He surrounded me with. I got a new beginning when I moved and it has allowed me to grow in so many ways that I was blind to before. Keeping a consistent relationship with God has allowed me so much understanding and patience. I am no longer angry and I believe that physically moving away was an answered prayer I didn't know I needed. 


“My valley came after the loss of my friend Casey in 2009. He was in my life a short time, but became one of the greatest spiritual examples to me. I was in China when I heard the news & had no way to return home for the funeral or anything. Everyone seemed to be in the process of moving on when I got back, so I really had no closure to the situation. I would sit by his grave for hours sometimes. I felt like I was all alone and overwhelmed by a sea of emotions that I didn’t understand. I just wanted to numb myself to everything. Feeling nothing seemed better than feeling everything.

 

What pulled me out of my valley? 

“I just feel you can tell people about Christ all day, but they are not going to believe it until you show His love too.” ~ Casey Hogue

 

I would bear that quote in mind for the next 2 years until I was appointed to a mission trip to South Korea for 2 months. After a week of training, before boarding the plane I wrote “God, You have come to be so much more for me than in the previous months. Maybe this is my turn around from 2009. I’ve been so broken and obsessed with the idea of peace and moving on... - The comfort I find in the Lord is far greater than any fleshly means of numbing myself. May my focus be my Father in fullness.”

-I realized I could miss Casey all day, but it served no purpose. His life had been about serving the Lord every way that he could. The best way I could remember him was to stop selfishly grieving my own loss and to serve as I had been called, finding hope and healing in my Father.”


In hindsight I think my valley started much earlier than I realized. I had this idea that since I'm young, it was a good time to make mistakes. I was convinced I had time to be the sort of good person I wanted to be later. Looking back it was pretty foolish but in the moment when you're trying to decide whether you should do what you want to do it's pretty easy to fool yourself. Fortunately, I had enough of a wake up call to say enough was enough. Even though I left those things behind me, it wasn't really an end.

 

I found myself in a place where I didn't really like myself very much anymore. As I fell into this darkness, I wondered why I suddenly found myself feeling so very alone. Some part of me expected someone to realize there was something wrong. I kept waiting for someone to come up to me and ask me if I was alright or tell me they were worried about me. It felt like I was drowning and people couldn't see it. Every time I thought about asking for help something stopped me, like water filling my mouth and lungs. I stopped going to church and claimed it was because of the demands of school, but really I just didn't feel anything there anymore. In part, I was hoping someone would ask me about my absence, but again my idea of what I needed was skewed. 

 

This darkness grew until I was left completely vulnerable. It grew to a point where my heart was susceptible to the severe doubt of God's very existence. The darkness I felt seemed much more real. I remember I was house sitting alone when I broke down. Sobbing like a child, I begged God to show me He was real. It was a sickening feeling of brokenness, sitting there pleading to be shown that it wasn't some lie I'd spent so many years believing. I threatened to leave. If God wouldn't somehow reveal himself to me in that moment then I would leave. He had to say He was real. Instead, the answer I received was "I will not let you go." 

 

It was suddenly so clear to me. It was not my decision. I didn't get to abandon God because I was His. He would see the good work He'd started in me to the finish. I was never truly alone. And if God considered me worth holding onto, then there was something to have confidence in. That was the beginning of healing. Now I'd say I love the person I'm becoming more than I ever have before.

 

Of course there are still moments when I slip backwards and I feel a similar self-doubt. There will always be moments of weakness. In these times, one of the things I like to do is listen to the song "Be Still" by the Fray. It begins with the lyrics, "Be still and know that I'm with you." I think that's the perfect response in times of despair, stillness. 


A valley: Why does God ask me to be obedient in ways that cause pain to other people, not just me?



“There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go. At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops. If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul.

 

It is easy to make a mistake here. ‘If God gave it to me,’ we say, ‘it’s mine. I can do what I want with it.’ No. The truth is it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of - if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.

 

Think of the self that God has given as an acorn. It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional. Think of the grand glory of an oak tree. God’s intention when He made the acorn was the oak tree. His intention for us is ‘…the measure of the statue of the fulness of Christ.’ Many deaths must go into reaching that measure, many letting-goes. When you look at the oak tree you do not feel the ‘loss’ of the acorn is a very great loss. The more you perceive God’s purpose in your life, the less terrible the losses seem.” 

 

-Elisabeth Elliot


For the first time in over 10 years, a group of people came together to get me a gift for my birthday. This Godzilla is that gift and it represents more Joy than I can express.


Moves are always hard, but home is wherever you God takes you.


Artificial happiness is fleeting and fickle. True happiness comes not from a pill or a chemical, but from the creator of light and love. 


Your life is not yours to take or to control. Your life is Gods, and even your death must be in a way to glorify him.


While I was in grad school, I descended into a valley. My heart drifted from Christ. I became distracted by school, hobbies, and the desire for material things. My heart was hard. My relationship with my wife and family was strained. I bought this bike while I was walking in that valley. After all, I thought I deserved it, needed it. It was what my heart desired. It may look like a bike, but for me it is a symbol of distraction, my valley.


The valley I walked through involved despair from a close friendship that had fallen apart. The affliction of that broken friendship was one of the most painful seasons of my life- I remember moving through the days in dread and sorrow.

 

What brought peace to my valley: 

One night The Lord gave me a dream that showed me how I had made that friendship an object of worship, and that I must not place any relationship higher than my communion with Him. God will always wage war on idols in our lives- and it is certainly for our good. 


After a nasty fall in Target in 2006, my mom was prescribed painkillers, and over a course of about 6 years, she became highly addicted to a number of prescription drugs. I missed out on having a real mom through my teenage years because she was more interested in sitting on her couch, watching tv, and popping pills rather than going out to do things with me, always using the excuse that she "had a migraine" or "couldn't keep up with me anymore because of her back". I felt betrayed, gipped, and angry at her for doing this to our family. In 2012, she came close to dying, but that has not changed her ways. She refuses to acknowledge her addiction, and I still only have a pseudo-mom. What brought me comfort: My sister stepped in to serve the mom role as best as she could, and most of my comfort came from her strength. Additionally, it helped me to know that I never have to turn out like my mother did.


When I was 14 years old, I had a nervous breakdown, an unfortunate consequence of living with depression and anxiety my entire life. A long list of familial changes and ineffective medicine led to the journey through the darkest part of my life. Luckily, thanks to a supportive mother, sister, and Father, I got on the right medicine, saw the right therapists, and came out the other side stronger. 

 

“Don’t worry about something that you can’t do anything about right now.”


This was a valley in my life where I was humbled by mistake after mistake, and failure after failure. In my own despair over my own weaknesses, I withheld love from people who might reject me. Through despairing over the things the Lord had seemed to withhold from me, I learned my lack of understanding of his love. I am learning even now that I cannot love others until I accept that the love of Christ overcomes my failures and fears. I am still learning what it means to understand the love of Christ, and to love others with that same kind of love. This part from a sermon by my pastor is a lesson I pray will continue to lift me out of many valleys to come:

“If you believe that God has to be convinced to love such a sinner as you, if you believe that God looks upon your confession and looks upon your repentance with suspicion, if you believe that he needs to be persuaded to love you, if you imagine that God forgives your sin begrudgingly or that he is just waiting for you to mess up again so he can roll his eyes and say, “see, i told you so. i was just waiting for you to mess up again,” if that’s your conception of God, then you don’t know the God that is listed for us —that is illuminated for us in the scriptures. You don’t know the God of refuge we’ve been talking about on Wednesday nights. You don’t know the God who longs to gather us up under His wings, under his arms like a mother hen. You don’t know the God who says, “I will never, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. You will never become one who loves radically in this world until you come to believe that you are radically loved by God in Jesus Christ.”



This picture represents my junior year at Union. So much went on that year that dragged me down: wrecked my car, got my heart broken so many times by the same woman, lost a couple friends. It was a horrible year and I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I then turned to my computer and the video games I have on it. I shut myself in our dorm and wouldn’t go out for much.

 

My roommates really helped me in bringing me to understanding that all this pain and suffering was for God’s glory. They constantly pointed me to Scripture and made sure I went to church to be around other believers. 


The last week of July, I was working in the kitchen at camp, when my boss called a sudden meeting. His news was shocking. David Taaffe, a co-worker from the previous summer, had been found dead in Switzerland. A fatal hiking accident. David was one of the kindest men I have ever met: a quick smile, quick laugh, and one who is quick to share the Gospel. What followed was probably my hardest week at camp: attempting to run camp, making it a fun week for campers, while dealing with our own Greek. One of my best memories from the immediate aftermath of it, however, was during a time we had to celebrate David’s life and homecoming. Together, we sang,”It is Well,” remembering God’s faithfulness even in the hardest times.

 

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrow, like sea billows, rolls,

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say

“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

And Lord hast the day when my faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,

The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend

Even so! It is well with my soul.

–Horatio Spafford, “It is Well”


They say it’s hard when your children grow up. Letting go. Learning to adjust. Empty nest. In the spring 2014, I was in my last semester of my senior year of college. In the midst of trying to finish classes, conquer senioritis, and plan for the future, several very challenging events occurred. In the previous semester, I learned that one’s oldest child moving out and becoming independent is a particularly difficult and stressful time in family life. A time of much adjustment. So adding these difficulties to an already stressful situation highlighted the difficulties of this adjustment. My dad and I already struggled with communication—largely because we are so similar and thus have a bit of a tendency to feed off of each other. Moving home is one of my biggest fears for the future. Realizing that relationship with Dad was not as strong as I would like was so hard, especially under these circumstances, and I didn’t know how to fix it. This is a valley that I continue to struggle through, as recently as three days ago. Through it, though, I trust that God is good and is working through both my father’s life and my own and will be faithful to continue to strengthen our relationship.

Quote

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. –Lamentations 3:25-26


On Wednesday, February 12, 2014, Olivia Greenlee was found dead in her car at Union. On Saturday, February 15, Charles Pittman, her fiancé, was charged with her murder. (At the moment of this writing, the trial is still progressing, so he is still presumed innocent. I make no effort to comment one way or the other regarding whether he is guilty or not.) I was in the photo house at Union when a friend texted me to ask if I had heard the news. I had not, so I called him back and the news he shared brought me to my knees. Working through my pain over this took weeks, but God was so faithful, working through both friends and mentors at Union and through my own family at home to support me and carry me through a very dark time. The quote below was important to me through this time because in the midst of this, I had many friends who were also hurting so much and I felt utterly incapable of encouraging them in any way, because I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of my own pain. Lindsey Howerton gave me this quote one night and through it reminded me that by God’s grace, He is faithful to work even when we are empty, because it is not really our work anyhow, but His work through us; not our strength, but His strength in us.

Quote

“Measure thy life by loss instead of gain, 

by the wine poured forth, rather than the wine drunk,

for love’s strength standeth in love’s sacrifice.”

 ~Ugo Bassi


“My picture is of my silhouette. 

I call this my Hope Valley. Last January was a hard, hard month. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and I found out about some medical things going on in my own body. It was all a lot to take in; especially with me being so far away from home. 

 

Through my valley, I learned that GOD IS FAITHFUL. It was hard getting out of my valley. Especially alone since I didn’t feel like anyone could ever understand but I realized that it’s okay. We will never understand the full extent of each other’s pain, but God will always be there to give us grace, mercy, and hope. God will always be there to comfort and love us. “


When I was younger I lived in southeast Louisiana where hurricanes and thunderstorms were frequent. While most other people were afraid of the storms that would pass through and cause damage, I found comfort in them. My older brother had behavioural issues and my father, anger issues. Many nights would end with their fighting, yelling, screaming, and sometimes even hitting. Since my room was right next to my brother’s I would often have to try and fall asleep to all this unwanted noise. There would be nights of peace and quiet and I could fall asleep like any other child, and there were also nights when a storm would roll in and mask the sounds of anger. I found the heavy rainfall and thunder brought comfort in these times.


I can’t control what my face looks like or what people think and say about me, but I can control what I put in my mouth. Even when I was told I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or good enough, I could make myself thin enough that people would see beauty in me. But I never lost enough weight. It was never enough, there could always be more weight to lose. I was wrong. I was hurting my body, the body God made me. I was slapping Him in this face saying, “you did a bad job.” Then, I finally learned that God doesn’t make ugly things, and God loves what He has made.


My valley was a hard time for me (and for my sister) when we were in high school. Our parents got divorced in 1998, and my mom remarried in 1999. once we entered high school, we started really wanting our biological father to give up his parental rights to us and let us have our stepdad’s last name. It was a grueling process, but he was finally able to formally adopt us about 3 months before we turned 17. That’s why the photo I’m submitting is a picture of a Tennessee adoption decree.

Psalm 16:8 helped me through that time. “I have set the LORD always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”


Leaving a church event one night I witness a man beating someone pretty seriously. My friends and I yelled for them to stop but he did not stop and no one moved to help. When someone pulled up to stop the man and help the victim he pulled into the parking lot where we stood and told us that he would take the young LADY to the hospital. The shock of watching something so violet, and to know it was against a woman broke something in me. For the next three months I pulled in on myself and away from my friends and from the Lord. I was numb. There were days I just set in complete silence in my room alone, and the darkness was ALMOST consuming. But the LORD is faithfully and even in the darkest of places He calls us out and pulls us to Himself. My best friend let the Lord use her to reach me and help me through the darkness, the numbness and back to light, she pointed me to Christ. I sought help through counseling and with that help and my best friends, and Jesus I am whole. When my brother was attacked and put in the hospital a few months later, I thought I would return to that place. BUT GOD and his faithfulness and protection saw me through. I know that I am not alone and all I need to do is call out to Him and He is there and so are my friends and family and I am so grateful.


My life means nothing and God doesn’t care, so I could care less whether or not I wake up in tomorrow morning.

 

My epiphany was actually an event, hence the object in my photo. I wrecked my car when I was 17 and was very nearly killed, and I had to wear this halo for 4 months. 

 

met death while on my wayward path, and instead of being filled with fear, I was faced with the most literal, physical representation of the Lord that I have ever witnessed. After that experience, there was no denying His power or plan in my life. He is real, and He hears me. 


A valley of realizing that our world, my world was all about pleasing people instead of understanding I was worthy of God. That I walked around with a feeling of suffocating quicksand just hoping that in a place I love and the people I love dearly that I would not feel invisible. For I felt, in an ocean of purpose, purposeless. In this isolation there was no feeling of embrace of friends, instead a slap in the face by Satan. For in the valley of darkness and creativity came the projection of insecurities. The old Caitlyn came in, that holds all inside, that speaks to no one. That tries to hide in fear of loving, afraid of being hurt. Life had become not about serving others, but about desiring one person to say “good job”, but instead the opposite. “Why do you do extra work? Why do you..?”…..No gratefulness felt, just regret and Loneliness. But in a semester of hurt God wakes you.  For in all of this, he rained down a realization that if you search in this world you will become of this world, and I had gone astray from the purpose of the lord. That to serve is not about searching for something in people, but find hope in the Lord that makes the effort of life, loving others, and sleepless nights worthwhile. A servant’s heart broken and put back together with the glue of God.  


My whole world came crashing down on me when everything that I had thought was my future was taken from me. I felt lost, confused, and alone.

 

“Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: ‘Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.” (Isaiah 43:16-21)


It was hot and dry. The sun was beating down as I tried to cover this sweet child with a blanket. I found myself running in the dessert with a baby in my hands. No one claimed or wanted this precious gift. I was running as if I were being pursued by someone or something. I had no idea where I was going. I felt alone, fearful, desperate and oppressed. I was lost but somehow, my path was made straight. Just ahead a saw a man with his arms stretched out, I knew that I was to give the child to him. Between us, there was a fence with vines. On these vines were silver thorns. I pushed my way through this rough, one hand on the fence for balance, the other holding the child close against me chest. I reached this man and gave him the child. Sitting alone on the hot sand, I began to pluck the silver thorns from my flesh. I woke up! 

It was the winter of 2012 I had this vivid dream! I knew the Lord was trying to tell me something. I then began to ask the Lord for its meaning. Since then, the Lord has given me a lot of clarity, giving much meaning to each aspect of the dream. There have been many “valleys” and “mountain tops” since then. One deep valley occurred this past winter. I started dealing with depression. It really caught me off guard and was very hard for me to admit. Everything I felt and thought in that dream became a reality. I felt lost, fearful, desperate, oppressed and alone. I knew I wasn’t alone and found consolation in my Sisters in Christ who have dealt with or are dealing with depression.  The Lord has taught me so many truths that I have to remind myself on a daily basis. I am also learning to correct my thought process: fact, faith, then feeling. I have good and bad days but thanks be to God for the Body of Christ and the hope we have in Christ. 


I had an awful relationship with one of my brothers growing up. Not only did my brother tell me I was unloved, but he told me I was worthless and had no value, that the world and our family would have been better off if I hadn’t been born. When we moved to Louisiana it got worse because no one wanted to be friends with the new girl. I was bullied by a lot of kids who told me to “go back to where you came from.” I wasn’t wanted there and I had a brother telling me I wasn’t wanted in my own home. After hearing I was worthless so many times, I finally began to believe it.


My deepest valley begun October 31, 2007 the day my father passed away. I believed in a good and loving God yet I could not reconcile God's goodness with the evil and suffering I was living. So, I put God on the shelf and existed the next 8 months on auto-pilot; cold and numb. But God had not abandoned me. It was the third night at Silver Birch Ranch, a summer camp I attended with my home church, where God spoke to me and warmed my soul. During the song, "You Hold Me Now," I felt the Lord wrap His arms around me. He was saying to me, "I never left you and I'm not going anywhere." The Lord is faithful.


"The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: "O Lord, save me!" ... Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. For you, O Lord, have delieverd my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed; even when I said, "I am greatly afflicted." - Psalm 116: 3-4; 7-10


My parents were harsh to me as I grew up and often expected me to perform perfectly in what I did. In late high school, I was afraid of failure and hungry for acceptance. I pushed myself physically and emotionally to succeed in my sports and my academics. Eventually, my body began to wear down, and my performance suffered. I was convinced that I had no future and was unloveable. 

 

 

 “My joy is boundless

   My soul knows its worth 

   In arms stretching wider

   Than my heart could ever fall” ~ Up In Arms, Hillsong United


“While spending a summer in South Korea, I made friends with refugees from a nearby country, and their stories profoundly changed me. I learned of more heartache, suffering, oppression, and death in that summer than all of my life up to that point. I questioned the goodness and purpose of God, and wondered why He would allow such oppression towards this people. It seemed as though He had forgotten them.”

 

“That summer my eyes were opened to the brokenness of this people, but even more to the sovereign will of God, who loves them and is calling them to Himself. I saw how His plan was to redeem a people from every tribe, nation, and tongue, including this people whom I had grown to love. Revelation 7:9 became the compass that directs my path and desires. May God see His ultimate purpose of glorifying Christ among all the nations fulfilled through His obedient Church!”


My valley is kind of an on going one. My sophomore year of high school, my dad lost his job; It was a very uncertain year. We didn’t know if we were going to have to move, and I was finally getting close to a group of friends that I still have to this day. There was a possibility that I would have to stop taking dance lessons and stop doing many other things that were important to me. A couple moths after this happened, our youth pastor of ten years stepped down. He had been around since I was five and we were close to him and his family. It was also a hard year academically, it felt like everything was falling apart all at once. 

Then a young lady by the name of Courtney Allen (now Thompson) began teaching my small group. She was the first leader that i had met that was so passionate about scripture and the gospel, and she spent the summer going through the book of Philippians with us, she had the thing memorized! So I began reading Philippians more carefully, and one verse stuck out at me. Philippians 4:19. It says: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” It was a comfort to me, but also a challenge, I had to trust that God would take care of everything that seemed to be falling apart, but now I realize that he was giving it another layer. Giving me another layer. 

 

  ince then has been up and down, my dad has a job, but there is a lot of uncertainty still. God has always provided for us, my mom began working at my dance studio so that I could take classes, and I was able to take more classes than before. Money would turn up when we most needed it. Even this past year, we couldn’t pay for me to go on a mission trip to Haiti, I had sent support letters but got nothing. A week before we were supposed to leave, I still needed $1000. So the group of close friends that I mentioned earlier held a car wash for me and raised $350. I told my parents this and they looked shocked because they had just gotten a call from the church that someone had payed $600. In one day, our debt went from $1000 to $50. It’s still a struggle sometimes, but I am confident that God will supply my every need, and then some. The bracelet in the picture I got in Haiti, and the dandelion has been a symbol of hope to me for many years.


My valley is my cigarettes. It’s filled with the smoky fog of despair and anxiety that seeps into my lungs and makes me feel numb.


I walked through a dark valley freshman year of college. For eight long months I experienced a debilitating depression. It came from nowhere, which was the worst part. I remember wishing someone close to me had died so I would have something tangible to which I could assign my despair. I couldn't eat and experienced intense fear. I was mostly afraid that my life would always be this way. As I went to my classes, interacted with people, completed daily tasks, it was as if I was floating - nothing felt real. I analyzed obsessively to identify whatever had caused me to spiral into this depression, mainly so I could stop it. It was the first time in my life that I couldn't identify the problem and solve it, and that was maddening to me. I remember reading a sign on the wall in our education building that read, "The hardest problems to solve are the ones that aren't real." That perfectly described how I was feeling, and so I was trapped. I felt there was no way out. During that year, someone introduced the "Fact, Faith, Feeling" train visual to me as strategy to being disciplined in my thought life. The basic premise of the strategy is to acknowledge our feelings and thought patterns, but not to be controlled by them. As I began to apply that principle, I learned that many times my feelings, although valid and real, were telling me lies. I learned to base my thought patterns on truth and to ignore thoughts and feelings that contradicted the Truth. I would not say that becoming disciplined in my thought life was what led me out of the valley necessarily. Looking back on this valley experience I think I've learned that there are some valleys we just have to walk through. We try to find the way that led us in so we can turn back around and get out. Maybe some valleys are like that. But in my valley experience there was no way out, I just had to walk through. And, as I learned to discipline my thought life and feelings, I walked more peacefully until I reached the other side.


I’m Angela Jacks. One dark valley of mine was the end of my junior year/all of senior year of highschool. My dorm that I was living in fell apart, a guy broke my heart, our small school got a new principal, I was the worship leader of a fruitless team, I was apart of a frustrating class of 19 and I almost committed suicide. Sleepless, scared months spent in this place, I was alone. Looking back the time I spent there feels lost... with relationships crashed and burned and the wake of pain so fresh in my mind. But Lindsey, with time between those memories and where I am now--Jesus has been showing me flowers blooming in the scars... heres the end line of a sonnet I wrote recently about one of the things I was going through that sums up how I exited the valley:  “alone, ingested by the darkest night/ i found a God. and he gave me light.”


I’ve always been REALLY self conscious about my looks. I don’t have clear skin and I’m not a size 2. I’ve never really been comfortable with myself until recently. I even go to class without makeup sometimes. But it keeps coming up especially when my mom keeps bringing it up; it’s like as soon as I get a little ok with myself, she mentions something about it and I just feel bad again. And sometimes when I see sorority girls (just for example) I feel so awful about myself, but then I just surround myself with true friends and I remember that no, people are not going to hate me if I have a zit or two.


She moved to Brownsville my sophomore year of high school. At the time she had long brown hair and a heartfelt smile. On my part, there was instant attraction. Luckily, there was no need to befriend her alone, she almost immediately took to one of the girls in my circle of friends. We got along well together. She also got along well with another boy and began dating him. 

 

Junior year I joined the high school show choir as their bassist. She joined as a soprano. My affection for her only grew. Yet, she began changing. The happiness in her eyes began to fade. Sometimes she came to class weeping. And though no one ever told me, I always suspected her boyfriend as the cause. To put it bluntly, he liked to sleep around. They would fight, break up, get back together, rinse, repeat. That situation stirred up many negative emotions in my heart: jealousy for her, anger towards both, covetousness... Why would she keep returning to him? I was the guy who saw her despair and wept with her!

 

Senior year, March 30, 2010. It was a beautiful Spring day. I remember that her hair had never looked so pretty. It was the day that should have happened much earlier. She told me everything I had already figured out. She tried to commit suicide after her mother almost succeeded in the same. Her boyfriend talked her through it, but continued sleeping with her and others. She the said that she could never love me with her whole heart, because her heart belonged to this other guy. At that moment, my heart screamed these words “I know! I understand why you feel this way, but I am willing to work past all that! Am I not worth it to you?!” I knew that I had given my heart and my affections over to a girl who would never return them. I drove back to my house with unrequited longing and my self-esteem at an all time low. I smiled for my family as they presented me with presents and a cake, for I had reached 18 years of age that day.

 

I’m almost 22 now. My heart and my affections have been given over to someone who loved me enough to suffer on a cross. He lets me know that I am precious in his sight. He bought me with a price, and that price was his blood. What’s more, he recreated me! My identity is found in Christ. 

 

My life is hid with Christ on High,

With Christ my savior and my God.

 

Because the sinless savior died

my sinful soul is counted free.

For God the just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon


I am so scared that I will never get married. It’s one of my greatest fears. I get really attached to people, and that’s both a gift and a curse when I’m in a relationship. This is my dream ring. But I don’t I’ll ever receive it. I have spent so many hours sitting alone crying over this fact.

I was in a relationship about this time last year and it ended really suddenly. I got so angry and for weeks I would sit in my car and yell at God and curse, as if I knew what was best for myself. A little while I learned more details about the breakup and realized that God got me out of that relationship at exactly the right time. Ever since then I haven’t really worried about marriage. I mean, I still want to get married more than anything, but if it happens it happens, and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. God’s got it.


My valley was the summer leading into junior year of high school. My family got evicted from our house and had to move into my grandparent’s house, and not even a week after we’d finished moving in, we learned that my mom had MS (multiple scoliosis). In that time, I dealt with an intense loneliness at the feeling that no one could understand what I was going through, and no one was there to help me understand. No one could understand how I was worried not only about my family, and my mother, but also about my dreams. Because I dreamed of being a writer, and if I developed MS, that dream would fade. I used to poke, pinch, even cut my fingers to make sure I could still feel them. Because that was what happened to my mother first. She lost the feeling in her fingers. I suffered from those feelings for the majority of a year. talked to no one during that time, choosing instead to write my feelings down in these journals.


The Valley was more of a Storm, and my ship was lost at sea. Turbulence rocked my family after we adopted my brother and sister, and there were times when it seemed like there were no constants, nothing solid to hold on to while everything rolled around us. God showed--and is still showing, for the skies are not yet clear--that He is the Anchor which will never be moved, the One I can trust when everything else fades or falls away.


It seemed like people were always laughing at me, calling me weird, mocking me for what I believed. I felt alone. I felt like an outcast. As my sister got called the sweet one, I was somehow mean… even though I tried so hard to be kind. I felt inferior. I felt empty. Eventually, I made friends, but there was this disconnect inside of me, like I wasn’t capable of true friendship anymore. Graduation came and went and I didn’t feel happy or nostalgic, I just felt… insignificant.

 

John 16:33

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

 

I’m not saying my inferiority vanished or that I gained sudden meaning in my life, but John 16:33 reminded me that, as a Christian, I’m not promised a life filled with no troubles. Instead, it is through the challenges I face that I can bring glory to God. That realization did take away one thing: my self-pity. The moment I stopped pitying myself and turned my eyes up to God, I started seeing more of the people around me, and what they’re going through. That alone pulled me from my Valley.



My valley is isolation and it is ongoing. When I don’t have a schedule or set things I need to do, the devil is really good at snagging me and telling me lie after lie about how I am all alone. That no one cares about me. That I am the only one who feels this way. That I am worthless. This feeling drives me to shut myself away from the world and hide in my dorm room, which is the opposite thing I need to do. When I read scripture during these times, somehow it always tells me exactly what I need to hear: that God is bigger than my fears, that I don’t need anyone but him, that the devil is a liar, that God is strong and mighty, that I am not alone.


“My mom is sick again. They are telling us she’s gonna die. Just no one knows when. Her body is decaying from the inside out. My spirit wants to choose joy, but my flesh chooses despair. I’m never sure which one will win. I’m always at war in my head. 


I serve THE Healer. Whether healing will come in death or in medicine, I’m confident it’s coming. For now, my valley makes me yearn for more of Jesus. Maranatha.”


I didn’t realize it at the time, but the time spent in this valley began while I was in my early teens. What started as a slow descent became a headlong fall, and the pain I experienced through this valley increased as years passed. At this point, it feels like I’ve been in this valley forever. There have been lifts where I thought I was coming out, only to realize that it was just a bump in the road. 

‏ Often, the first thing people look to when someone walks in the door is their face. Whether that person looks good or not is completely subjective. Whenever I went somewhere, whenever anybody looked at me, I felt as though I were being evaluated: was I worth getting to know? Who would want to get to know someone as scarred and pimply as me? I believed that people cared more about what I looked like, rather than who I was. My senior year in high school was the worst encounter with acne that I’ve had, and it left me not only physically scarred, but emotionally scarred as well. I believed lies: that I had no value in the world because I didn’t look good, that people can’t truly love someone who looks different, that nobody would want me. I tried to make myself meaningful by trying to redeem my ugly face with a crystal-clear heart, all while trying to fix the spots and dents in my face with antibiotics, Proactiv, and all sorts of treatments. I was trying to prove that I was worth something by finding a solution to my skin problem.

‏ During my freshman year of college, I could hardly look people in the face. I was surrounded by beautiful people, all of whom had emerged from high school with clear skin. And then there was me. I clung to the people who paid any attention to me; I craved affirmation from them, and I did everything in my power to try to make them appreciate me and love me more. You could say that I overcompensated. This reliance caused me problems later on, and even now I still struggle with this. 

‏ People talk about how important self-confidence is in both the professional and personal world. I felt held back by my face. Every time someone looked at me, I felt that they were scrutinizing every spot on my face, thinking to themselves how disgusting I was. I thought people were my friends because they felt sorry for me, not because they enjoyed being with me. Looks were everything to me. I felt that if I could be prettier, people would like me better, that I could be more effective in whatever I did. That people could only respect me if my acne went away. I prayed for years that God would heal my skin so that I could blend in with the crowd. I couldn’t go makeup-less at sleepovers, preferring to risk another pimple or two than be seen in the raw. I put makeup on to go to the gym, or to get my laundry. Every time I stepped out the door, I’d make sure my blemishes were as concealed as I could get them. 

‏ I cared too much about the wrong thing. Even now, in my senior year, I struggle to believe that I’m valuable because I am created by God. I still fall into thinking that if I looked better I would be more valuable to people, to God. I still catch myself following the gaze of people looking at me, trying to detect how grossed out they are by my face. I still avoid going out on particularly bad days, and I often choose longer routes if it means seeing fewer people. Compliments are difficult to accept because I don’t believe them, I don’t believe people really mean them, and I am hesitant to engage in conversations because I don’t want people to see my flaws close up. 

 

‏Send me a quote/epiphany/realization that brought you peace in your valley, or brought you out of your valley:

 

‏Thankfully, by God’s grace, He has been bringing me slowly up from the pit I’ve ground myself into. He has sent people into my life to reaffirm truth: each person is valuable because each person is created by God, for a reason, despite flaws, either physical, spiritual, or emotional. Instead of using products and make-up to create value in myself, I am clinging to the truth that God has spoken into my life. 


It began in summer 2013 and continued into the first semester of my senior year of college. I was well on my way to recovery from a difficult relationship, but mid-way through the summer, I was tossed back into confusion. My pride was stripped and my character questioned; I was thrown into a valley of doubt, and my mind was hammered by questions with answers that seemed far way. What is love, really? How differently is it expressed, person to person? How can I love the way I need to? What is sacrifice? Am I capable of love? Why does God love me? 

‏ Those questions, and more that I can hardly articulate, haunted me for a season, and I sought answers. It was the first time that I can remember ever trying to really understand something; I was on a desperate hunt for truth. I felt isolated and helpless because I realized that, by myself, I am not capable of loving like I ought, and it was at this realization that began to climb from this valley. 

 

‏Send me a quote/epiphany/realization that brought you peace in your valley, or brought you out of your valley:

 

‏“We love because He first loved us.” When I realized that I was incapable of producing and showing love through my own efforts, I began to think of love differently. I realized that God’s love is an umbrella that does not begin or end, and that it isn’t dependent on how much love I can muster up for Him or the people around me. God requires a response from me, a response to the sacrifice that He provided through Jesus. God calls me to pursue Him alone, and to leave the technicalities and details to Him. I only need to understand this: that He loves, and through that love, He has enabled me to love like Him. 


A few years ago Jonathan and I hit a very rough patch in our marriage. Jonathan had made some choices that hurt me and shook my trust in him. I knew The Lord and had for many years but somewhere In our marriage I began relying on my husband as my rock instead of God.

On the night of my darkest valley I was alone in my car and my mind was reeling from the truth that had finally come out and how it was possible that someone I knew so well and trusted so much could hurt me this badly. It was raining and I cried out to God in the middle of my pain, asking what He wanted me to do. Never in my life have I ever felt His warm embrace more obviously or heard His words with more clarity. As God held me and comforted me, He showed me that I had made the mistake of forgetting that God is my rock not my husband and that we are all sinners who receive grace from Him and I couldn't expect my husband to make no mistakes. That night He asked me to forgive Jonathan and show him love and support because He had first shown me love and grace even though I am a sinner. When Jonathan and I came back together, we both realized that God had to be first in our lives and especially our marriage if it was going to survive. God has blessed us beyond measure since that time and I can't explain how thankful I am that God took us through that valley so we could rely on Him and grow closer as a couple. Our valley defines our relationship in many ways and was a turning point for me in my walk with The Lord.


The verses I clung to in the middle of the darkness were these.


"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28


“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,

my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation,

my stronghold and my refuge,

my savior; you save me from violence.” 

2 Samuel 22:2–3


“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” 

Ephesians 4:32


My best friend and I had been super distant. I asked her what was going on and she spilled her guts on paper about the years of lies she had been telling me. With one letter I reached the bottom of my valley, the journalholds every emotion I felt in the weeks that lead to me and her reconciling by simply giving grace to one another.


O, the weight of nothing. How vast, how immeasurable. I cannot long carry its formidable voidness. Even the siren grows weary of the chase, perseverantly beckoning, starved of peace Will ever I find rest? I climb highest mountaintops, yet find no summit. My lover, taken from me as swiftly as I found her. I once beheld a glimpse of beauty now concealed; a heartsong stricken from my lips. So onward I search, a slave to this toilsome plight, still bearing until I find her, O, the weight of nothing.


“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. (Job 1:20-22 ESV)” 


Life is full of many valleys isn’t it? Each one seems so dark and endless, yet looking back they have become beacons of God’s faithfulness. Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when I was 15 years old, she was only 55. For a long time I was sad about not having a close relationship with mom, i wished for a mom who would do fun things with me. Throughout high school, I am sad to say that my attitude towards mom was often one of bitterness or selfishness. I wanted to be the savior and make everything better, do everything myself. Yet God was faithful. My senior year, dad worked and my older brother was in college in another city. That left me at home most of the time to care for mom (i was home schooled). Often I felt like things would never change. How could I go to college or do anything else when I was needed here? Fast forward a bit. God provided and I came to Union. Mom declined rapidly over the summer after I graduated and could no longer be cared for at home. So, dad still worked, mom lived in a nursing home, and my brother and I were at Union. January of 2013, Mom died. It was a hard time, yes, but I had been grieving the loss of my mother for years. What God did and has done in the grief since then is reveal his steadfast love and faithfulness. I miss mom dearly. I miss her soft hands, her laughter, her smile. In the moment I was caught up in myself and could not see how much I loved mom and what a privilege it was to serve her. Now I miss cooking dinner and singing to her while we both waited for dad to come home or dancing in the living room to distract her from her anxiety (she could get down to some Toby Mac!). I don’t know how easily it comes through my words to you, but God works in mysterious ways within the heart. God has turned my grief into something sweet. When I look upon mom’s life and her love for Jesus and upon her death and God’s comfort in that, I see more clearly how sure a foundation Christ is. When life makes no sense and the path seems dark here is what I would say to you: It is a burden too great to bear on our own, but God shall not leave us alone. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. . .” (Isaiah 53:4). Jesus is a rock and a refuge. When the storms of grief leave us feeling shaken and vulnerable, maybe even like we are going mad, our hope is ever secure in Him. Brothers and sisters, there is peace. Not a calm sea or a serene life, but true peace. Peace between my soul and God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and it surpasses all understanding. Praise God who has conquered death. This is the One I turn to in tears when my heart is breaking, He is the Good Shepherd. Mighty enough to conquer my sin, yet full of patience and gentleness towards me in my weakness. Hallelujah, what a Savior. A comfort when I doubt the way God is leading me is the hymn, All The Way My Savior Leads Me.