Dear Fellow Believers,

Let me tell you a story. A typical story of a tragic teenager.

Maybe you're familiar with this story—maybe you tell yourself that you already know the ending—but maybe you aren't. It doesn't matter: lay your assumptions down, please. They won't do you any good here. Just listen.

There once was a young teen who let herself hate herself. Some told her it was a chemical imbalance, but she wasn't so sure. She thought something was wrong with her—something inside of her was broken—not all the right parts. She thought she was a wrong part; she thought that someone had surely made a mistake. Calls from worried parents, teachers, friends. She became the Problem Child.

"Dad, I just don't want to be the problem in our family."

I'm not afraid of many things. I'm afraid of things I don't think I should be afraid of. I'm afraid of never loving myself.

"Love is the most awful word in the English language. What is love?"

Whatever "love" is, I don't think it's prodding and questioning your thoughts and your body every day. Questioning if they have a right to exist, if they should. Something wrong. Something not-right, unnatural. Something that should not be.

Depression? Or just hubris?

"Pray and God will answer you."
"You need to get a grip."
"It's just a phase."
"You'll get better eventually, you'll see."
"Have you looked at taking anti-depressants?"
"Are you sure you aren't just stressed?"
"Why don't you go see a counsellor?"
"It's okay to feel a little blue; it won't last long."

Anger. White hot and livid. Have you ever wanted to tear the sadness out of you with wild abandon? Have you ever kept your mouth shut for days because you feel like you might retch darkness and disease into the air if you open it? You do not know what it is to carry the weight of this darkness in your bones.

Fellow Believers, please do not make assumptions about the ending of this story. I am not dead. I am not at the end of my rope. I am not happy. I am better, but I still need you all.

Please, come in close—but do not come at all if you expect to fix me, to wave a Bible or a wand. I am suffering, have suffered. You are not Jesus—you cannot tell me, "Rise up!" and see me walk without crutches.

I do not need your platitudes, your sorrys, your reasons why. I need your hands. I need your time. I do not ask you to understand my hurts, why they fester and stink. Will you stand where you are and tell me that I just need to pray harder and be better, that my wounds are gruesome and what did I do to deserve them? I need you to bend down and wash me, without your logic. Just as Jesus came down to wash us, without your logic.

Fellow Believers, I need you to see me as God meant me to be: someone bent out of shape, sick, needy—someone who needed Jesus Christ to come down and suffer so that she could have hope for healing. Someone who needs His grace—and yours—for protection from the bully of shame.

Fellow Believers, I am not the only one. I am not the only one who needs you. I am not the only one who needs you to say and act what I know: that Jesus did not preach a vending-machine doctrine, that Jesus did not walk on this earth without knowing every single hurt, even the hurt that I feel. We need people who will sit with us, cry with us, hold us when the sadness is too heavy for us to speak. Just because you may not be able to understand us—just because you may be uncomfortable and scared—does not make us unworthy. We know how precious healing is, because we have felt our hurt so clearly. We cannot heal ourselves by praying hard enough and doing all the right things. We need you. Please, let yourself be a part of our story.

In Grace and Peace,

Me.

P.S. I highly recommend that you read the short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Hemingway if you have not already. My choice of cover photo is not meaningless—it is anything but.