Hold On

By Nicole Hilton, July 21, 2020

I’ve cursed God—at the top of my lungs—with every insult available to me. Where was He!? How could He let that happen to me!? My logical conclusion—confirmed by terrible, real-life experience—was that I’m not worth His attention, that He doesn’t actually care about me, or that He does not exist. But I knew He was there, and this knowing rounded out my feelings of bitterness, gloom, and abandonment. Three times when suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ begged God to make it all stop. God let it go on. And then, at the worst moment on the cross, Christ was left completely alone. I’ve discovered that Christ does understand. I’ve learned to put my faith on Him, and He connects me to the Father…a loving, caring, and responsive Father.

            I wrote the following today. I was in despair and writing only because I knew God wanted me to:

“I’m not the same girl who wrote the majority of this blog.

“I’m the sad one. The one who can’t hold a positive thought for too long before it drains out despite all my attempts to hold on.

“I’m the one who can’t remain in stillness; the monsters are chasing me.

“I’m the one who has the disturbing, intrusive thoughts and images I can’t expel from my mind.

“I’m the desperate one. Desperate for relief. Distantly remembering this other me who seems to have everything figured out…but me? I don’t.

“I share the same body, the same name, yet one of us is at peace and strong. And one of us is not.

“My real name should be Fear, for that is what consumes me.

“I spend every waking moment crying out to that other self: save me.”

            As I wrote this, the question entered my mind, why not cry out to Christ, instead? Then, taking a big leap of faith, I searched inside with a prayer in my heart, and I wrote down what I would want Jesus Christ to say to me. By the time I was done writing, I believed it.

“My Daughter, my sister, and friend, cry out to me, for I hear you. I know you can’t feel me. The programming is doing its dirty work, but you keep fighting on in this experience of swimming up a torrential waterfall. This is strengthening your very soul. I cry out to you: keep on, be strong, I am here with you, holding you, crawling upwards with you. You feel as though there is no progress, that you will be this way forever…I say to you push on just a bit longer—just a bit longer. You’ll see the reason. You’ll be My hands someday for one such as you. Hold on.”

            Do you feel like Christ doesn’t speak to you? Well then, just start writing. You may be angry at God; you may not believe He is there.

            If you feel that way now, please, please, give him another try! Give a place in your heart for a portion of His word. Then write down what you imagine he would say to you. Develop this gift because in desperate times—like I was here—you’ll need it. It is much, much better to imagine that God can speak to you and believe than to submit to the dark side’s message of complete despair, darkness, and death.