I Am In Recovery

“I am in recovery” I said as we went around the room, sharing honest updates. One could parallel it to Alcoholics Anonymous but it was just a group of friends choosing community by choosing honesty. Not the point. The point is that’s where I’m at. And in this state I am learning.

Recovering - returning to what was or rather what should have always been. Quite honestly (there’s that word again), I never envisioned myself where I am right now. While aware of my weariness for quite some time and the inevitable need to slow down and reconnect, I never expected depletion would be felt so deeply. The impact of what I do not have invades every area of my person. I’ve retreated to recover and am slowly returning to recreate myself, my life, my joy, my purpose. All of these things stem from God, who, when I am faithful to my practices of gratitude, I realize is the most merciful thing about my life.

Recovery isn’t cute. On a scale from decently attractive to please-date-me-now, recovery is a solid what-was-I-thinking. Maybe not a regret, quite yet, but a painful questioning of the process that got me here.

All of my words have left me. I spent what I did not have for far too long and now I am paying back my debt. My physical energy, my emotional resilience, my spiritual connection - all at a bare minimum, timidly returning, scarred by an abusive relationship with myself. No, I did not choose to live on survival mode for the thrill of it. There were other factors at play that influenced the availability of my choices. But at the end of the day, I am the one left in the ruins of my unsustainable functioning. While I do partially marvel at how long I lasted, I am finding myself in need of a new kind of endurance – the endurance of revival.

If you are churched - no, I do not mean the clap-your-hands-and-claim-it-if-you’re-even-the-slightest-bit-charismatic type of revival (not hating on spiritual revival btw, we most definitely need it). I mean the restoration of the life I lost – my life. In simpler words: I’m just trying to live again. Specifically, live in the way I was actually purposed for.

If continuing with my church analogy, revival is typically loud – shouted from the pulpits, written in bold font on banners that hang from large white tents, and usually found in the titles of evangelism workshops, worship nights, sermons, and best-selling books. But in my own experience of praying for revival, which to be clear, I do not claim as the only one to be accounted for, I find that it is a quiet and patient persistence, relentless in hope, but gentle with understanding.

Gentle...with myself? Weird. I think I see gentle and disciplined as opposite ends of the spectrum and since my life is lacking healthy disciplines I should probably just pull myself together and start doing what I know I should. Impatience with my inability to quickly accomplish this feat supersedes my kindness as I face its obstacles. Which, again, I have a hard time saying is all that wrong as I’ve witnessed a misuse of kindness to defend an unbiblical self-love.

Anyways. What I’m saying is that revival, whether spiritual or in regards to myself, cannot be reduced to a loud, proud, one-time, out there kind of event. It is inward, continuous, honest, disciplined and kind.

I am not returning with a force, I am simply returning. Slowly, carefully, mistake-prone but mercifully cared for by the only One who knows what living is.

“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." - Psalms 27:13-14