The futility.
The repetitiveness of it all.
The violent emotions.
He’d locked himself to Kayden when he’d fallen in love with her. Then she’d locked herself into a destructive cycle, which meanthewas locked into that destructive cycle, even though he hadn’t misused a single prescription or recreational drug since the day he’d found her having a seizure on their living room carpet.
He told her he’d leave unless she quit using.
She didn’t quit, and so, after a particularly bad fight, he followed through on his promise.
He left.
By then, they’d been together for three years. One day, she’d been the closest person to him. The next day, she wasn’t in his life at all. There, then gone.
He’d moved in with a co-worker and existed in misery. A misery that seemed like nothing compared to his feelings when Benji called him three months after his breakup with Kayden to tell him, through tears, that she’d overdosed again on Percocet and alcohol. This time, she’d killed herself.
He’d been the one who’d introduced her to Percocet.
He’d been the one who’d broken up with her, and so he hadn’t been there when she’d needed him to call an ambulance for her.
At her funeral, he stared at the casket containing her young, beautiful body. He experienced physical pain in response to the desolation on the faces of her parents and siblings.
Grief tangled with guilt sent him down a dark tunnel in the seasons following her burial. He couldn’t shake the conviction that, if he would have done something differently, ifGodwould have done something differently, Kayden could have lived a long, healthy life. He was furious with himself and with God, but he didn’t have the strength or the heart to turn from his faith. Desolation drove him to his knees. HeneededGod. And so he clung to Him.
It had taken a year of therapy before he’d finally reached the end of the tunnel.
His whole life he’d been flailing. Because he didn’t want to be an outsider. Because he didn’t want loneliness.
Enough.
He embraced the things he used to fear. He made them part of his identity.I don’t belong. I’m an outsider. I’m lonely. That’s who I am.
He’d managed to hold on to his relationship with God and, as long as he had that, he didn’t need anything or anyone else. Very purposely, he turned his life upside-down by moving to America.
To this day, he still had his faith. It was steady. Simple.
Gen’s faith seemed public, bold. Complicated.
Sam paused the video and hunched over the computer’s keyboard to run a search for Gen. Her impressive website supplied links to social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He visited all three and saw that she had a huge following on each.
So. His tenant was a professional Christian with an image to maintain and hundreds of thousands of people looking to her for guidance on how to live their lives. The women who consumed her Bible studies and packed churches to hear her speak expected her to do the impossible—live a perfect life. The pressure of that had to be heavy.
Both he and Gen had made mistakes. They’d both fallen short.
He lifted his vision to the glowing moon hanging in the sky beyond the window.
He worked Sunday mornings, so he attended the contemporary worship service at The Vine Church on Saturday nights.
Back in Australia and here in America, he sometimes heard pastors speak about their past struggles in vague terms, but only in the context of having overcome them on the road to their current, better place. He’d never heard a pastor confess a present struggle. Nor had he heard a pastor confess an opioid addiction.
He and Eli talked about issues surrounding the Bible. Viewpoints,controversies, archaeology. But even though Eli was his closest friend in Misty River, Eli had never admitted an area of failure to Sam. Sam hadn’t admitted an area of failure to Eli.
Why was it so hard for Christians to come clean to one another about the sins that had them by their throats? Because of pride? Because every Christian wanted every other Christian to think they were doing it right? That they were strong and good?
If so, that was idiotic.
His pastor liked to say that the church wasn’t about helping sick people become well. It was about bringing dead people to life. Every single one of them was dead except for Christ. So what was keeping them from trusting other people with their deadness? Why so superficial? Everyone was messed up and hurting. It didn’t help to pretend the opposite.
