Breakthrough sucks in the beginning…

Life sucks if we let it. Like we have any control over that. We face challenges that sometimes test our patience or will to live daily. Countless families and friends battled and struggled through the multi-year COVID pandemic. It was something that rattled everyone, not seen for generations. Everyone tried to control their health by protective measures. I’m sure debates will continue for generations to come, challenging the efficacy of these measures. But needless to say, it’s tough to control what you can’t see. With passionate and emotional opinions with survival in mind, friends became enemies, families were ripped apart, and too many lives were lost. Some, even to this day, while healthy physically, have not mentally recovered; their “normal” way of life prior was altered or changed, possibly forever. Everyone felt the effects.

I remember the pandemic was the climax of a very trying and troubling season. Too many lives were lost in our church and friends circle to go along with some other tragedies that were, directly and indirectly, a cause of the pandemic. It can be not easy to talk about and share life experiences, especially when you wish you could forget it all. But through those challenges, if we channel that experience with a Christ-centered relationship and God’s help, we can press through to a breakthrough. I felt and claimed that 2020 would be the year of breakthrough. I didn’t realize the challenges that came with the breakthrough.

I do not recall the exact year, but my life, although hidden from most, began to spiral out of control. Co-workers, close friends, and, of course, family could tell, but my life was crashing around me for the rest of the world. My spiritual relationship was non-existent. My marriage was a battlefield that I created in an attempt to protect and shield my wife from knowing that I could not give her what God intended for a husband and wife to share. As a follower of Christ and Biblical tradition, it is a direct command from God that we save ourselves for our spouse and stay away from sexual sin. My wife was able to do that. I, on the other hand, did not. I felt it would be best not to talk about what I had done before we dated. I deployed in 2010 and returned a changed man. Shortly after returning from my military deployment, I met Devyn, my wife.   

We began dating, courting, and eventually married two and half years after we met at church, where we still reside. She was and still is a Godsend, an answer to intercession and prayers. In pictures, you could see the happiness on our faces, and for the most part, I was happy on the outside. I am trying to remember when everything started to change. There was a switch, a shift in everything I perceived. After we had our firstborn, our son, we would do so much together, just the 3 of us. We expanded our family with the beautiful addition of our daughter. Our family was growing, but why was I feeling so empty? Why was I feeling so alone? My son is a praying machine. He is a prayer warrior and has been since he could fold his hand. That is for another time.

Sometime after my daughter was born, the shift, the weight, and the anxiety began to pile on. One side of my mind was battling with deployment and fight or flight, while the other was battling everything else. My mental state had reached its maximum. I began to break. My physical well-being deteriorated. My mental state was shot. I couldn’t take it. Panic attacks, anxiety attacks, and severe anxiety disorder had set in. As a married couple, especially a newly married couple, there should be a strong desire to want to be with your spouse. I did not have a passion for anything. The slightest irritant or anxiety would send me spirally to a point where it was just easier for me to sleep on the couch rather than toss and turn wide awake, panicking and keeping my wife awake. She had enough trouble sleeping in between feeding the baby girl. Our daughter was the worst at sleep training, and she spent most of her first two years in our bed. She may have started in her room, but she would nearly always end up in our bed for convenience, which I understood.

The unique thing about our daughter, though, among other things, is that her sleep patterns and my panic attacks coincidentally synced up. I would wake up in the middle of the night, heart racing, heavy breathing, shirt thumping, and within minutes, from down the hall, I would hear her start to cry. I know this was a God thing. For each panic attack, she and my wife were there. For every anxiety attack that resulted in a hospital trip, my two girls were there. Until my last hospital trip, where it was just me, alone, in the ambulance on my way to the hospital with just a bunch of paramedic strangers talking to me while my family stayed behind. It was another night on the couch, and I called my wife from downstairs. She came down to support and pray for me. But I wouldn’t let her pray; I called 911, and she let me go. I was alone. I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. I also deal with numerous other ailments as a result of the military and my deployment. However, PTSD and some other side effects that accompany it are somewhat challenging.

Now, PTSD is not solely for military personnel. Through your experiences, PTSD can affect anyone. We can give up and give in. We can do nothing and stay the course and see where it goes; more times than not, it doesn’t end well. Or we can turn towards Jesus and ask for help. We do not always make the right choices nor comprehend their consequences until we see the pain they cause those loved ones around us. It is through that gut-wrenching feeling that the Holy Spirit can begin to work in us if we let him. He draws us to repentance, to ask for forgiveness, and to come clean.

Breakthrough is complex; in that season, it sucks. But after that breakthrough happens, when that moment of breakthrough and the epiphany happens, you immediately begin to turn that into a blessing. That breakthrough transforms into Thanksgiving. That Breakthrough becomes a focus for good, for God, and for everyone you come in contact with. He turns our mourning and our breakthrough into dancing. Below is a link to an older song, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t any less accurate.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/this-is-how-we-overcome/716103028?i=716104318

“But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Matthew 6:15 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.6.15.NIV

“Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall!”

Hosea 14:1 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/hos.14.1.NIV

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,”

Colossians 2:13 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/col.2.13.NIV

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

James 5:16 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/jas.5.16.NIV