How can I argue with the exceptional wisdom of Dr. Seuss?
"You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done."
He says it all, there. What shall I call my current situation? A Slump, it's a Slump, I say! Do you ever have days when you look at yourself, at your life, and heave a disappointed sigh? You ask yourself questions, and you approve very little of how you respond to yourself. A struggle I've had all my life is that I want to believe the worst about myself. It's not silly, self-deprecating games, but deep, abiding, intimate self-hatred. I have pet hatreds. Some days, weeks, or months I hate one thing about myself, other times it's something new. The worst times are usually when the thing I hate most about myself is my self-hatred. On those days I don't know what to do or where to turn. I know that in Yahweh I have infinite peace and rest, but I convince myself that I don't want to soil His love with my filthiness. This, of course, couldn't be more wrong, which shoves me deeper into the pit of loathing.
Last night as I lay in bed, I looked out the window at the stars. They twinkled impishly, beckoning me to come twinkle with them. "Come Susanna, dance with us!" But I couldn't. I lay there and cried because I wanted to fly. I wanted to clamber out my window and soar up into the purple blackness and sparkle. This thought brought a new wave of pain as my Enemy whispered maliciously in my ear the lie that I cling to deep in the darkest place in my heart. "You have always been a worthless piece of *garbage*, and you always will be!" I thought to myself, "If that's true, then I can't sparkle anyway. I would just make the sky darker than it was before."
But even in these dark moments when I give myself over to bondage to lies and despair, hope abides. It twinkles like a star billions of miles away, but when I flee from bondage I'm immediately swept up in it. The twinkling becomes blinding, glorious and brilliant beams of immeasurable light. Christ is my hope, and he will never leave me or forsake me... even when I deserve to be left and forsaken.
