Friday afternoon, I was depressed. It took me a little while to pinpoint why, but if there was one thing that I had, it was a while. I didn’t get it — I had free time, I had food, I had (decent-ish) internet… I could work on projects and go job-hunting and go on a walk and do whatever it was I wanted to do! So why was I depressed?
I was lonely.
None of that stuff sounded like any fun because there was no one there to enjoy it with me. There was nothing new to learn, because there was no one to take me somewhere or show me something that I wouldn’t have otherwise been inclined to investigate. I’ve moved and traveled so many times in my life, but every time it’s been as a group. With family, with fellow students… even when I moved to camps or to conferences, I didn’t feel alone because everyone around me was new, too. Everyone else was making new friends. But this time, it was just me who was new — and the rest of the city was spinning on, oblivious to the single new addition on its streets. And aside from my four-person internship, I had yet to engage in something where I could meet people my own age. I didn’t have coworkers. I didn’t have a Sunday school or a yoga class or a cafeteria table or a college dorm. There was no place to even begin to engage with other people that I would see again on a regular basis…
Thankfully, that night there was a service for young people (29 and under, so a good mesh of youth and new adults) at the church. And boy, did I ever need it. It was only a worship service with a sermon (not a small group where I could mingle), but I needed that sermon and that worship badly, and I bawled just as much as I had during the Sunday service earlier in the week.
But not far into that service, as I prayed and journaled looked inward at myself and my situation, I realized something. I realized that all this time since I had come into New York, I had talked strong and smiled on the outside and done all the right things… but inside, I’d been absolutely stricken with terror.
I came to New York quaking in my boots for many reasons: I didn’t know anyone; I’d never been here before; I was about to embark on the journey of adulthood where I’d actually have to find a a job and pay rent and cook for myself; I’d been repeating these many drawbacks to myself every time I explained the internship to other people, so I had been drowning myself in a cloud of negative apprehension; I hadn’t been to church for two weeks and hadn’t soaked in the promises of God. But mostly, I came to New York in a state of internal terror because I was warned by several people I trust… “Beware of pick-pockets.” “Don’t go out after dark.” “Be careful what areas you visit.” “Always make sure you’re not being followed.” “Just assume everybody’s out to get you, even if they seem nice at first.”
That is horrible advice.
That is not the wisdom or the peace of God that I have come to know in my first twenty-two years on this planet.
Yes, have common sense about where you keep your wallet or who you interact with! That I already knew! But suspecting alterior motives in anyone and everyone you brush elbows with is the way of the flesh and the way of fear.
I spent my first week in New York living that way: fearing muggings on the subway and fearing getting jumped in broad daylight and hesitating at the start of any introduction and do you know how I ended up? Standing in a church pew, alone, unable to close my eyes in worship for fear of opening them to find that someone might have stolen my bag! In church, for crying out loud!
God did not teach me to live this way!
God has sent me out as a sheep amongst wolves, but those wolves have never been people. They have been circumstances, challenges, and obstacles. But not people.
God is my strength and my rock, my fortress and my shield!
When I was in Haiti, we practically had to be smuggled out of the country because there were angry mobs on the roads who wanted to stone us when they saw the color of our skin. When we touched down in Chicago later that day, we found out that there was a fatal plane crash in the Florida airport that we had just left. When I departed for Sochi, all the news reports talked about were the threatening terrorist factions on the Georgia border, less than four miles from the facilities where I was to sleep at night.
I have picked up hitchhikers and dealt with drunks after midnight on New Year’s Day and navigated foreign countries and climbed mountains and walked through volcanoes and never once have I come under physical attack, for the Invincible God of angel armies is always by my side! He is not only my God, but He is the God of this city and He loves every person in it! When He sees depravity and corruption He does not see evil souls, but broken children and damaged hearts. And He did not send me here so that I could cower in fear of being hurt by those who have been hurt themselves: He sent me here to aid in their healing! I am not a victim to be protected: I am His soldier and His light and His beacon of hope! “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil!”
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