Faith Under Gray Skies

This is a guest post by Kim Fitzsimmons from She Writes Undone. She is a professional administrator at a local university and loves writing. Most days you can find her reading a book and several of her favorite blogs (one of which is Words of Williams!) while loving on her basset hound dog. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out our guest post guidelines.

This year I experienced the hardest trial of my life. On Jan. 3, 2012, my world as I knew it fell completely apart. Everything I knew to be true, everything I believed about love, everything I planned for in the future was destroyed. The broken pieces of my life were lying all around me in disarray and the next six months became the most difficult land mine to tread through.

My marriage fell apart. Although 50% of marriages end in divorce, I believed our relationship to be indestructible and would last forever. Instead, it died. Mistakes, huge and small, were made. Irreversible mistakes that no matter how many apologies were cried could not be erased. With being honest about these mistakes came the realization that things would never go back to how they once were nor was it possible for this marriage to survive the traumatic blows.

Out of respect for privacy, I will not divulge any details. Instead, I want to speak about how faith saved me, as well as assure people who are experiencing something similar that they will be able to live again.

Trust me. I am here today writing this simply because of God.

The past six months have been a roller coaster -- a roller coaster full of severe dips and very few highs. The dips took me to a place I never knew existed. The depths of despair and depression are overwhelmingly awful and suffocating. Even thinking about those depths at this moment gives me chills. I now have a deeper understanding of why some people choose to take their lives. Life can get to a very scary, dark place; a desolate place of no light or hope. Utter despair envelopes itself around your heart and squeezes until there's almost no air. I was there on a few occasions and if it wasn’t for the grace of God, I would not be here today.

Each time I got close to the ledge, the point of no return, God sent a small army of loved ones to stand guard at that ledge. One by one, they came toward me, grabbed me by the hand and walked me in the other direction, holding me until I was on stable ground again. They held me as I cried, they sent me daily texts/emails, they called me, they came over, they took me on walks, they told me they loved me, they told me to hang on, they told me God was there and He would get me through this. Just take it step by step, day by day, they encouraged. One day you will see the light again. Some days all I could muster to say was please God. Please God help me, forgive me, help me. Please Lord, I need you. Save me.

And He did.

Today, after the intense work of my phenomenal therapist, my army and faith, I am standing taller. I’m now ready to live again. I see light, I see hope, I see a future. I know God will take care of me and lead me to the life I’m meant to live. I’m blessed with such amazing people in my life and blessed with forgiveness and restoration. I can’t change the mistakes of my past, but I can be better person in the future because of them. Each day I get a little stronger. There are still rough moments, but I get through them. I feel them, shed light on them and then I let them pass. And I keep walking. Step by step, day by day. I keep moving forward.

How has faith brought you through gray skies?