The early 2000s was the climax of the Christian societal shift in music (if you ask me). The traditional hymnals were being replaced with something more, up to date if you will. More drums, more bass...deeper lyrics. The idea of asking your creator the question "why?" was edgy and unheard of because God should never be question. You need to just trust that whatever bad thing is happening is contributing to His glory. I will say that this mindset slowly died for half of the Christian community when 2008 hit, but we do not need to talk about that. One song in particular has always stuck with me. Natalie Grant released her beautifully dramatic song called "Held" in 2005. Essentially, the song is explaining that what we are currently surviving (or have survived), whatever that may be, God was/is right there giving us a leg up. Despite that it being quite possibly the trashiest thing you have ever been through, believe it or not you are being carried through it.
Now, ages newborn to 17, I could have cared less about what the song was implicating. However, as I have struggled more and more to even want to get out of bed, the song lyrics have come floating back from the recesses of my brain. "Who told us we'd be rescued? What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares? We're asking why this happens to us who have died to live. It's unfair." (Wells 0:41). Okay Natalie. Pop off with the poetry and rhymes, but what do you mean? When God said that he was going to rescue us, I guess we missed the fact that in order to be rescued, we must be in the absolute dumps. You do not usually get rescued from positive situations. I have had plenty of nightmares in which people stand on the side silently and just watch me. They watch me cry, rehash my trauma, and sometimes even laugh. Some of the nightmares do not stay with my pillows in the morning. I am positive that there have been certain nightmares that I have been saved from, by the Grace. Lately I find myself asking for what? Why? So, I can keep experiencing some of the most mentally f***ed events and write about them for others?
The lyrics go on to say "This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life, and you survive. This is what it is to be loved, and to know that the promise was when everything fell, we'd be held" (Wells 1:04). This is where I get a bit bitter. If me waking up every day having survived the previous day (which was just as bad as today is probably going to be) is the equivalent of being held, I think I might just curb stomp myself. I would like to preface this by saying that in no way am I questioning my Creators existence. His Was and Is and Always Will Be. I am questioning my existence in the palm of His hands. Am I really being held, or am I just being...dragged. Drowned? Held under the water. Readers, I KNOW we have all been through some unspeakable things, and at times it seems as though it would have been kinder for us to not survive it. Times in which our own innocence was not held for us. I KNOW that you see some of your abusers living their best lives with 0 repercussions of their actions, while you are the Medusa in their stories. On top of all the trauma that you have to acclimate your body and mind to, you are also responsible for being a functioning member of society. I am here to tell you that it is okay to be anguished by the way that life moves on as if nothing ever happened to you. It is okay to be wary of the future, because what happens if someday, we are finally able to experience life without the mental angst, but we are too exhausted from fighting to enjoy it? I worry about bills, I worry about school, I worry about my relationship, and I worry about being too exhausted to enjoy the "other side" of this obnoxious mountain. So, lovely readers, maybe we, are not what we should be asking our Creator (whatever you believe in) to be holding. Maybe we need to start asking for our mental well-being...our inner child...our faith, to be held instead.
- The Traumatized Bachelorette
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