When life lays in ruins……

I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days I set out during the night with a few others. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on.

By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and re-entered through the Valley Gate. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work.   Nehemiah 2:11-16

Before Nehemiah can start out on his mission, he has to survey the damage. Jerusalem is in ruins, he knows that. He’s been told that already. But he has to see for himself. He has to assess the devastation. He chooses to ride through the ruins with just a few others, telling no one what he is doing, in secret at night. He needs to know what this plan will entail before he shares his hopes and dreams with anyone else.

Biloxi, Miss., September 3, 2005 — Damage and destruction to houses in Biloxi, Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage all along the Mississippi gulf coast. FEMA/Mark Wolfe

Around the world, today and throughout history, there are individuals doing exactly as Nehemiah did. Surveying the damage. Picking their way through the rubble. Assessing what needs to be done. Examining the remains.

Whole villages destroyed by a landslide or a flood. Office blocks turned to rubble by an earthquake. Homes destroyed by a hurricane. Livelihoods destroyed by natural disasters, an act of God. Family life fragmented. Lives lost. Everything lies in ruins.

Whole streets destroyed by mortar bombs. Hospitals and schools turned to rubble by missile attacks. Livelihoods destroyed by the atrocities of war, an act of man. Family life fragmented. Lives lost. Everything lies in ruins.

And around the world, today and throughout history, there are individuals doing exactly as Nehemiah did – in their own lives. Surveying the damage. Picking their way through the rubble. Assessing what needs to be done. Examining the remains.

Because when you find out your wife has been cheating on you for the past seven months, your life falls apart.

When you get that phone call to say the love of your life has been in a fatal accident and suddenly they are gone.

When your final IVF attempt doesn’t work and all hope is lost.

When the doctor tells you that the cancer has come back.

When your A Level grades are not what they need to be to get you on the course of your dreams and your world is shattered.

When you hear yet again that you have failed to get the job.

When you’ve been sober for nearly a year and yet one night, the urge for alcohol is too strong and you can’t resist.

You open your eyes to find your life in ruins. Devastation all around you. You pick your way through the remains. You have no idea how you can carry on. What life will ever look like again.

I can describe this, because once, a long time ago, this is exactly how I felt. That my life lay in ruins around my feet. I can picture the moment as clearly as the day it happened.

It was 29 years ago. I was 22 years old. It was dark and cold – January, maybe February. I was sat huddled on a bench, completely closed in on myself. Unable to talk. Unable to be comforted. Numb. Completely numb. Curled up in the smallest ball like a hedgehog, feeling as small and insignificant as I had ever felt. Helpless. Almost dead inside. In my favourite place on campus, next to the lake where Andy and I had walked and sat and talked many times before. He was there now too. Silent. In shock. He had no words. There was nothing that could be said.

Because a few hours before…….maybe the day before, I can’t remember because everything leading up to that moment was a complete blur……..I had tried to take my own life. I had reached the end of what I could put up with. I could find no other way to silence the voices in my head – the voices that tormented me, the anguish that ate away at me every moment that I was awake. This hadn’t come out of nowhere, of course it hadn’t….it had been building for years. I’d been depressed throughout most of my teenage years but had buried it down deep, because I hadn’t known what else to do with it. I’d just spent a year in France, which challenged me on many levels – my identity, my faith, my relationships, my life choices – and I’d struggled to come back and readjust to life in the UK. I’d come back to my Mum experiencing a breakdown of her own and just at a time when I needed her to care for me, I found myself caring for her – witnessing her torment and anguish and feeling completely helpless and frustrated. I’d come back to university for my final year with all of this swirling around inside me and no idea what to do with any of it……I’d tried to talk, tried to explain, tried to get help. And yet I’d come to this point where I felt there was no hope. That nothing could bring me peace. That everyone would be better off without me. That the world would be a better place without me. I was completely desperate.

I wanted to sleep and never wake up. I wanted to take these pills and drink this wine to find complete and final oblivion. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t thinking straight any more. Andy came and tried to stop me. I fought with him and screamed at him to let me die. To go away and let me finish what I’d started. Of course, he couldn’t do that. He didn’t do that. He stopped me. He made me live.

So here I was, having tried to end my life, sitting on a bench surveying the ruins. Having wanted more than anything to end my life. All I could see in front of me was a brick wall, the brick wall of my life, that I had spent my whole life constructing. Every brick was an achievement, an experience…….every violin exam, every friendship, every concert, every essay, every church weekend away……all my loves and relationships and dreams…….and now this brick wall was lying in pieces around my feet. No part of the wall was left standing. Not one brick was left on top of another brick. It was no longer a wall. This was no longer a life. All I had built had been destroyed. I had decided that none of this was worth living for. I had made it all worthless. Everything I had experienced and achieved didn’t matter any more. None of this had been enough to stop me from wanting to end my life. The brick wall that I called my life was in ruins.

I was empty. A blank space. It was as if I was actually dead, but still functioning. Still alive. Still breathing. But I had declared that nothing in my life was worth living for. So where could I go from here? How could I carry on? How could I even start to rebuild a wall had taken my whole life to construct? Nothing mattered. No one mattered. I certainly did not matter. Helen Rusted shouldn’t even be here any more. She’d decided to die. She’d declared her life worthless and meaningless.

So I sat on that bench for who knows how long, with the brick wall of my life in ruins all around me. I don’t know how I stood up. How I walked back to my room. What I said and did. I remember that moment on that bench with absolute clarity when what went before and what came after is covered in a mist that I can’t penetrate.

That was my semi colon moment. Not out of choice. I wanted the full stop. I wanted my story to end right there. But it ended up being a semi colon. My story continued. I never tried to end my life again. I wanted to. Loads of times, I’ve fantasised about crashing the car into a wall. I’ve wanted to escape what goes on in my head so desperately. There is no escape, that’s the problem. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you take your mental state with you. It’s always there when you wake up, whatever oblivion you have sought the night before. I suppose now I have more to lose, more to live for – a family, a marriage, a home, a job, friends and fun and running and dogs and writing and a million other small joys that make it all worthwhile.

We’ll talk about how I got from there to here tomorrow.

Because there is always hope. Believe me, restoration is always possible. Resurrection hope and life.