There are days it’s really hard to keep going. Sometimes that pain I deal with in my body is unbearable, like today. On days like these, doubts cloud my judgment, reason is overrun by irrationality, and worries plague my every thoughts. Undertaking the process of clearing my system has been truly the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to do in this life. Sometimes I’m not even sure I understand what’s happening within me.
This story began about three years ago when I asked God in prayer to have me go through whatever I needed to go through to remove all the poison, blockages and resistances within me. At the time I was so deeply engaged in toxic living that I couldn’t stop my unhealthy behaviors. My life was a endless stream of highs and lows and a lot of drama. All I wanted was to reach a higher plane of spiritual existence and so I prayed for it. Never did I think that the prayer I made would have brought about what I’ve painfully endured these past three years.
I’ve come to understand that what may have felt great in my life when I was actively addicted in things such as getting drunk, gambling, hooking up, or getting high, what was being stored inside of my body, mind, and soul while I was engaging in them was not so glamorous. It’s like having a crystal glass of pure water and then dropping a grain of dirt in it for each act of seeking a quick high. Eventually after enough grains of dirt are placed in that crystal glass, the water dries up and only hardened mud remains. If that crystal glass is to ever hold pure water again, it must be fully emptied. Except it has to be removed the same way it went in, grain by grain. If too much of that hardened mud is pulled out all at once, it could shatter the crystal glass, rendering it useless.
This is what the clearing process is like. I am that crystal glass that was once filled with pure water. For each time I was active in my addictions, I added particles of dirt to my pure water within. Eventually, it all caught up with me and I became a mental and emotional mess. I believe that my prayer to God began that process of removing each grain of dirt out of me. Unfortunately, when each one leaves me, it isn’t quite so pleasant as it was when it was entering me. The range of symptoms I’ve dealt with during this clearing process has been mind boggling. I could write pages after pages of some of the things I’ve had to deal with, some of which have been seriously painful. I’m not exactly sure why it has to hurt so much as it leaves me. Maybe it’s to help me learn a lesson and prevent it from ever happening again? I can’t say for sure. What I do know though, is that for three years I’ve been going through this and some days, like today, my brain tries to tell me to quit, to give up, and to throw in the towel. Why I don’t is because of things like what happened eight months into this clearing process. I had gone to a holiday gathering where I partook in a Secret Santa gift exchange. Ironically, the gift I ended up with was a plaque that said this:
DON’T QUIT
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
when you’re feeling low and the stress is high,
and you want to smile but you have to sigh,
when worries are getting you down a bit….
by all means pray – and don’t you quit.
Success is failure turned inside out,
God’s hidden gift in the clouds of doubt.
You never can tell how close you are –
it may be near when it seems so far.
So trust in the Lord when you’re hardest hit…
It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit!
This plaque continues to inspire me and be a source of strength. On days like today, I read it again and again. I remind myself that it took a very long time for me to get as unhealthy as I did. I pray to God and just give thanks for the abundance of what I still have in my life. And I thank Him for all the healing He is sending me as I go through this process. Sometimes in these dark moments all I have to rely upon is blind faith the size of a mustard seed. It’s then that I try to draw closer to God trusting that He will deliver me from this and eventually fill me up once again with pure water. Because of this I vow to keep going and I won’t quit.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson