This is the story of a woman at Mars Hill Church Tacoma. In the words of Pastor Aaron Gray, “Tessa is a different human being” than the one he met six months ago. Her story was originally posted as a note on her personal Facebook page. It is reproduced and expanded here with her permission.
December 24, 2013 at 3:18 a.m.
Six months ago I walked into church expecting to leave with a little sympathy, a hug, and a prayer. Nothing more.
The 22nd of June was the worst night of my life. Nothing significant had happened to me, but I was more depressed and self-hating than ever. I have a history of depression and self-harm. I had been drinking that night and had believed enough evil lies to decide that life was finished for me. I was nothing. I was worthless, unimportant, unwanted, guilty, disgusting, ruined, broken, unnecessary, and most of all a burden to all who knew me. Satan had spoken these words to me so often; I savored them like a sweet treat, slowly poisoning me. I’d had enough. I was out.
God said no. He just straight up stepped in and said absolutely not. My brother called from the hospital and, instead of ending my life, I went to visit him (he’s since recovered). An amazing fact you may not know is that this had happened before. I had had enough before, made this deadly decision more than once, and every single time, I got a call. Someone needed me. Someone wanted to talk to me. I was always halted in my tracks on the way to what I wanted to be the end.
Since that night, everything has changed. I’ve left my home, quit my job, lost my dad, and had infinitely more ups and downs. When I say everything changed, I mean everything.
I went to church the next day by chance. I felt the need to talk to someone. I had been a member for a few months at Mars Hill [. . .] at this point, and regularly attended the 10:30 [a.m. service] . . . I’d planned to spend the day in bed until it was time to give up again, but I went anyway, ran into a very firmly loving friend, and spilled my guts. Well, some of them. I hadn’t planned on telling anyone my thwarted attempt, just to express that I felt at a low point. But this very close friend and leader in the church wouldn’t let me go until I told her what was wrong. She brought me to a pastor, and there was intervention. I was advised to leave my home, stay with friends, and start biblical counseling and Redemption Group. My friends had been seeing a pattern in my life that I would stay home, in my parents’ basement, and isolate myself, becoming more and more depressed. I had expressed thoughts of suicide the month before and was being pursued by two close friends, both leaders at Mars Hill. Pastor Aaron and my friends thought it would be best if I were watched more closely.
Then I was changed and totally fine the next day!
Just kidding.
Hard change
I was mad as bees. For months. I didn’t like it at all. But I had no choice but to change my state completely. And my friends, who irritatingly loved me, would not let me sink. They pushed. They pushed hard. But they pushed me to the cross. I knew it was all or nothing at this point. Fight or give in. Surrender to love or surrender to lies. Live or die. What choice did I really have?
On that Sunday after my attempt, I declared it the worst day. A friend was right to disagree when she said, “This could be the day that changes everything.”
I didn’t want that. I didn’t want change. I wanted nothing to change but the way I felt. How ignorant and immature of me to believe that’s how things worked. I wanted to live my life the exact same way, but have it seem and feel different. But Jesus doesn’t work that way.
I disliked that I was hurting my family, because they didn’t understand, and really still don’t. I felt like an enormous burden to my friends—the ones that had taken me in, and the ones involved in the healing process. I felt like I was just stressing everyone out. I couldn’t understand their desire to love and serve me. I also disliked that I had to talk so much about everything. All. The. Time. I talked myself silly. I was raw. My friends were raw. It was very hard to have to get to the deepest parts of me, tear them apart, and rebuild. Especially since I fought it so hard. I had been believing so many lies for so long that finding and trusting the truth seemed impossible. I didn’t believe that my friends loved me. I didn’t even believe Jesus loved me. I didn’t believe it was worth their time to help. I was angry all the time. I hated myself.
Changing was hard, and so was realizing that I was the biggest—not the only, but the biggest—cause of my suffering, because I was running from God. I hid from the truth. I had accepted the lies and clung to them. The hardest part was finally trusting God to love me enough that I could let go. I had to trust that his uncomfortable, unbelievable truth would be better than the comfortable, seemingly true lies. It was so hard to let go of the rage. I had been angry for 20 years.
Real change
Jesus pulled the wool back and I have seen so much of him these last few months. He has not hidden his face from me. He has changed me in many ways. I have experienced joy I never knew, peace, rest, and an extreme amount of relentless love. He has made me new.
The changes are astounding. He shook me. He grabbed me from the pit and stood me on the Rock. He would not let me go. I have had so many people tell me that they can literally see a difference. I am physically healthier. I stand differently. I look different. My face has brightened. I have more good days than bad, and even my bad days have good. I smile a real smile. I exude joy. I talk more, and not always in a painfully sarcastic tone. I want to be loved. I thirst to know more truth. I want to talk about Jesus. Not in a fake, surface, trite way, but in a very serious just-look-what-he’s-done kind of way. My dad died, my family moved a few towns away, I still can’t get a job, and my car just died. Circumstances are not really improving. But my joy remains because it is contingent on what Christ has done and continues to do.
I recently began apprenticing in Redemption Groups, and am applying to intern at Mars Hill Tacoma. I want to watch people grow the way I have. God gave me a heart of repentance. Instead of hiding my sin, punishing myself to my sin, shaming myself, feeling disgusted and horrified [. . .] I have a great appreciation for repentance and forgiveness.
Heart change
I do not share this to brag about my life, because it’s not the best. I still don’t have a job, my dad is still dead, my life has tension and complication and hard times. I get sad, I get mad, I get low. I share this to tell you of the God who made me see that even in the sad, mad, low times, he is there. I am not alone. I am a child of God by his immeasurable grace. I am worthy, wanted, important, clean, renewed, necessary, forgiven, chosen, a blessed saint. Because he says so. Because he made me his. Because he says it was his joy to die for me, so that I could die to sin and be made alive in Christ.
. . . I had been taking at least one kind of medication (anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, bipolar, ADHD) since I was eight years old. For eighteen years I took medication for something. I no longer do. I was afraid at first, but the difference is amazing. I don’t know if Jesus healed me, or if I didn’t need it in the first place, but the fact that I can function so well without them is astounding. Jesus put on me such a heart for serving, for loving others, for sharing the gospel, for reading the Bible, reading theology, reading everything . . . he has made me thirst for him.
If nothing else had changed, simply understand that for the first time since I was a young child, I don’t want to die. Not only do I not want to die, I am eager to live. I want to live, I want to learn, love, grow, mature, and show the glory he has shown me.
I get to tell myself every day that though I’ve sinned, I am saved. I hid from God for a long time. I had accepted death for a long time. He changed me so much. I want to wake up every day. I want to live for him. I don’t want anyone to feel the way I felt. Of course sometimes I sin. Of course sometimes I am tempted to go back, take the so-called easy road, move home and be sad. I am tempted to rage, to fight, to run. Sometimes I get angry. Sometimes I pout. But the biggest change is that he has shown me the road back to him. He doesn’t let me stay in my sin. He calls me out, gifts me with repentance, and forgives me. It is beautiful.
Six months ago I openly admitted a desire to end my life, to take a life I did not give. [Then on] June 23rd I reluctantly made the choice to try again, this time with help from the only true source of life.
Today, December 23rd, I celebrate the miraculous and obvious presence of my God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit—a trinity that is tattooed above my ankle that I somehow ignored. I celebrate that even when I crash and burn, I am still saved. I am still his. I am beloved.
I write this partly to share with those who do not know Christ, to help explain why people sacrifice their lives, relationships, jobs, habits. I sacrificed because he sacrificed everything for me. I changed because he changed me.
I write this partly to share with believers who doubt sometimes, as we all do, and could use a reminder of his willingness to intervene and his divine power to change.
But mostly, I write this for me, so that when I doubt, when I forget, when I hear lies, I can come back to this and remember the truth. I hope I never have to, but I hope that when I do, one of my firmly loving friends would direct me to it.
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble.”
