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“In my anguish, I cried out to the Lord, and He answered by setting me free” …        Psalms 118:5

Probably this is the story that I should have written first. It was the beginning of my Journey into Freedom….but it was a lot harder to write. I was in a really dark place.

Why is it that some of us seem to have to come to the end of ourselves, run out of all other options, paint ourselves into a corner, before we cry out…or whisper… in anguish… ..help! We couldn’t see He was there all along, waiting for us to turn, to receive His Heart for us. We think we can do this life with our own strength…until we can’t. And when we finally cry out, we think we know what it is exactly that we are asking for….“this is hurting me — MAKE THIS STOP!!” Instead, He offers us His Best Gift: FREEDOM!! “It is for Freedom that Christ has set us Free!” (Galatians 5:1). And “if the Son sets you free, you will be FREE INDEED!” (Jesus said it! John 8:36).  It is truly the greatest gift, and it starts with “you shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH will make you free.”  (again it’s Jesus’ own words. John 8:32). And so this is that story….maybe the very first chink in the wall the enemy had built around my heart.

I had come to the end of my rope….the church I had loved and served all of my life was disintegrating, my marriage of 20 years was ending, the Pastor I had held on a pedestal as “God” had fallen, and I had exhausted all of my co-dependency coping skills. (And I didn’t yet know the word co-dependent.) The wise counselor that I had been seeing for a few months had concluded that I had reached the point of desperation and was possibly suicidal. Suddenly I found myself in Springwood Hospital…against my will. I remember sitting in my room, wrapped in a blanket, crying for the first three days. All the pain I had pushed down and locked in the box poured out through my tears. And I remember the kindness and compassion of the staff that cared for me there. The nurses who would sit for hours it seemed, hearing me out, creating a safe place for me to fall….and to empty out. How could my world have come to this? I was a Sunday School teacher, a worship leader, made every effort to be a perfect wife and mother and servant to the church.  How could God have let me down so horrifically? Everything I had believed in was crumbling at my feet and I had nothing left to stand on, nowhere to turn. A heap of ashes, a mountain of pain, a Valley of Achor…and a perfect place for my God to reach me.  “If I make my bed in hell, He is there.”  (Ps 139:8).

And He came into my room and met with me there….in the hands and feet of the kind amazing nurses that ministered to me in my room, and in my group classes. And in the words of a young chaplain as he prayed with me there. I remember the kindness in his voice as he encouraged me to stay and to dig in to the classes offered. He assured me I was right where God intended me to be…in a safe place to let go. And as he prayed that day, these words came out of his mouth: “Lord, please send Toni a Joyful Surprise.”  Those were the only words I remember from his prayer. They seemed to be shouted out to me, and seemed so out of place. The words took my thoughts captive, starting a vivid conversation in my head as the chaplain prayed the rest of his prayer. I was arguing, are you kidding me??? Joyful surprise??? I’m in a psych hospital for pete’s sake! For suicidal depression!! How’s that for joy?? and surprise??? But now as I look back, I can picture the smile on the Face of my Papa as He set the hook, and wrapped the surprise that was coming, and put a big red bow on it…..big smile….

After ten life-changing days, I was released to go home. But I had been given some darkness-kicking gifts to take with me. The staff had unlocked a box deep in my heart and removed some of the cruel lies, replacing them with truths about addictions and co-dependents. I had been told by someone I held as “God” that if I were a better wife, my husband wouldn’t have his problems. I had been told to keep the secrets and just pray harder. I had been held up as a public example of how NOT to be. Words had been spoken in front of my whole church, words that crushed my spirit and my heart….”this poor husband has had to live with Toni all these years”…. words that left me feeling everyone in the world could see I was broken, but with all my efforts, I had no idea how to grasp it and to fix it. But here in Springwood, darkness and lies had been exposed. Those lies had been replaced with truths that would begin to change my life. One of the first books the staff had given me to read was “Co-Dependent No More” by Melody Beatty. For the first time in my life, I was being told that there are things that someone else may do that ARE NOT MY FAULT. And I couldn’t fix them, no matter how hard I tried. The shame and the guilt that I had carried was not mine to own. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t a ton of stuff still in my own life that needed to be dealt with — it just freed me up from trying to fix someone else’s stuff. There was a glimmer of Hope rising from deep within. Hope that maybe I wasn’t such a lost cause, that maybe I had some worth, that maybe I could help someone else. I wanted to become a Nurse! Freedom pathways beckoned. I wanted to know more. The day after I left the hospital, I made my way to the city library to the list of resources the staff had recommended. I pulled four or five books from that section and took them to a table to scan through. There  were several I wanted to read, but there was one book that captured me immediately. Within a few pages, I found tears welling up. The author was writing my feelings out loud, words of a desperate girl striving to be worthy of love, to be seen, to be heard, to be good enough, to be perfect. I checked the books out and headed home with my treasures… little did I know what had been set in motion. The gift that was waiting…

….And that again, He was smiling….

Over the next few days, I would open that book to read, and then have to put it aside because the pain that welled up from the deepest parts of me felt like it would drown me. The author stirred the unspoken longings, longing to be cherished, to be held, to be accepted just as me. The exhausting search for worth… And then it happened. It was on the third day of reading. The tears fell onto the pages. I closed the book. And the title of the book leaped off the cover. Somehow I had not SEEN the title until that moment. It shouted out: “GOD’S JOYFUL SURPRISE: finding yourself loved by God.” Speechless. Undone. He had set me up. He got me. And He gave me His Gift. It was the beginning. Of Life. Of the Road to Freedom. Of unwrapping the Gift of unconditional Love. He had  TaDa’d me with the thing my heart had yearned for…the things that every human being on the planet yearns for… I was seen. I was cherished. I was good enough. I was loved.  By God. That was the Joyful Surprise. And my Journey could now begin….and I hit the road running…. But first to the store to buy my own copy of ….