The Other Side

Am I Going to Make It?

For me, the breaking point happened late one night on a kitchen floor. I was staying with a precious couple who had taken me in as their own when I was an out-of-state college student in their college town. I had hit rock bottom. I was beyond terrified, beyond trapped, beyond shattered. My apartment had just been robbed and aware of the pitiful shape I was already in, they opened their home to me. She was washing the last of the dinner dishes in the kitchen sink when I peered my head around the corner, tears streaming down my face. I wasn’t one to cry, and she knew it. The pain on the inside finally surfaced when the tears began a couple weeks earlier and hadn’t stopped. Neither had the trembling. I was physically, mentally and emotionally depleted.

“I need to hear you say one more time that there is another side,” I whispered to her.

She turned toward me with alligator tears in her own eyes. “Sit down,” she replied as she dried her hands on a towel and plopped down on the floor between the sink and the stove. She took my hands in hers, cried right along with me, and promised me that there is another side.

That was the threshold for me, the point in which everything in me was screaming, “Am I going to make it through this?” This book is written for those of you wondering the same thing, those of you doubting if you can make it through, those of you who feel like taking one more step or one more breath may be too difficult to handle. You’re not alone.

In my line of work as a counselor, I talk to people every day who are suffering. I see firsthand the effects of evil in this world and the ugliness of humanity. I work among the broken. They are asking, “When will these dark days be over?” They are questioning, “What did I do to deserve this?” They are saying, “I have never experienced a time as dark as this before. I don’t see the Lord in this. I don’t see how this is loving, how this is for my good, how there is hope and joy in this.” They are wondering, “Why has He forsaken me?” Maybe you can relate. Those lines certainly came out of my mouth during my dimmest hours.

I will tell you that reading this book will be difficult. You have taken a brave step to even open the cover. There is something compelling about the other side because it means there is hope of authentic healing. But there is also something revolting about bringing to light the very parts of our existence that lived in darkness for so long. You will try to convince yourself that your pain happened too long ago to matter now. You will be tempted to minimize, deny, and hide. You will tell yourself, “It’s no big deal” and perhaps even to “Get over it.” You will feel crazy for dealing with the emotions that well up within you. Do me a favor? Show yourself some grace as you move through these pages. Read at a slow pace if that’s what you need. You will feel rage, resentment, bitterness, confusion, relief, and hurt. And you will be normal.