I was back in the pit of despair. I fell so far into it, I couldn’t see anything but darkness. I couldn’t remember where I came from or who I was. I was back to my shattered old self, just hoping someone would notice how empty I was. It was like being trapped alone in a fog without a compass. No way out, no one to turn to, no one to understand. I had lost myself.

What do you do when your support network has vanished? What do you do when the people you thought you could count on turn their back on you? When someone you thought was your best friend stabs you in the back? What do you do when the job you had put all your eggs into turned into a bottomless pit? What happens when love betrays you so bitterly you lose all hope in love at all? What happens when you’ve always relied on your faith, but people tell you that isn’t enough to get by? What happens when you look around for help, but no one is there to pick up the phone?

When you’ve lost all sense of identity and purpose. When it’s your last bit of strength to fight for one more breath of air.

That’s the moment. When you realize you’re alone. But when everything is stripped away, that’s when you finally look up. For some people, that comes easy, or we lie to ourselves and pretend it was easy. But for those of you like me, it doesn’t come easy.

The battle of spiritual warfare is hard. The more we close ourselves off or are faced to fight it alone, it seems impossible. We’re so desperate for change or desperate for hope, we claw at any sight of it to hold onto something besides the darkness surrounding us.

It’s a lonely place, but it doesn’t have to be. No matter how far you’ve fallen, God is right there to catch you. No matter how far you run, God is right behind you chasing you down. There is no place you could possibly go where God isn’t right there with you.

I’m typing this with my own tears staining my keyboard because I was just here. I never set out to be an example; I started writing because I needed others to know they weren’t alone. You might feel like no one can understand your pain or your situation, because that’s how I feel, but God has been with you the whole time.

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hid me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” -Psalm 139:7-12