When Almighty God came into my kitchen

I suffered a mental breakdown in 2016. But what I didn't know at the time was, that it was really a break through.... a spiritual break-through...

It all started back in 2016, well actually, the Lord humbling me started way back in childhood but it was brought to a peak in 2016 when I was an adult.

2014, a long term (professional) relationship with my psychotherapist had just broken down, with old familiar and deep-seated fears stirred up again, I was ready to run. Just run away. Run away to a place where I could start again. A place far away, with no reminder of my failures, hopelessness and festering shame.

So having convinced hubby, we packed up and moved from our home in the UK to Ireland.

For those expats of you reading this, you may know how difficult it is to grow roots again in a new country. But we didn't just move to another country. We moved to Ireland. To the "wild west" of Ireland. Hashtag culture shock, but I digress...

A place without light pollution, miles away from the nearest village, the darkness of the night was thick and palpable, slowly creeping into my consciousness every evening at sun set when a feeling of dread and doom washed over me. 

Of course I reasoned my fear away: I was just childish and needed to grow up. But doomed? Why was I doomed? I didn't understand this feeling and pushed it away. It was easy enough to do, because I wasn't alone. I had Neil, my husband, and we were super busy in our new house. Until... the money ran out and there was no job in sight (Yea, I didn't think it through, fear does that to you!) 

So Neil decided he would go back to London for work, while I would stay in Ireland on my own, with the darkness waiting under the stairs, impatient and eager to come out at night to annihilate me. 

Suffice to say, I lost the plot. The mere thought of being alone with this "monster" put me in a uncontrollable frenzy. But this article is not really about me reverting back to a child state and literally hanging onto my husband for dear life, until he promised he would not leave me, but take me with him. 

After I had calmed down, which took a few days, we traveled to my mother in Germany, where Neil thought I would be safe. Of course I was safe, but as soon as he left for the UK, I was in absolute bits again. A walking zombie, only able to drink tea and smoke roll-ups. Walking to and fro, with exhausted breaks in between, where I would lie down on my bed and cry uncontrollably. My mother didn't know what to do with me and to keep a very long and distressing story short, after a failed hospital visit, mum and I decided to go back to Ireland, where she would nurse me back to some sort of stable mental health. It took around 3 weeks. After that I was able to manage on my own again and mum left. Great...

Terrified but braving it out, I kept busy every day with the lingering summer sun keeping the darkness at bay just long enough for me to fall asleep... before it came creeping back again, in my dreams, looking for me to pull me into the abyss...

The summer days were beautiful, and as long as no one would come to my house and talk to me, I could manage my anxiety. 

But that's not how God works, is it.

Thank God it was His will, not my will, that would be done. And so, my whole world would be turned upside down. The sandy foundation I was balancing on was about to be destroyed, causing my heart and life to be changed for ever...

*Trigger warning, death of an animal*

Yes, it was a beautiful summer's day and my hen was clucking, guiding her baby chicks through the grass. I loved my chickens and would watch them every day, finding great joy in caring and looking after them.

Yet one by one these, now bigger chicks, started to disappear. Of course, they were eaten by something or rather someone and one day I saw it: a feral cat. Just standing meters away from my back door, chewing on a freshly caught (dead) chick. 

Suddenly my love for animals gave way to a hot wave of entitled, narcissistic rage and in a split second in which I lost all reason, I commanded my dog to go for the cat. Of course he never killed anything in his life. He was innocent. Yet he obeyed.

As soon as I set my dog on the cat, while he was running towards it, I turned on my heels, headed inside and sat down in my kitchen... 

"Shit", I mumbled, after the illusion of victimization and helplessness had slightly lifted. I looked up to my dog who was now sitting a few meters away, his eyes fixed on the one who was to take care of him. And suddenly it pierced through my heart like a sharp sword, the realization that I was a vile and evil creature. 

Some of you may be used to killing your own animals to eat (which we also do here on the farm) but I didn't kill. I had murdered. Not only had I murdered the cat (I went outside to check, yes, the cat was dead) but I also murdered my dog's innocence. 

My mind unraveled and there was no stopping it. I was evil, vile... and I had done the unforgivable. My quiet and sheltered kitchen turned into a stone-cold tomb void of anything remotely "safe" and comforting.

Slowly but surly I was loosing touch with anything carnal (or "reality", as the world would like to call it), drifting into a state of "psychosis", like a floating astronaut whose life line had been cut. Helpless... powerless ... and condemned.  

I had nothing to hold onto, nowhere to hide. My once dormant guilt had been awakened and there was no stopping it. With a power that I couldn't fight, it came after me, mouth wide open, ready to gobble me up on the spot. Forever gone.

Tears started pushing against my catatonic eyes. What could I do to be saved from this monster that was haunting me, ruthless... relentless....justified...

It...was the stalker, I... its obsession; in reality though, unbeknownst to me, it was the manifestation of all my guilt, shame and tremendous rage, and it was crushing me. Literally making it unbearable to breath. 

Then, suddenly, in the midst of this loosing battle, it daunt on me: I was fighting a fight I could never win, for it was a just fight. I deserved it. And instantly I realised: I didn't want to die. I didn't want to be gobbled up by the monster of darkness. I didn't want to be the lost astronaut drifting through the black abyss for ever, cut off from life and light.

So, call it survival instinct or as it would later be made known to me, conviction, I frantically began to seek. I searched for the one who could help, the one who was strong enough, the one who could ...forgive me...

I turned to my dog, who was still sitting there with a loyal, but in my mind disturbed, look on his face. "Please forgive me, Oscar!" I pleaded. Nothing  happened. Silence. Instead, his faithful eyes turned into daggers that pierced my heart with the knowledge of what I had done: the unforgivable. A hungry, feral cat had been murdered because of my selfish entitlement. Why didn't I feed it instead?! What sort of a human being was I? An evil one. 

And with that, my tears and snots burst forth, like a dam that had become too weak over the years of heavy pressure, utter regret rushed forth and engulfed me, my heart squashed by the heavy burden of my sin and its hopelessness.

I cried for hours. Literally. Not moving out of my chair. A turned lunatic by my own evil shame that was now staring back at me through the eyes of my dog. The immense weight of my sin stripped me of all illusions and lies, laid bare my evil heart and crushed it. I had truly become a bad and mad woman.

And because I was on my own in the middle of nowhere, and because I knew no one who could console me, I cried out to my dog, in the hope he would forgive me. But he just sat there, didn't speak, didn't hear me and certainly couldn't forgive me. Then it happened. My fleshly desires were pushed to the side by something I had ignored most of my life, yes almost had forgotten Him. My Creator. And me in relation to my Creator. Humbled, alone and very much aware of who I was, a criminal according to Him who created me, I cried out to Him.

I didn't know His name, I knew nothing about Him. But my soul (me) knew He existed and I knew He could forgive me, for He was the one who created the cat, the dog and even me. It was my Creator who could help. And as soon as I entertained this thought and turned to Him-Who-Forgives, He was there. In a twinkling of an eye. Oh My God, was that the start of something beautiful, for He had come with a heavenly gift.... TO BE CONTINUED

Let me stop here for now. Everything spiritual that has happened to me at this point, and was about to happen to me shortly after, was explained to me by God Himself over the next 7 years and continues on (after all He IS the Teacher who leads us into Truth). 

At first I didn't understand anything. But now has come the time where I want to share with people something incredible. Something that is hidden, almost stifled by religion. And that is the Love of God, His Forgiveness and Salvation.