When I was 14 years old I had my first boyfriend. Things were relatively easy and innocent back then….until they were not. I remember a time we were faced with a looming end to our relationship he said to me during a conversation “you make everything sound simple and easy“.

I remember spending most of my teenage and early adult life confused as to what that means and how can simple and easy be bad.

As I look back at my life now, I realise how “easy” can be dangerously misleading.

I was just lying in bed scrolling through social media and I saw this.

Sounds simple and easy right? Every believer, Christian or not, regardless of whether they believe in God or the universe, will tell you something to that effect.

My immediate response was;

Regardless of who is in control, you don’t relax on a plane that’s flying through heavy turbulence. You won’t relax in a ship sailing through a storm and you won’t relax on a bus travelling down the highway whilst caught on fire.

Life is not a smooth ride and it’s dangerous to make people believe that all they have to do is relax and everything will work out.

And this is a big part of why I write this blog,

I used to be the queen of necessary, I believed in not worrying keeping it simple and only doing what’s necessary because life will work it out.

Until days went by, week’s months and years and instead of life working out, it seemed like I was putting out fires in one breath and setting up fires in another.

Before I started scrolling through social media, I wrote a post in my private story it said

If you were here with me tonight and saw what I did you would have been proud of me..so so proud.

But maybe that’s just my wish, maybe you wouldn’t care

But I’m proud of me and maybe that’s what matters

The reason this was in a private story is because there’s one person I wanted to tell this. But I also knew this person view is that if you wanna do something you do it, if you don’t wanna do something you don’t do it.

So I chose not to share it with them.

What did I do you may ask?

I pour a glass of wine, took a small sip, debates with myself about drinking it, sat in the middle of my kitchen floor battling the temptation, the feeling of emptiness the strong desire to drown myself in that glass, then I stood up and poured it down the sink.

You know when the storm is coming, you can see the dark clouds moving in, you can feel the wind intensifying. That’s how I’m feeling now, I’m in a brink of a depression episode.

For me this is a scary time. This is the moment I try my hardest to hold onto feeling, something..anything. I try do things to keep me happy to stop it coming. I drink myself to near death, I go out and try to party, I desperately hold onto anything I think might keep me from falling in deeper.

This pattern of behaviour never works, I know that….but the pull, oh Jesus really meant it when he said “watch and pray so you will not fall into temptation, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”

Not having that wine was not easy, it was not simple. And I think, maybe just maybe we ought to acknowledge that life is not easy or simple, we ought to acknowledge the battles we go through internally, silently whilst on the outside it seems easy.

I wish I knew the what I know now, that life is not easy, and expecting it to be so can be dangerous…