How to Solve a Spiritual Crisis

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As I mentioned last week, I’m currently in spiritual crisis. (No, it didn’t fade as the week passed, unfortunately.) I’d love for it to be over, but in order to solve a crisis, one must first understand what the crisis exactly is.

Dictionary.com defines a crisis as, “A dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person’s life;” “A condition of instability or danger”; and “A stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, especially for better or for worse, is determined; turning point”. All of these apply.

I’m a dramatic person. On a scale of 1-10, I live probably at an 8 or a 9 daily, irrespective of what’s happening. I feel every single thing and I do it on purpose. It’s emotionally exhausting to feel everything, it is tremendously overwhelming–but it also makes me feel like a living person. And being alive is good. So when I question the very foundation of my faith (mostly in the form of, “Why are all these wack people I’m meeting turning out to be devout Christians? Am I that wack?! How can someone that wack profess to believe the same things I believe?! What do I believe?!?!”) I’m all the way turned up. On 10. And have been for months, just feeling every conflicting thing. Wallowing in “delicious misery”. It’s exhausting.

And doing/saying/being things while you’re emotionally exhausted is dangerous. It’s a “condition of instability.” I’ve been extraordinarily surprised by some of the things I’ve said and done in the past month or so that I believed I wasn’t even capable of doing. I’m very capable, as it turns out. But I’ve also discovered that this does not have to be my reality.

A crisis can be dramatic, unstable dangerous upheaval, but it can also be “a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events…is determined; a turning point.” A crisis, therefore, can be an opportunity, a chance to do something different.

The first different thing I did last week was to go back to church. Home for the Thanksgiving holiday, I visited a new church in Virginia with my mom (safety in numbers! Especially with mom). Pastor Brett Fuller gave a great and timely sermon about the prophetess Anna, and how her daily devotion to the Lord in times of peace made her sensitized to His voice, so that even in times of chaos, she could hear Him clearly and knew just what to do. She got sensitized by fasting, praying and staying in the temple. I took extensive notes and have taken steps to implement Anna’s crisis management plan.

Immediately after the service, I did a second different thing: I went up to the altar and asked one of the ministers there for prayer. I had been trying to cry for weeks and weeks about every hurt and disappointment and confusion in my life, but I couldn’t do it. In that moment with the minister, however, the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. I told her of the pain I’d experienced with 3 different pastors recently and my desire to find a new church home in New York where I could be ministered to and where I could serve. She took my hands in her hands, and before she prayed for me, she looked me in the eyes and said, “I want you to know that how those 3 pastors made you feel is not how God feels about you. They do not represent how much God values you.”

It was a simple thing to say, perhaps even an obvious thing. But it made all the difference to hear her say that out loud, that what those pastors didn’t see in me, God still sees in me. What they didn’t value in me, God still values in me. What they didn’t love about me, God still loves in me. It was powerful affirmation.

Then, she began to pray for my healing and my peace. Then, she stopped. “Are you ready to forgive them?” She asked me, and I was ready to forgive them, so I said, “Yes, I forgive them.” “Then you can heal from this,” she said, and began to pray again, that I’d find a church home where I would belong and a community where I would feel valued, a place where I would be ministered to and a place where I could serve.

This almost never happens to me, but immediately after that prayer, I felt a deep sense of relief and release. I felt new. It was a turning point. I would do something different.

The next day, I sought new spiritual counsel. On Twitter, I reached out to Virginia pastor, Dr. Leonard Smith, whom I’d heard amazing things about from a few different people, and asked him for advice on recovering from a spiritual crisis. After reading last week’s blog post, he gave me this awesome advice:

There is so much intellectual stimulation in the study of Christianity that I don’t think I could ever get tired of it, though I’ve accepted that I might not receive answers that satisfy, or answers at all, on some things. I’m okay with that, or more truthfully, I’ll be okay.

That point about faith in people not being greater than “the faith you’ve proven,” hit home so hard. The KKK this week came out to especially say that they are NOT A HATE GROUP, GUYS, THEY’RE A CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION, OKAY?! And of course they are. Of course they are. So much of the history of Western Christianity is littered with the bodies of my enslaved African ancestors and other people of color all over the Americas and all over the world in the name of White supremacist Christianity. White Jesus has done some significant physical, spiritual and emotional damage, y’all. But that’s not my Jesus.

Claiming Christ or saying they’re acting in the name of Christ doesn’t make it so. There are clearly many different kinds of Christians in the world who believe a multitude of things. We don’t all represent each other, and unfortunately, we don’t all represent Christ well. I know I don’t always. My job, as I go through this crisis, is to try and do so in a way that lifts Him up so that He can draw others to Himself. That’s it.

And best of all in Dr. Smith’s advice was that I’m not alone. Some have suggested that this crisis is the result of me spending time with people of various faiths and learning about how they worship. Not so. I believe everyone serious about their faith goes through periods of crisis. All of the prophets, all of the disciples, even the most ride-or-die apostles had moments of utter despair and doubt. Throughout the Bible there are these beautiful moments where God’s people question everything about what God is doing and God answers them. That’s a relationship!

That’s what relationship is all about. God is so much bigger than our questions. He isn’t threatened by them. He desires that we seek Him out, that we work towards deeper understanding in Him, so much so that He makes us a promise if we do it! Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek me with all your heart.” You will find Me. 

That’s a guarantee. And He’s been faithful enough to me that I will take Him at His word.

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