Confessions of a Failure

“My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.” - Mahatma Gandhi 

Everyone has a personal story of a crushing failure, where they wished with all their heart that they could take something back to stop the heart wrench that accompanies whenever the memory seeps into their current consciousness. Mine is a hidden shame that until this year was known to only a select few.

It has only been in the last year that I have started sharing this failure, with a sudden mindset switch. You see, my greatest failure resulted in me dedicating my life to Christ. For many years, it haunted me to the point that I tried to hide it under success, yet it is only now that I can see that any success I now have is the end-result from my failure.

Many will know of my long-years spent battling an insidious chronic illness, but that is merely the frontier of my struggle. You see, I also faced a crippling depression which came as a result from losing a majority of what I considered important .. but I digress, I must start with the beginning.

I had grown up in a Christian household with both of my parents heavily involved in the church but to say I was a Christian at the time would be an outright lie. I, in fact, I was an atheist-minded agnostic. I knew about God, but I didn't believe in him; in fact I thought him a fabrication of my parents mind .. an imaginative crutch used by society to relieve them self of a psychological guilt and burden. I knew about Jesus, but didn't want to take the time to get to know why he was so revered by those around me.

It was simply easier to live for myself, to enjoy myself and to counteract any knowledge I had of God with the intellectual barrier that he did not exist, or at least that was my thinking.. then disaster struck my fragile world.

In a period of six months, at the age of fourteen, I lost my best friends, my girlfriend and perhaps more importantly in the long-run, my passion. I had become detached from everything that I had once held dear, all as a result of an devilish illness known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I went from training in state squads and enjoying laid back weekends with a close-knit group of friends, to spending night after night alone in my room, exhaustion and frustration my closest allies. In a stark conversation with my specialist, he essentially told me to give up on my dreams as the chances of realising them would be infinitely small; there is no known cure for CFS and any treatment they could give me would be a shot in the dark.

I had to give up on finishing year twelve, give up on finding love and having a family, give up on travelling overseas or fulfilling any work-related goals, give up on almost everything that I looked forward to... all at the age of fourteen. 

Quickly spiralling into a deep depression, my faith in life had been lost. I started to wonder whether living was worth the pain that I was feeling and as ashamed as I am to write this prose, I considered ending my life. 

The very statement still makes me shiver, but even to say it was a consideration is to label it too lightly. For one fateful night, I indeed came very close to ending my own life. I don't wish to divulge too many specifics but suffice to say, that night was the lowest I had ever been. My parents had left the house and I decided to write a letter goodbye to my family, apologizing for their inevitable sorrow but stating that simply .. I didn't want to go on in a world where the only reality that could be achieved was a lifetime of pain and sorrow on my behalf, never realising my dreams.

I gave up. I wanted to die. Life wasn't worth living, at least in my shattered state.

It was then that I did something that was completely radical for myself. I prayed for my life. I didn't want to die, I just wanted relief more than I wanted a crippled life. I needed something that the world could not give me, in fact, refused to give me.

I needed God 

That night, something changed in my life. Moments later, a person that should not have been expected to even take an interest in my life messaged me; a friend of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Seven years later, we are still best mates.

That night, a date was implanted in my mind almost as a sort of vision. Months later, that date turned out to be a meeting with a specialist that turned things around me for. He suggested that I join the waiting list for a heralded month-long intensive at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne. Usually the waiting time is around 1 year, maybe more .. five minutes before the doctor called someone had cancelled; rendering the 1 year wait mute, I was into the program within am atter of months.

More importantly, hope had come back into my life.

The question I have for those reading; what is stopping you from believing? I hope you never have to go through what I did in order to find God, but I know many of you would need something that reveals your full inadequacies before you can believe.. after all, I did.