The God-Shaped Void

"I wouldn't trade those lonesome depressing nights for happier ones"

My roommate's 2.00 am alarm often found me staring at the ceiling listening to some melancholic music in incommunicable emptiness. A void was in my heart, a void that was begging to be filled by someone, something, and anything." It is okay not to be okay," they would always say. And so, I forced myself to believe that this dysthymic mood was part of my identity. A lot has changed now, but in retrospect, if I had to go back in time, I wouldn't trade those lonesome depressing nights for happier ones. Well, before you raise your eyebrows about this, I will take you back to a time when I had an entirely different perspective.

9.11 AM, 10th October 2018, at the Neurosurgery Clinic, Kenyatta National Hospital.

We have spent the last few Wednesday mornings at the neurosurgery clinic learning about head injury and interpretation of different modalities of brain imaging. This morning, the neurosurgeon is late, and so, the session is yet to start. I load my WhatsApp statuses and many people are talking about mental health awareness. Judging from the number of posts, it must be World Mental Health Day. As I am casually scrolling through the posts, one that ridicules teenagers who are coming out as depressed captures my attention. I will explain why I am bothered by this post shortly, but before that, let me reveal something about the girl who shared this post. I have known this girl for less than a week hence I know very little about her. I met her on Friday and she struck me as being reserved, but after exchanging numbers, I quickly realized she was more sociable on text. Apart from some spectacular modeling photos and the popular "men are trash" memes which she has been posting accompanied by laughing emojis, her social media profile is rather dull. I do not know what to make of this post and so I simply scroll past it. The lecturer has now arrived and I realize I cannot concentrate because, for some reason, this post has bothered me more than it should have.

The reason why I am bothered, however, will make little sense to most. It has been almost one month since Mac Miller died. He was not my favorite rapper, but he was the rapper who rapped what I wanted to hear on beats that captured the melancholic mood I was so often trapped in. He has been rapping about his suicidal ideations, drug addiction, and depression since his 2013 album, "Watching Movies with the Sound Off". This was shortly before the time my emptiness started to creep in, and so, I often had an imaginary friend on those lonesome nights. His latest album, "Swimming", represented a glimmer of hope in the life a troubled artist. He rapped about how he had found rejuvenation and how depression was no longer on hold of him; declaring on one track that he was never going to die. He was facing his monster heads-on, and as a person who had known him long enough, it was incredibly beautiful to watch. But it ended up being a painful contradiction. Instead of swimming, he drowned. His album was the only music I had on my phone that month. It represented an acceptance of fate, that maybe this journey has no real satisfying end. And with that saddening thought, I felt something, and that melancholic feeling was painfully beautiful. Despite the miles and millions that separated us, this man's death made me feel the pain of depression.

"I expected cries of help to come in the form of crying emojis, but instead they came as laughing ones"

Due to this pain, I request this girl to consider deleting that post. She reads my message and ignores it. I give her some time to reconsider but by the end of the lesson, her post is still on. At this point, I realize it was rather stupid of me to be offended by her post. But shortly after, my notification bell rings and I receive a message from her, an image which is loading rather slowly. "Is it another meme or something?" It finally opens and….well….this is an image of her forearm and it is greatly bruised! Some fresh razor blade cuts had completely changed the complexion of her skin. At this point, I feel even more stupid because I realize that this girl is probably more depressed than I have ever been. She quickly deletes the image and requests me not to tell anyone about it. Momentarily, my heart grieves at my hypocrisy. Like most of the people who were posting about mental health awareness, I truly had little awareness about who these messages are intended for. I expected cries of help to come in the form of crying emojis, but instead, they came as laughing ones. I expected the cries of help to be from someone reposting those messages; instead, they came from a person rebuking them.

At this moment, *Kamau probably has the most posts. I remember the conversation I had with him a few weeks back; about how disturbed I was because I could not wrap my head around the meaning of life. He quickly dismissed it as something everyone goes through and it would be wise just to get over it. I could not explain to him how much the thought of everything being vanity distressed me. It had drained all my energy and I felt like doing nothing. But I couldn't say this, and so, I expected him to read between the lines and tell me something, anything I needed to hear. But sadly, Kamau did not have the answer, nor did any of those people who were posting "it is okay not to be okay." Yet, my heart still grieved for one.

You are probably still wondering why I would not trade my sorrowful nights for happier ones. Well, on that day, I realized where I probably wouldn't find my answers. And so, my soul slowly started to drift away from society. These set of rules that society runs on were trying to mold me into someone that would be most relevant, but in the process, I was losing myself. The encouragement they gave me was that there was nothing wrong with my heart longing for more, but I had to have contended with my state because its longings could not be given. It is okay not to be okay. But surely, there had to be more.

Consequently, from this day, I start spending significant time in solitude pursuing the longings of my heart, and this led me to the truth that I would have probably missed had my nights been happier. The journey to the truth, was, however, long and blurry. My soul drew closer and closer to artists who realistically seemed troubled, hoping than one of them would sing a lyric that would provide an answer to everything. Although I spend most of the days talking about the popular music on the radio, Mac Miller's Swimming, Phoebe Bridger's Scott Street, and Daniel Caesar's Freudian are the albums I had on repeat all night. I would get lost in the beauty of their sadness, the melancholy. What I did not realize at the time was that these artists were giving me a similar message to Kamau; it is okay not to be okay, just with a little more rhythm and cadence. And with that, I almost got comfortable with the state of sadness and emptiness. It was only when I realized that Mac Miller's fateful fight against depression was not meant to make me to concede defeat against this monster, but rather, it was meant to show me the way through which it will not be defeated.

Daniel 4:5; I saw a dream and it made me fearful, and these fantasies as I lay on my bed and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.

3.30 AM, Thursday 14th February 2019.

It has now been four months since the fateful death of Mac Miller. Upon his death, 2009 was my favorite track on his album Swimming, but now Wings is the track I had on repeat before I slept. I am not supposed to be awake at this time, but I am finding it extremely hard to sleep after what I had just dreamt. I would have dismissed this as just another dream, except the details were just too dramatic and I remember having this exact dream six years ago. I remember it all too vividly, the sky lighting up and someone with an extremely bright robe appearing in it. Behind him are thousands of other people dressed in glaring white robes. The glory is indescribable and immediately everyone around me bows their knee. I too kneel, but my heart is beating profoundly. I am trying to say the salvation prayer but my conscience knows all too well that it is too late. At this moment, I start crying. Six years ago, I woke up at this point, but tonight, I find myself thrown in the outer darkness. I am well aware of the many people around me but I cannot see them because of the sheer darkness. I intuitively know that I am surrounded by very evil creatures and the place is uncomfortably hot. One of these creatures throws a spear towards my head and just before it strikes, I wake up. My heart is pounding and my clothes drenched in sweat. I am exceedingly glad that it was just a dream but I cannot find my peace. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I could be thrown into such a place by God after He had deserted me for four years. And so the next day, I cry out to him on my bedroom window, asking Him what the point of my life was. I told Him blatantly that I wished he had never created me. But then, this moment preceded a series of other events that eventually leads me back to Christ in the most unanticipated way possible. Indeed, a story that deserves another forum.

Now, let me take you back towards the end of 2013 when I first had this dream. At this time, I was pursuing intimacy with God but I was finding it extremely hard to quit most of the things in my life that had stained me in sin. When I got that dream, I could not tell whether it was a message, a warning, or just my imagination. The week before, my local pastor had told me that God had shown him something about me and asked him to pray about me. He was undoubtedly a genuine man of God, but I did not believe him entirely. I know you are probably wondering what all this has to do with my depression, so let me explain using yet another dream, still, in 2013. It has been a few weeks since I got that terrifying dream, and I chose to conclude it was a product of my imagination. I could not visualize trading my favorite Drake verses for Bible verses. At this time, God is still speaking to my local pastor about me and so amid my rebellion; I am still convicted to the point of pursuing his presence from time to time. On one night, I get another strangely vivid dream. In this dream, we are out on a hike when I rebel against this pastor, leading a few other people with me. We then go into the wild and start doing whatever was pleasing to us. In our quest to find fulfillment though, we get trapped and lose our way back to our camp. This makes me so distressed and depressed. I find myself walking in circles over and over again full of anxiety and gloom. But then as I am that close to despair, I find my way back to the camp as the bus is leaving. Not all of us who left find our way back, but thankfully, I do. At the time, I was oblivious to the fact that God had just shown me the next five years of my life. Predictably, I dismissed it as just another dream and soon forgot about. Until God brought it to my remembrance immediately after I returned to Him earlier this year, coincidentally, on the day when it was fully fulfilled.

Jeremiah 29:12-13; Then you will call upon me and come to pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I now realize that I have wasted five years of my Spiritual life trying to understand God using my logic, thus missing Him completely and concluding the He is not real. I was a regular churchgoer yet my heart never truly connected with anything. Besides, I had responded to a few alter calls, expecting that I would feel some change within, but nothing changed. And so, Christianity became the subject of ridicule among my atheist friends. On 5th March 2019, however, I do not care about the fact that God does not fit into my scientific model or the fact that the story of Noah's ark seems entirely illogical. All I care about is the Lord hearing me and saving me from impending doom. I cry out to Him with all my heart, and immediately, I hear from Him. An incomparable fullness covers me and the voice of His Spirit starts ministering to my spirit. All my blind spots that were created by my logic are immediately opened and I instantly realize my mistake all along. God cannot be pursued through the mind; He can only be pursued through the heart. The void that I had on my heart all along was a void that can only be filled by Him. I was created to have a relationship with Him and nothing on earth can replace this. His thinking surpasses mine tremendously; he exists in a dimension far superior to science. The only way to access this dimension is by letting Him reveal it to you through His Spirit which is freely given out to all who accept His son. Hence, while I was in the world is looking for a sign to believe; those who believed in His son Jesus without a sign received them in enormous measures. God did not want me to seek signs; He wanted me to seek Him.

"You were not created to fail in anything you were purposed to do, and that is why we find it emotionally hard and frustrating living in a fallen world"- Pastor Kevin Zadai.

Over the next few months, the Lord continues revealing Himself more and more to me as I seek His heart. My relationship with the Lord blossoms . My heart is on fire for God and I cannot help but pursue His presence more and more. Instead of playing Mac Miller until 2 am, I worship Jesus till then. Instead of being woken at 3 am by nightmares, I am woken up by dreams containing prophetic messages. I am in extreme excitement when I pray for healing and it occurs immediately. I am thrilled when he appears to me in a dream, takes my hand and leads me into a dance like a child. The concept of life now makes sense. It is nothing but love. Despite my rebellion, I was simply created to love and be loved by the Lord. My heart was created to have this close fellowship but it was destroyed by sin. And because I was not designed to fail in anything I was purposed to do, my heart grieved at this failed relationship. Those lonesome nights were the tears of a heart which could not take failure. But sadly, this failure is the epitome of the fallen nature of the world. And that is why the enemy wanted me to believe that I am nothing more than a biological accident that had to be molded to fit into its expectations despite my heart telling me otherwise.

I was influenced to believe that it is okay for me to remain in my fallen state in grief as long as a few people cheered me on. Yet by the redemptive work of Christ on the cross, I could now access my redemptive ticket leading out of this fallen world, and thus giving my heart what it grieved for; a close fellowship with my maker. Although my mind could not comprehend how much I needed this intimacy, my spirit did, and so did the devil. And because he did not want me to perceive the message my heart was giving, he tried his best to make me comfortable in my grief, time and time again whispering in my ear that perhaps the only end is the end. But in truth, the end was the beginning, the beginning of fulfilling my purpose of creation in Christ. The closer I drew to Christ, the more I understood to unique each person was created to be. The works predestined for us are so exclusive that no one but you can do what God created you to do. For some people, this predestined purpose fits rather conveniently with the expectations of the society, hence making them comfortable in the system. For others, however, it is necessary to break away to accomplish your purpose. But as long as you substitute an intimate relationship with your maker with any other earthly relationship, as long as society has a firm grip preventing you to venture into what the voice of your creator tells you to do, your heart will forever grieve. And society will always whisper…

"It is okay not to be okay."

Ian