Oh Taste & See (Hope Restored)

It's been a very long time since I last posted a blog entry. I do, however, have a good reason. Since my last post, God had taken me through the deepest, darkest, lowest place I've ever been in my entire life. Scripture talks about these places as being metaphorical Valleys. Like the "valley of the shadow of death." Well friends, I was in the very shadow of death. Although I had not lost anyone, nor had any horrible circumstance plagued my life, I felt a more intense, gaping void of darkness within me than I had ever thought possible. Just for the sake of recognizable nomenclature, we'll call it depression. It took over. It left me and my family desolate. It was deep. And what's worse is that I had no idea where it come from, how it got there, or when it would leave. The gnashing pit in my stomach that was never relieved, the hours spent staring at the floor with my distraught widow crying next to me, the never-ending thought of the extension cord on the second story of the building in which I lived.

It. Was. Horrible.

Many of you prayed for me. Thank you. Honestly, I might not have made it without you... not to be overly melodramatic, I was just so confused and in so much pain. But that depression is far from my point. My point is that:

God freed me.

He set me free. One day, He literally decided that it had been enough and the 6 of us prayed in the dirt, late that February night.... and He set me free. Just as quickly as it had come, it left. It's an amazing story and if you'd like to hear it, I will joyfully share it with you in person (it's a little too special to post on a blog). Now I'm not here to make some kind of theological statement about Christians who can become demon-possessed. I'm not making a statement like that because I just have no earthly understanding of what happened to me. Although I'm certain that my depression was completely demonic, I have no idea why it happened. But I can tell you this: it happened. And I can also tell you this: God is sovereign (whatever that means). And I can tell you this: I'm so glad He set me free.

I know Jesus more now than I did last year, and if I know anything about Him it's that, through it all, He was there. Yesterday morning as we were spending time together, He told me that He wanted me to Taste & See His goodness the way that David talked about it in Psalms. Me and Allie were listening to the album "Give Up" by the Postal Service the other day and I remembered the first time I had ever heard that album. It came out when I was 13 years old and I remember one night listening to my iPod while I was in bed. "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" was the first song I heard and I remember it vividly.

I took it in like I was drinking a cup of coffee. I connected with it as if I were ingesting it. The lyrics, the drum machine, the synths, and Ben Gibbard's voice were all like a mixture of flavors that were so easy to swallow. I tasted it and it was amazing. I remember feeling the same way about "Sigh No More" by Mumford and Sons. It was like the first time I ever tasted Old Rasputin, or Gelato. Or like the time Russ brought his Chemex to the church where I was working and made me some fresh roasted Ethiopian Harrar by Kuma coffee. Or the time I had a cortado from VB's that tasted like watermelon, or the Burundi Coffee from Seeds that was like chocolate covered blueberries... I connected. I tasted it. I felt it.

That's like Jesus! We can connect with Him that way!! Except He's like way better than a cup of coffee.... It actually makes the cups of coffee better! We can live in the unbelievable gifts He gives us as we're connected to Him. He loves that.

So, in early February I came out of the most miserable season of my entire life, which ushered me into the hands-down, most beautiful season of my entire life. Literally, the next day and every day after became song after song of praise. Countless moments of thanksgiving. Many tears of joy that the darkness was gone and was replaced with such marvelous light. Every morning in my journal several times: "... thank you, thank you, thank you."

I don't know why it happened. It didn't fit in with my well packaged theology. I still don't know what I would say to myself 3 months ago, if given the chance. But I know, somehow, it was so I could taste the goodness of my God. It was my paradox road to Joy. My avenue of understanding. It cracked the door of the tiny shed I called Holy Spirit, and led me by the hand into a forrest of greenery. I still don't get it. I still can't answer the question Austin asked me last summer: "If God is good, why does all this shit happen in the world?," but I promise He is. There is pain, and God is good. Somehow they're connected. Somehow, our pain is intrinsically linked to experiencing that very goodness of God. I don't know that because I read a book by John Piper, I know that because I was buried in sadness and covered in pain, yet through it all, He was there and He was good.

This song pissed me off so bad during my depression... yet God used it powerfully to bring me through it.

At the time, it wasn't well with my soul, but it would be. He held me. He knew me.

In the midst of my sorrow, the one word my dad kept hearing for me was hope. Almost every time he saw me, he would remind me. Pretty cool that we live in a building called Hope Restored. The darkness that was around me was, in fact, directly linked to the building itself, so it was more than ironic foreshadowing that wrote the end of that story. My prayer is that my journey will serve to bring hope to others that are hopeless, because I sure was. I was able to write about 6 songs in the middle of depression and on the brink of delivery, so maybe one of these days God will allow me to record an album for those like me.

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Listen. There will be pain, but God's goodness is not contesting against it to see who will win. God's goodness is the painting in which it is portrayed. Pain is not a sigh of failure from the breath of God, it is a minor chord in the crescendo of God's plan. The key will resolve, and it will be the most beautiful piece of art we've ever experienced. We will devour the goodness of God in our pain like a starving man at a feast. Like a crying baby calmed by its mother. Like the whole of creation singing praises in the Goodness of our God!

Breathe Him in. Taste Him. He is good.  

-Trey

ps. We also had a kid:

pps. And you should really listen to this song: