My Journey "Out of the Embers" - Nicky Martini

Bradley Jersak's Out of the Embers caught me by surprise. I thought my time to look back was done. At the beginning of this year, over a whole month, I experienced a creative miracle where, by the end, I knew God had healed my PTSD. Within the pages of Bradley's book, I can feel more waves of release and healing. 

 

From the “Prodigal Test” 

 

“God gives us the dignity of finding our own bottom. Once that happens, we might truly come home in a way that the elder brother apparently never did.”

 

It’s taken me days to get through the sections on Nietzsche and Simone Weil. Within those pages, I revisited the worst days of my deconstruction, primarily the grief that had consumed me. 

 

I never said “God is dead” but some nine years ago, the second part of my deconstruction came as what I can only call a wrecking ball. I remember the moment it happened. I was in church, mic in hand, about to blissfully share some grace encouragement. And before I could get a word out, God popped my bubble. It was like I had rose-coloured glasses on... and then I didn’t. All I could see were faces in the pews who were not interested in my wonderful grace words. They were suffering silently in a place where suffering was not allowed, or at least not talked about. Ours was a toxic positivity church of happy grace clappers, and I was one of them. I put the mic down, grabbed my husband and my children, and ran like a madwoman. I never went back.

 

Immediately after, my mum was diagnosed with cancer. She was in Greece with my dad and my brother, so the family flew her and my dad back to Australia. 

 

She survived another six weeks. I prayed for more time with her; I prayed for her healing, and when it became evident that that was not going to happen, I prayed that I would be there with her when she took her last breath. I lay on the floor next to her bed so as to be with her. It was important to me because we hadn’t had a great relationship when I was growing up. I was a terrible teenager. But for years, I had longed to live close to her and to have the opportunity to love on her as she deserved. To make up for lost years. 

 

The moment my mumma took her last breath, she was surrounded by her whole family. Except me. I was on the toilet. 

 

My faith at that moment collapsed. The wrecking ball hit with no mercy. Didn’t we learn in church that "all God’s promises were yes and amen" and that He gives us the desires of our hearts? Not only did God no answer the desire of my heart that I had hoped and prayed for over many years, but He took Mum home while I was on the toilet, shitting. It was like He had taken a knife, jabbed me in my heart, and twisted it to drive it home. I wasn’t angry with God; I was deeply hurt. I felt like the only One who I could trust had hurt me in the worst possible way. I can’t describe the pain in my heart. 

 

One morning after her funeral, I got in my car to go to work, and I said out loud, “God, you and I are done. Don’t talk to me anymore. I won’t be looking to hear from you or to feel you. I won’t be in any relationship with you. I won’t be loving you and certainly won’t be waiting to receive any love from you. You can leave me alone now.”

 

I said it and I meant it. I would repeat this many, many times over the next two years when I was alone. For the first time in my whole life, I stopped talking to God. I didn’t question his existence. I knew He was real and I knew He was with me all the time. But I chose deliberately not to be in relationship with Him. 

 

Still, my mumma’s death was not my rock bottom. It happened over the two years of ripping my heart out day after day. It was the numbing myself and not allowing myself to love and be loved by the God who had once swept me off my feet.

 

My rock bottom came when I had so shut myself off from God out of deep hurt that I could no longer feel Him. I don’t know how to describe living without God except to say I felt dead. I starved myself to death. I went about my days mechanically. No joy; just deep, deep sadness and inconsolable grief for my loss. I cut myself off from whatever few friends I had left because I somehow felt like my darkness would contaminate them, plus there was no room in my despair. 

 

Two years passed. My hubby Brett and I were driving a long distance and he had his music playing on random. What used to be my all-time favourite God song came on: Lifehouse's “Everything.”

 

Find me here and speak to me
I want to feel you, I need to hear you

 

I started to cry and Brett asked what was wrong. I told him that the hardest thing for me, doing this life without God, has been that I’m no longer moved by Him. Every time I used to hear this song, it was like every cell in my body would be caught up into some ecstatic place of joy indescribable but now I am not moved by Him anymore. Brett laughed and said, "Well, that’s an easy fix! You just have to let Him." 

 

And so I prayed, “Lord I miss you, I still feel hurt by you, but Lord, if you never answer a single prayer of mine it doesn’t matter. If I see no miracles but only pain and suffering in this world, nevertheless, I don’t want to do it on my own anymore. There’s no life for me apart from you. I need you, and I want to be moved by you again." And so He did. Once again, I fixed my eyes on the Lover of my soul for no other reason than to be loved and to love.

 

Reading Embers today, specifically Simone Weil's words about coming home, God reminded me of a recurring nightmare I used to have after my mum had passed. In the dream, my mum and I were lost and both of us trying to find our way home. Somewhere in the dream, I would lose her and desperately try to find her so we could find home together. The dream would always end before I found her and before we found home. 

 

Today, God spoke to me about how my mumma suffered from terrible grief in her life, something she never got over. Both my sister and I would say we don’t ever want to be like her, always grieving. For my sister, it stopped her from being able to grieve. And for me, I seemed to grieve immensely. I felt God saying, “Your mumma is home now with me and she no longer grieves. And you know I am always with you, and I am healing this grief." 

 

I think I read somewhere that Out of the Embers is like the healing balm of Gilead. Indeed it is.
I know it will bring much healing to many.