So I just found out on Thursday that I’m moving to Surrey, BC for the next six months. Much has happened since the last time I posted many full moons ago. No, I didn’t ‘full’ moon anyone. Just halfers maybe hah (long-johns still on). But that’s besides the point.
Waaay back in September I felt the Lord was clearly calling me to Briercrest so I dropped everything and drove out shortly before classes began.
O sorry going back before that, end of July I guess, I quit cycling competitively. The reason for that being life itself was becoming harder and I realized how much pressure I was putting on myself in forcing myself to work out all the time. It was becoming too much to always have to ride hours on end each day and if I missed a day I beat myself up pretty bad about it. It just wasn’t worth it anymore, too much stress. (Ok, so I know what you’re all thinking. DUH! We saw that like from the second we met you Haley. I was so focused on it. I’m a little slow all right haha.)
During Kaleo I had started throwing up my food very occasionally when I’d mess up and eat a lot of something I shouldn’t. Once Kaleo ended, this became much more frequent. I’d go on tours with the Team and race hard in extreme heat, day after day, not eat much and then throw up my dinner that we ate as a Team. Looking back I don’t know how my body was able to compensate for that. This also contributed to why I needed to drop cycling for some time.
Now, going back to B-crest. For those of you that don’t know the first semester was extremely challenging for me personally. The classes I took were great and I learned tons. However I think cycling was a very tight lid I had snapped on to keep everything suppressed and not let anything leak. First semester was about that lid coming off. I started out so excited for getting rid of the lies I knew existed and to pursue my Jesus and His truth. I wanted freedom and I wanted it desperately. Little did I know how engrained and consuming these dark lies had become as they had sat brewing in my mind unspoken for more then half of my life. Speaking things out into the open, pushing thoughts from the darkness of my mind and heart into the light became huge for me. As stupid and unreasonable as they sounded. As I uncovered this lid, massive monsters that I have little control over have come roaring out and are towering over me. The more I speak, the deeper and darker things go. I find myself in a place I thought I’d never be again. I didn’t want to go back into this intense despair but I don’t think I can experience freedom without traveling this road first. Tormented by lies and feeling so empty. I’ve been in and out of hospitals throughout the last five months and diagnosed with bulimia and depression.
Second semester took a bit of a different direction. I ended up back at home in MB. Home has been real hard in multiple ways. The circumstances surrounding this decision added to the deep pain I was already feeling. Loneliness has been my unwanted constant companion. I often can’t feel the Lord near and beg Him to make this knowledge of Him that feels fake so intimately known by my heart, to the very core of who I am in Him. I long to want what He wants so much more than what I want. Many moments with no feeling at all have accompanied me this year. I am so numb sometimes I think it would be safer for me to feel the pain as scary and unbearable as that may be. Right now I’m desensitized. I recognize I’m in a dangerous place but it doesn’t bother me very often at all. I also recognize that being in this place the Lord has protected me from much. I fail to be thankful for it though. In fact I get angry often because He’s protecting me. I have such trouble accepting His love for me, I find myself having to fight often to not push everyone away and actually ask for help. I keep telling myself I’m not going to make it through this. That I can’t handle the pain any longer. The Lord however, has a different plan (how typical right, I know so little about His great plan). My strength is failing both mentally and physically these days and I feel like His strength is no where to be found in my eyes, no matter how hard I search and plead, but I sense it’s got to be there since I’m still breathing, still battling. I frustrate myself with how little sense I make sometimes. With conflicting desires and loud voices in my head demanding things of me.
Anyways, I don’t know what He’s doing. I’m exhausted. I’m weak. I’m numb to the pain often and when I do feel, I wish I didn’t.
So, moving to BC...
There is a program there called Mercy Ministries (mercyministries.ca - check it) that is pretty much a hospital that has Christ at the center. After a long application process they called me this last Thursday about coming in. They usually give two weeks notice but the woman who’s been talking with me over the last five months felt strongly that I needed to be rushed in as soon as possible and encouraged me heavily to come next week. This is a bit crazy since there are over fifty other girls on the waiting list. It’s estimated that I’ll be there for the next six months going through counseling, seeing doctors and working though some of this pain. I don’t see another option at this point and have clear affirmation from others in taking this step of obedience. I don’t want to go. I have no idea what the Lord intends to do with me there but I am trying to trust that it is good. I’ve had assignments from them ever since I was put on the waiting list. Reading a book full of the testimonies of other women who have had Mercy change their lives was one of them. I was amazed at the power of God in these lives but at the same time found my story to be so different from theirs. It definitely had similarities but the one major difference was that they didn’t know the Lord or had walked away from Him before coming to Mercy. Once they experienced His unconditional love through the staff and were directed back to Him, their lives changed significantly and powerfully. This puts a big question mark in my head because I have been journeying with Him through all of these struggles. I am asking for your prayers as I head out on this journey. I know it will be dang hard but want to expect and anticipate all the Lord has to offer in this. It reminds me a bit of the second semester of Kaleo. Going into something I thought I didn’t want to go into after months of the Lord working on me. I keep having to remind myself of what came of that. How much God blew my mind. How it was so much sweeter then anything I could’ve imagined in January. Then my incentive was the sick biking on the island, now my incentive is God and God alone. While I was praying about this decision after they called me I heard Jesus speak these words to me - ‘You’re more ready than you know.’ At first I wasn’t sure if it was Him, I think the enemy loves to put these doubts in my mind constantly but over the past day I been assured it’s from Him. So now is the time. I’m just going to do it - trusting. I’m going to pack my bags and will arrive Thursday May, 12.
Please be praying this week that I just make it there. That I would arrive in one piece (mostly out of fear of myself and my own free will) even if it’s not perfect, just to get there is going to be a challenge. I’d love for you guys to be sending me out in prayer.
I won’t have internet at all so you’ll know why I won’t answer fb, emails or able to read the blog. Contact is pretty limited so maybe be sending up prayers instead - I’d love that. I can receive phone calls I think on Sundays (?) but will write in the comments when I know for sure (just get the # off of the MM website I think). And I can receive mail! I’d love letters if anyone’s up for it.
A few psalms that have been significant to me lately that might be a good start for praying over me:
23, 27, 42, 43, 51, 62, 63, 92, 107, 139 ... ok I better stop haha. Or just turn the Spirit loose in leading you.
I love you all.
By His grace and in His love, your sister,
Hales
