Death by Decision

The decisions I made a year ago that felt like truth death have given way to new life.

I’ve had a rough year. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since I seem to take every opportunity to talk about how difficult it’s been. But the truth of it keeps hitting me in the most unexpected ways. Usually as I sit and listen to others share how hard their year has been too. Or walk with them through impossible trials. Or sit in the silence of a still morning and pray over them.

I’m not the only one battered and beaten after 2023. A lot of us are a little more weathered sliding into 2024. A little shaken up. A little worse for wear.

Or maybe a lot worse for wear.

And now, on the other side of hard, in this newly tilled garden where difficult lessons have grown into fruit-yielding blossoms with a bounty to give, I like to say that I don’t even know the girl I was a year ago. She’s a stranger. That poor, wretched girl died and was reborn as someone wiser, smarter, mentally healthier.  

But, as I’ve just found a new level of healthy and mentally stable, I’ve begun to think about this last year from this new perspective where lessons have been learned and growth and maturity have been hard won. And what has struck me the most is how different I am today than I was a year ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked that version of Rachel—the one still too naïve to see how problematic a lot of her relationships were, the one who had yet to learn how to build boundaries—and keep them—the one who accepted responsibility that didn’t belong to her and signed up for everything offered no matter the time commitment or toll it would take. Who wore busyness like a badge. And willingly let other people pull her in every direction out of some misplaced sense of loyalty and duty.

Maybe I like her even more now that she’s been through so much. She didn’t know what she didn’t know. She didn’t know how hard the year was going to be. Or how much people were going to hurt her. She didn’t know that her lowest was so very low. Or that rock bottom wasn’t a hard landing, but a sharp, jagged bed of boulders. It wouldn’t catch my fall. It would break my fall—in the most literal of ways.

And more than like her, I respect her. She’s the girl who had to look at her life and decide something needed to change, who came face-to-face with the worst of her and trudged on. She’s the girl who waded through deep waters, her mouth barely above the turbulent current, her feet constantly slipping on the slick stones at her feet, her hands reaching out and grasping at nothing. But that girl made it across. She survived.

Now, obviously, this girl is still me. An earlier model perhaps, but still the same flesh and blood. Who I am today is the result of who that girl was a year ago, pressed into a new mold, ground to dust and ash and reformed at the hands of the Master Potter. 

But what has hit me the hardest (in the best way) about the difference between that girl and this girl is that all those decisions I started making a year ago, all those choices and burned bridges and goodbyes that felt like absolute death, have given way to new life.

Let me say that again, a year ago, I made decisions that felt as real and heartbreaking as actual deaths. I blew up relationships. I walked away from lucrative job opportunities. I started recognizing very toxic and problematic people in my life and began the hard, excruciating process of permanently evicting them.

Until December of 2022, the door to my life had been wide open. I had never heard of a boundary before, let alone how to build and keep one. And so I let anyone and everything through that door without question. There was no vetting process. Or even hesitation when things turned out badly. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped believing people when they told me who they were, and instead chose to make up better, more beautiful, more altruistic versions of them out of the people I knew they could be. The people I wanted them to be.

Then all at once, through a series of hurtful, unfortunate events, I woke up.

Maybe it was because so much happened all at once. And most of it was unrelated, but thematic in how I found myself heartbroken and betrayed. Maybe it was because I had been on a slow slide towards depression for a few years. Or maybe it was because I had reached the end of my long rope of patience and excuses.

Whatever the reason, I found the deep cut of rock bottom and said, “No more.” Well, okay, first I found myself fully depressed and hurting and grieving and I didn’t know what to do with any of it, so I jumped into therapy feet first. But then, after that, with the help of a professional, we began to pinpoint the toxic places I had let grow and fester and spread like a plague through my happiness and peace. I learned what boundaries are. Then I started implementing those necessary boundaries. I healed (and am still healing) from incredibly traumatic moments both in my childhood and adult life. I faced the worst of me and then clawed and crawled and dug myself out of that awful, hard, dark place.

And none of it was done outside of the grace of God. He was there too. Pointing me in the direction of the best therapist I could have imagined for me. Making ways where there were no ways, where doors had been closed and locked and welded shut, where an ocean spanned the distance, and yet He walked us through on dry land. Gentling me and maturing me and showing me true peace, true Love, true identity in Him.

There was no healing without Him. And yet with Him, I healed in ways I never knew were possible.

So here, on the other side, I can look back at all those decisions that felt like true death and see the life they have reaped. The pure, beautiful, joyful, (still hard), wonderful life they birthed.

I am staggered by this small truth. Upended by it. I wish I could show you the bruised and battered heart that felt like her world was literally ending a year ago. The tears I have cried. The grief I have felt in my bones. The hopeless despair I hid in the pit of my soul as I took dull scissors to my life, not having a clue how it would work out. Or if it even would.

And yet today . . . my head is tilted toward the sun, and I am breathing deeply this fresh air that would not have been possible had I not gone through the Valley of the Shadow of Death to reach this mountain peak.

Now, just to be clear, that doesn’t mean my life isn’t without struggle or that I have somehow eradicated all hardship. Oh, no. There is still plenty of life to live—which usually means some kind of relentless pain and suffering. But there are also heaps and heaps of healing. And perspective. And a road map to healthy relationships with a highlighted warning list of toxic traits to look out for. There is still pain. But there is peace in this soul that I didn’t know was possible.

And so even though nothing about this blog sounds fun or exciting, I invite you into the death with me. Because I know the life that lives on the other side.

Make decisions that feel like death. Cut out the diseased places. Build borders. Erect boundaries. Protect your peace. Go through the fire that will burn all the way through, the one you will not believe you can survive. Trust the God of Creation to pull you through. To walk with you all the while. To redeem every last step.

Life waits for you on the other side. And it will be more beautiful than you can ever imagine. It will be fuller and more vibrant and so much sweeter for having gone through the death of those things that were not worthy of you.

We get this one life after all. This one earthly existence to enjoy. It might never be easy, but it can be oh so good. We just have to decide to make it so.