My Valley, Dark and Deep

Sometimes a valley is so deep and dark and devastating that you must be far, far away from the other side of it before you can look back and even begin to process it, to even fathom what God has done in you since then.

Almost nine years ago, I ended my commitment as a writer on AGoodTired after nearly six years. It was a sad decision, but not a hard one. You see, at that time, while pregnant with our fifth child, I experienced a shocking and catastrophic complication that put our unborn child’s chances of survival at 50%. Every week, for the entire pregnancy, I was seen by my doctor to determine if the baby was still alive or not. I was an emotional wreck. The stress and anxiety of wondering if I would hear a heartbeat or not, week after week, was overwhelming. I could barely talk about it, much less write about it. So, the “Closed” sign was hung on the doors of AGoodTired.

I had officially entered the valley.

Little did I know how long and deep that valley would extend.

On December 8, 2017, our treasure, our darling Eva Rose was born a month early. I had been told I might never meet her, yet she was placed in my arms. I was told to prepare myself for deformities, yet she was perfect. She was a miracle…my heart was filled to bursting with joy and thanksgiving.

And my heart wasn’t the only one. Her daddy was captivated by her, as well as her four siblings. Never has a child been more adored, doted on, and loved. She was the apple of all of our eyes, for we knew that the loss of her had been so close.

The next few circumstances that I’m about to share are the most horrific that I’ve ever been through in my life. Knowing that trauma, pain, and suffering exist, even understanding it within the scope of a biblical worldview and in light of God’s love and sovereignty, is a completely different animal than experiencing it firsthand. I will not go into much detail on some of the circumstances, but the first year of Eva’s life almost broke me. Not broke…shattered. Uprooted. Ruined.

At six months of age, we almost lost Eva to an unimaginably horrific accident. One that I will speak absolutely nothing about. But know that it was worse than a nightmare.

I immediately spiraled.

After truly hearing the Gospel for the first time in college, my life was redeemed by the blood of Christ and I was made new, inside and out. My faith grew deep roots thanks to a wonderful Bible-teaching church, discipleship, and encouraging Christian friends. Fast forward almost fifteen years, to the birth of Eva, and I would have considered myself by then to be “a somewhat mature Christian.” In other words, I was fairly confident in my faith, resolve, and commitment to Jesus.

Daring to look back now, at the time of the valley, I can see that, yes, I loved King Jesus with all of my heart, but my faith had never really been tested. And that’s not a bad thing! God is the one who allows in the mountains and valleys. But faith that hasn’t been truly tested, refined, purified…it can have some impurities lurking within. And when faith is tested by fiery trials, those impurities break down.

During my time in the valley, my faith was found to be so full of impurities that there wasn’t much left.

After Eva’s accident, every waking moment was darkness. Sleeping and dreaming were darkness. The constant “what if God hadn’t saved her” plagued me to the point that I sometimes couldn’t remember if she had actually died or not.

And when I say that God saved her…I mean it to the deepest degree of legitimacy and reality that I can convey. Where we failed her, God incredibly intervened. He entered the scene the way a raging lion would if he was being provoked. God literally, physically reached down from Heaven and plucked our infant daughter out of the jaws of death.

You would think that overwhelming thankfulness and marvel at God’s plan for Eva’s life would have consumed my thoughts. But shamefully, it didn’t. Rather, I went in the complete opposite direction. I constantly and incorrectly saw, in my mind, her funeral, her headstone, her empty crib…even though none of those things had even happened. She was still alive! But, I was terrified all the time…of how easily any of my children could die and how I was powerless to stop any of it.

Over the course of several months, fear and anxiety and shame gained a stronger and deeper foothold in my heart and mind. I can’t even remember how I parented my children during that time. Everything felt like a nightmare, a very scary one.

Only a few months after the accident, another circumstance further weakened my already faltering faith. After a late-evening grocery run, I parked the car at the top of the driveway and told the older four kids to go inside and start getting ready for bed. Eva was asleep in her car seat, so my plan was to quickly run grocery bags to the back door before I woke her up. After the last bag had been brought in, I went to Eva’s car seat to wake her and bring her in. She was gone. Even as I write this, almost 8 years later, my hands are shaking as I remember the feeling of that horrible moment.

Eva was not in her car seat.

Before I could scream, or collapse, or even think, I heard a sound. A whimper. I looked towards the bottom of the driveway, and there was my infant daughter. I rushed to her and found her bloody and bruised. I discovered later that one of our children, thinking to help me, had unbuckled Eva when we parked in the driveway. She had rolled out of her car seat, fell out of the van onto her face, and then rolled down the driveway. My poor baby was hurt so badly, and my poor child was traumatized at feeling responsible.

I spiraled further.

A few months later, on Eva’s first birthday, I was holding her on my hip as I was about to head downstairs. On the very first step, at the top of the stairs, my foot slipped and I fell with her. Her leg was crushed between the edge of the steps and my spine. I broke both bones in her right leg. My back is still suffering from the fall to this day.

At that point I hit rock bottom…there was no more spiraling, just the bottom.

I was so shaken, so ruined by the traumatic events of Eva’s first year that I was completely exposed and vulnerable to darkness. And when I say darkness, I mean evil.

In all of my years of being a follower of Christ, one subject that I had never spent too much time studying was “Spiritual Warfare.” Oh sure, I had read the verse in Ephesians about putting on your armor and wielding the Sword of Truth. But who was the enemy? And why the posture of defense?

Because of the demonic, spiritual attack that can occur when a Believer is caught off guard, or in a weakened and vulnerable state. Like me.

By the time Eva was in her cast, my faith had been whittled down to mere scraps. I was like the old, slow gazelle at the rear of the pack…easy pickings for the hyenas. And the hyenas came for me.

The hyenas came in the form of howling accusations and reasons to doubt God, of hands around my throat, of icy cold nightmares…and they always came at night. The more scared I became, the more visceral they became. My mouth couldn’t even move to call out the name of Jesus.

It was incredibly scary. And consistent.

I, a follower of King Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, a child of the Most High God, was being hunted down by demons. It couldn’t be more humbling, even humiliating, to share all of this, but I know now that I was not above it. And I certainly wasn’t overcoming it.

The first glimmer of hope came when I talked to someone about everything I had been going through. This might sound crazy – it sounds crazy as I write it! – but I hadn’t shared with anyone, not even my husband, about the encroaching darkness that had been terrorizing me for months. I was so ashamed and so scared. And part of me felt that by talking about it, the hyenas would become more real and even scarier.

But as I nervously opened up to a fellow believing momma, light began to flood in. And gallons of tears flooded out. I began to lean on the faith of others, for my own was toppled over at the time. My ears, which had somehow become plugged up so that I literally couldn’t hear God’s Word read or sung, began to hear again.

Slowly, and I mean very slowly, I began to remember things. That God had saved our daughter…over and over and over. That I had been attacked by darkness, but not captured by it. That the valley had been undeniably long and terrifying, but I hadn’t walked through it. I had been carried through it.

Finally, I opened up to my husband about the terrors I had experienced, and he made the most bold and husbandly decision that he could have possibly made…we moved.

He removed us from where I had suffered so much and replanted us somewhere we could start over and thrive. It was a saving grace for me, and an incredible picture of salvation. The time of the valley was over.

“There is no pit so deep
that God’s love is not deeper still.”
~ Corrie ten Boom

I readily admit that I did not struggle well. At all. In my fear and grief, I completely lost sight of my Savior and, like a child, went wandering way too far off. And alone, at that.

That’s a hard pill to swallow for a “seasoned” follower of Jesus. Up until the time of the valley, I would have liked to believe that maybe I could be a Corrie ten Boom…that when tested by unimaginable trials, not only would my faith remain strong, but my joy would increase. That I could sing praises in the midst of tragedy. That, like Job, I could boldly proclaim, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

But I was no Corrie. Rather, I wilted.
What happened?
How did it happen??

I truly believe that the hiding away of my struggles is what almost did me in. By not exposing my fear, anxiety, and doubt to Truth and Light and by not leaning on the faith of others, my faith became shrouded in darkness. And fear, like darkness-loving mold, began to grow. I allowed my thoughts and my imagination to run rampant with dangerous hypotheticals and “what-ifs.” It’s like I got stuck in the fear of what almost happened.

How different my valley might have been had I simply opened up sooner and allowed in some help! One of the greatest treasures of the Christian life is the camaraderie between fellow believers and the wisdom and encouragement that we can offer each other. I forfeited that blessing for a dangerous amount of time. Looking back now, I can humbly admit that yes, God in His providence had placed a valley in my life, but I had continued to dig an unnecessarily longer and deeper valley for myself.

Valleys come in all shapes and sizes. Mine was a valley of fear and doubt brought on by traumatic circumstances. There are postpartum valleys, difficult marriage valleys, wayward children valleys…they all challenge our faith and identity in Christ in varying degrees. And they all reveal impurities and refine our faith.

But for the believer, even the weakest and most humbled one like me, there is always an end to the valley. And once out and far, far away from it, you can tentatively look back and see the way God sustained and carried you. If your valley was anything like mine, you weren’t even aware that He was carrying you the entire time.

“Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord Himself, is my
strength and my defense;
He has become my salvation.”
Isaiah 12:2

It is fairly common and easy for believers to be aware of the havoc that sin, temptation, and culture wages on our souls. I don’t know a professing Christian who would say otherwise. But, unfortunately, what isn’t as common, and is much less talked-about and understood, is the havoc that spiritual forces and emotional struggles like PTSD and postpartum can wage on our souls. Being underprepared and under-educated in those vicious arenas can leave you in the spiraling and barely-surviving state that I found myself in.

As I tell my teenage sons, it’s much easier to learn from someone else’s mistakes than to suffer the consequences of making your own.

Learn from my mistakes. The mistakes of keeping my mouth sealed shut because I was too embarrassed to be honest, of being wholly unprepared for the spiritual onslaught that I was about to be confronted with, and of holding tight to my dread.

Please reach out if you are wilting in your valley. You are not alone.

Related Posts That You Might Enjoy:

• The Mother Who Molts
• He Gives And Takes Away
• Silver Linings
• When My Bathroom Is Cleaner Than My Heart