Hope's Journey: A Life Worth Living (Loving Life Series) [Paperback]

She was born in Crawley, England but spent all of her childhood in South Africa and now lives in England along with her South African accent and Brazillian husband, Eric. Angela has a passion to see people reach their full potential and in particular has a heart to see women set free from all the lies that the enemy has fed them.
Loving Life is a series of books that will cover many areas that keep today's women from loving life. She writes from her testimony of life that was once in darkness and is now setting free and living it up in the abundance that Jesus has given her.

"God what is wrong with me, why am I like this? This just isn't normal! AND I am a leader in a Church."

This was my conversation with God not very long ago. Yet again, I was having another attack of "whatever"! I have no idea what it is that comes at me and I have no idea why I go there or even how I started going there in the first place. I have no idea what to call this "attack" so out of pure frustration I called it "whatever". Whatever it is or whatever it means or what causes it, I just don't know but whatever it is it simply has to go. Even though it is "whatever" which sounds very blasé it is still a very real place that I find myself in from time to time. Oh, and yes, you did read correctly, I am a leader in a Church. I am the executive pastor of our Church, my husband is the senior pastor and I have four beautiful children who serve at Church with us. Are you confused yet? Well imagine how I must have felt at times like these. It simply doesn't add up, it doesn't make any sense at all. I love my life, I love God and I love my family... so what is this all about? Do I want to die? No! Do I want to self harm just for fun? No!

For some reason I get to this place where I feel so hurt or so depressed that I just end up in this place, sitting on the bathroom floor with a razor in my hand...
I guess you want to know what happened that day. Well I did cut myself with the razor. Not enough to kill myself because I actually didn't want to die. Why did I do it? I was fed up! Completely, totally and utterly fed up. Fed up of always ending up at this same place where I am wrestling in my mind. Fed up of being so messed up inside. Fed up of sitting on the bathroom floor resisting the devil and all the games he plays in my mind. Just totally and utterly fed up! Worst of all - I am a LEADER!
In the past when I struggled it was still bad but I wasn't responsible for a congregation so it wasn't as bad... but this! This is just bad, very bad. How can this be, it can't be right? I will have to stop leading, this was my conclusion. God cannot bless this, how could he possibly bless me when I preach or sing or teach or advise young girls on how to have a great life. I sat on the bathroom floor that night totally fed up with the fight! Instead of crying out God this time I spoke to the devil. This is what I said:

"Satan I don't want to die, I am never going to kill myself. Surely my history shows you this! I am not brave enough to inflict the size of cut that it would take to kill myself. The pain alone would stop me from doing a proper job. I don't know why I am facing this AGAIN but I do love my life and really don't want to be having this conversation with you yet again. I am fed up of fighting you on this. I am never going to kill myself."

I took the razor blade and made a few small scratches on my wrist!

"This is a far as I will ever go and you know this is the truth! If you want to keep bringing me to this place this is all you will get, a few scratches!"

I took the broken razor along with all the broken pieces lying on the floor, wrapped it up in toilet paper and hid it at the bottom of the bin. Then I went upstairs and covered up my wrist hoping no one would ever see it. From past experience I knew the scratches would heal in about a week, so I had a week of being careful, always wearing long sleeved tops. It was winter so it was not too difficult to keep my wrists hidden.
The following day I contacted a woman I know who had struggled with self harming and suicide in the past and asked her if it the temptation ever goes away. She said probably not but each time you are tempted you get stronger at resisting. I accepted this and thought I would just have to get stronger. A few weeks passed and life went on as it does but inside of me was a deep and desperate desire to be free of this. My whole life I had struggled with depression, extreme emotions and attempted suicides. For each and every attempted suicide I can honestly say that deep down inside I never really wanted to die. Maybe you are thinking it was attention seeking? But I honestly don't think it was, or even a desperate cry for help. That was definitely a part of it and it is how it started, but it later developed into something else.