Da lyset gikk av

Tjue års sykdom påvirket troen min enormt. Da jeg ble syk som 23-åring gikk lyset av i livet mitt og det ble stummende mørkt. Lenge forstod jeg ikke hva det var som skjedde, og tidlig på 2000-tallet var det heller ingen leger eller folk rundt meg som først kunne si meg hva som foregikk. Legen jeg oppsøkte sa at han aldri hadde opplevd noe lignende, og ikke visste hva han skulle gjøre. Det verste var hvordan dette gikk ut over troen min. Da jeg ble syk føltes det som om Gud forlot meg da jeg trengte Han mest. Det ble årevis med sjelens mørke natt og føltes som et enormt svik. Hvordan kunne dette skje meg? Jeg hadde jo tjent Gud trofast hele livet. Jeg ble fylt med dyp bitterhet og hat mot Gud, som hadde tatt helsen fra meg og latt dette skje med meg. Jeg klarte ikke be, lese bibelen eller forholde meg til taler og lovsanger. Uten Gud føltes livet totalt meningsløst, og det verste var at jeg allikevel visste at Han var der. Jeg tvilte på veldig mye, men ikke Hans eksistens. Vissheten om at Han fantes, men ikke brydde seg eller så meg, gav meg veldige hjertekvaler. 

Et år eller to inn i sykdommen, da jeg framdeles kunne føle sjokk over at dette i det hele tatt skjedde med meg, var det over tid som om det bare var en liten lysstrimle et sted i horisonten. Den endret ikke noe, det ble fort veldig mørkt igjen, og det kom ingen forklaring, men med lysstripen ante jeg noe helt nytt - at Gud Far hadde latt meg skli ned av det gode varme fanget sitt, for at jeg skulle kunne gå selv og bli en selvstendig, troende person, og at Han nå ønsket meg velkommen inn i sin verden, etter at jeg hadde krevd så lenge at Han skulle komme inn i min, og forstå meg, og gjøre noe i mitt univers. Svaret mitt var et sukk, jeg tror ikke jeg orket si noe som helst, og det var langt fra en uttalt bønn, men bare et lite nikk i sjelen min om at det var greit, at jeg gav slipp på at Han måtte se det fra mitt ståsted, og at jeg var med på å gå selv og se med Hans øyne inn i Hans verden.

Livet fortsatte å være mørkt i mange år, faktisk ganske beksvart, men nå hadde det kommet en anelse, som foregikk dypt i sjelen min uten ord som jeg kunne artikulere, om at det skjedde noe i kulissene som jeg ikke så, og at å komme inn i Guds verden istedenfor å tvinge Han inn i min, kom med en form for trøst og håp - fra andre enn Gud. Jeg begynte å innse at jeg ikke hadde sluppet mennesker helt til i livet mitt, jeg forstod og klarte for første gang å sette ord på at jeg følte meg dypt ensom, og at jeg trengte folk. Jeg som hadde levd et rikt liv med masse venner og god familie, men uten å virkelig åpne opp, og uten egentlig å trenge noen. Den forlatte babyen som i ti måneder prøvde å klare seg alene uten mor, bodde framdeles inni meg. 

Disse årene med sjokk og sorg, bitterhet og skuffelse satte seg dypt, og selv om mye endret seg - jeg lærte meg å snakke om meg selv, jeg fikk bedt mennesker om tilgivelse og tilgav andre, jeg begynte å tro (teoretisk) at kanskje Gud var glad i meg allikevel, og kjærligheten jeg begynte å oppleve fra andre endret livet mitt - så satt allikevel bitterheten fast i det skjulte, og den ville ikke gi slipp.

ENGLISH BELOW with help from chatgpt

____________________________________________________________________________________

Twenty years of illness had a profound impact on my faith. When I became ill at 23, the light in my life went out, and I was plunged into complete darkness. For a long time, I didn’t understand what was happening, and in the early 2000s, there were no doctors or people around me who could tell me what was going on. The doctor I consulted said he had never seen anything like it before and didn’t know what to do.

The worst part was how this affected my faith. When I got sick, it felt like God abandoned me when I needed Him most. It became years of the soul’s dark night, and it felt like an enormous betrayal. How could this happen to me? I had served God faithfully my entire life. I was filled with deep bitterness and hatred toward God, who had taken my health from me and allowed this to happen. I couldn’t pray, read the Bible, or relate to sermons and worship songs. Without God, life felt utterly meaningless — and the worst part was that I still knew He was there. I doubted many things, but not His existence. The certainty that He existed, but didn’t care or see me, caused me tremendous heartache.

A year or two into the illness, when I was still in shock that this was even happening to me, it was as if, over time, a tiny sliver of light appeared somewhere on the horizon. It didn’t change anything — the darkness would quickly return — and no explanations came, but through that sliver of light, I sensed something entirely new: that God the Father had let me slip down from His warm, safe lap so that I could learn to walk on my own and become an independent, believing person. That now He was inviting me into His world after I had spent so long demanding that He enter mine, and do something within my universe.

My response was a sigh — I don’t think I even had the strength to say anything — and it was far from a spoken prayer, just a small nod in my soul that it was okay. That I was willing to let go of insisting He see things from my perspective, and that I was willing to walk and see through His eyes into His world.

Life continued to be dark for many years — in fact, pitch-black — but now there was a faint sense, deep within my soul and beyond words I could articulate, that something was happening behind the scenes that I couldn’t see. And that entering God’s world, rather than trying to force Him into mine, brought a kind of comfort and hope — from others besides God.

I began to realize that I hadn’t fully let people into my life. For the first time, I could understand and put into words that I felt deeply lonely and that I needed others. I had lived a rich life, with many friends and a good family, but without truly opening up and without ever really needing anyone. The abandoned baby who, for ten months, had tried to survive alone without a mother, was still living inside me.

These years of shock and grief, bitterness and disappointment, became deeply ingrained in me. And even though a lot changed — I learned to talk about myself, I asked for forgiveness and forgave others, I began to (theoretically) believe that maybe God loved me after all, and the love I started to experience from others transformed my life — the bitterness remained hidden deep inside, refusing to let go.