The Taco-Bell Turn

My sister and I have long lauded Taco-Bell as the cure of any hang-over. The term “Taco-Bell turn” refers to that moment of relief when your brain stops screaming, the intense tremors subside, your stomach agrees that the taco is delicious and decides to keep it inside instead of putting it in the toilet, and you actually feel like you may live to see tomorrow. This is a well documented phenomenon; we have all gone through those reckless college years.

There are many days when I feel like I just can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to get out of bed, I feel sick to my stomach. I just want to cry and cry, and break things. I can’t think straight. I’m so oppressed by the memories of abuse and the subsequent years I spent trying to forget while watching my life pass by without me. It is so literally overwhelming; I feel like I’m drowning. If tomorrow is going to be like today, I’d rather just sleep. Pessimism does not begin to describe this feeling, this complete, utter, total despondency. I trudge through the day just so I don’t entice questions from family and friends, because sometimes there just aren’t words to explain what is happening. How do you convey to someone what it is like to struggle daily with lost innocence and confusion, distrust and disgust, fear and blame, depression and anger? Surely no one can understand what it is like to look back and see so many years stolen from you. No one can understand how sad you are because you are so afraid of everything. No one can understand how it makes you feel when you don’t see any change; you face a life of sadness, anger, loneliness. You’re unable to enjoy life because you are afraid of everything and everyone.

I struggle with anxiety and depression, the cause of which is partly genetic and partly linked directly to the abuse and my subsequent coping and defense mechanisms. I take medicine, it takes the edge off. I’ve seen two different counselors; I didn’t stay with them long enough to see any real benefit. (Disclaimer: counseling is wonderful and effective, but you have to find the right counselor for you. Someone with whom you feel safe, someone who listens, someone who pushes you in a safe way, this is the right counselor for you. Keep looking until you find them.) Some days, NOTHING helps. Some days I am so beaten down, I can’t even pick up my head. I hate those days.

But, inevitably, and in His own time, God sends me my Taco-Bell Turn; something that changes my outlook, something that reminds me, that even though I’m struggling and in despair, God promises us that He works all things for our good. Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” It is hard when you’re feeling like death warmed over to see this hope and future as even being possible. It is beyond frustrating to be left out of the loop when it comes to your own life. But, we know that God loves us and created us and sent His son to save us. Is He really going to let us down? No way. I will admit, at times my faith has been shaken, but I have never lost my faith. That is not due to me, I am not strong enough on my own to hold on to hope when I am weak, that is the Holy Spirit, strengthening my faith. He has such a tight grip on me; He will never let me go. Romans 8:18-39 sums all this up and always awakens me out of my abuse hangover.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”