Post 2: A Mysterious Burden
Image: AI generate image of the Holy Spirit descending upon a man and convicting him of sins.
Post Summary: In the previous post, I shared a bit about my life of sin before Christ. This post discusses how God's conviction came into my life.
On Tues, Feb 13, 2024, somewhere around 930pm that evening, I began to experience this sudden, unexplainable heaviness (or perhaps “burden”) which came into my spirit from out of nowhere while I was playing video games. There was no sort of physical pain nor mental anguish nor depression nor any preceding condition that could potentially explain why I'd feel great one minute and practically crushed the next minute. It became bad enough in the next few minutes that I found myself compelled to turn off all noise, including the TV and room lights, and just sit in the darkness on my bed for several minutes, unsure of what was actually happening.
Then, for no reason at all, I felt compelled to just get up and go into the bathroom. I did not need to actually use the bathroom, but just felt drawn to go in there. As soon as I turned the light on and saw my reflection in the mirror, I broke unto heavy weeping. For the next few minutes, I just stood crying and staring in the mirror, seemingly stuck in this soul crushing moment and unable to look away.
After a few more minutes in the mirror, the "force" that had gripped seemed to "release me" from that moment with enough energy to peel myself over to the bed. I turned the TV on again trying to distract myself and resumed playing the video game I had so abruptly turned off. However, I was so consumed by what was currently happening that I found myself literally staring blankly at the active game. I had logged into the game with my character present in the game world, but completely motionless. After desperately trying to find relief in the video game, I turned it off again.
Then, I just laid down and shut my eyes, attempting to go to sleep; however, I couldn’t calm my mind and ended up just stared into the darkness for like 30 minutes. Finally, my mind calmed down enough to go to sleep. Note that the burdening weight was still on my heart and soul but I was somehow able to go to sleep.
The next day, I attempted to go to work as normal, but was so distracted that I could not really concentrate (or care) what was going on in the office. I was consumed with what was going on with me. Some of my coworkers even recognized that something was wrong. Instead of being honest, I would gaslight them, saying they must be imagining whatever they think they are seeing in me. I reassured them that I was “fine”, although my spirit in me was broken and in despair. I even lashed out a bit at my manager when she asked me about it, basically telling her to leave me alone to do my work and that she was only showing concern because she likely perceived my situation was interferring with my ability to work, which I denied (but honestly it was interferring). I ended up leaving work early that day because I was not productive in the least bit nor being my usual agreeable self.
The following day, I called out of work rather than attempt to fake being okay in front of coworkers. Instead, I thought to call a couple of my close friends who live nearby and were available to come hang out and distract me with their company. We went to a bar around lunch time to grab a drink and a bite to eat. However, I literally had no appetite (which is unusual because I'm almost ALWAYS hungry lol). I opted instead to just grab a drink, but then after I got it, I attempted to drink it but I had no taste for it in that moment either. The drink just sat there as I absent-mindedly tried to carry on a conversation. After a few minutes of not really being as engaged with my friends as I would have been, my friends commented that they thought something was off with me, to which I agreed that I wasn't feeling that well. My miserableness made me end our lunch earlier than planned because I just was not feeling it....at all!
I went back home and attempted to revisit the pornography to find any means to feel good in the moment. However, all I could do was sit in front of the keyboard for a few minutes and stare despairingly at the screen, unable to even type in the search bar. Whatever was happening was preventing me from going back down the previous paths of pleasure to find relief. So, I took a bath, which did relax me somewhat, and ordered a mountain of food delivery because I did not have the energy to cook. I spend the rest of day eating and doing mindless chores to distract my self from the heaviness that still remained, until it was time for bed.
The next day, Friday by this point, I woke up, called out of work again as I was still feeling the heaviness and did not want to navigate questions. Attempting to revisit smoking weed to find any semblance of relief, I went out and bought some. Back home, I lit it up but almost as soon as brought it to my mouth to take a puff, I became uncharacteristcally nauseous of it and could not continue so I ended up throwing out what I just purchased. I also tried going for a walk this day, which helped to ease the tension inside me a little bit but did not clear up the issue. The rest of the day was spent being distracted with mindless television and YouTube scrolling until I got sleepy and went to bed.
For these 3 days, I was this lost soul desperately floundering about to make sense of how I had been feeling. Stay tuned for the next post where I discuss how God’s Holy Spirit directed me to the revelation that what I was feeling was the conviction of Holy Spirit over my life, which lead me to the Cross of Jesus Christ, where my life was forever changed.
Next Post: Post 3: The Light Cometh