Today, my heart breaks for Penn, and I mourn with my alma mater. This is an open letter to anyone who has ever felt crippled by fear of inadequacy. I understand better than you might believe.
Though I never knew Olivia personally, she and I had at least two things in common. We were both Whartonites, and we were both Rodinians. Olivia, my sincere prayer is that you would find mercy and grace on the other side of this battle we call life. My heart aches immensely for you, but also for those you leave behind.
On this rainy Manhattan day, as heaven itself is weeping, I intercede on behalf of your family, your friends, your casual acquaintances, your classmates, your professors, your Rodin College House staff, all the lives you touched, and all the people who are inevitably asking the same questions I did in February of 2013: “Could I have done something more? Could I have loved harder? Could I have done anything to prevent this? Did I drop the ball?”
I empathize so deeply with the spirit of inadequacy.
In February 2013, in addition to being a dual-degree student in Wharton and the College, in addition to taking 7 classes, in addition to being the cohort president of Shekel, in addition to leading a family group for my campus church, in addition to writing a thesis, in addition to working at a financial research center in Steinberg-Dietrich, I was also the RA on the 3rd floor of Rodin College House.
More importantly, I was Arya Singh’s RA.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever shared anything about Arya on this blog. This is for two reasons. First, when she passed, the fact that the cause of death was suicide was not public knowledge; I only knew because I was her RA. It was a burden I carried when I attended her vigil and when I walked through Penn campus amongst so many others who mourned, but with only half the story. It rained the days after Arya died too, and as I walked through a grieving campus, I felt that I mourned doubly - I mourned the fact that her beautiful life had ended, and I mourned the fact that she had ended it herself.
Back in 2013, mental health had not yet become a part of Penn’s campus dialogue. Arya’s passing occurred before the deeply grieving string of suicides that tore through our campus in rapid succession. It occurred before pressures from local, regional, and then national media started demanding that our administrators more intentionally and honestly examine our campus culture to figure out exactly what was bringing our students, arguably some of the world’s best and brightest, into pits of such immense despair. Because mental health was so taboo and because I did not feel it was my place to share this part of Arya’s story, I kept this knowledge largely to myself.
The second reason I didn’t share openly about Arya’s suicide was because I was ashamed. I was so ashamed. I was so ashamed. The day Arya passed, I couldn’t look Nikita, Arya’s best friend and roommate, in the eye, even though I’d been Nikita’s cohort director her freshman year, someone she’d trusted, someone she knew cared deeply for her. I couldn’t bear to look at Arya’s parents as they sat in the Rodin lobby weeping. I couldn’t bear to be around my Rodin family, my fellow staff members and my supportive House Dean, Ryan Keytack. I was just so ashamed, because I felt so acutely that I deserved to be blamed for Arya’s death.
You see, I was her RA and her next door neighbor, so it was literally my job to take care of Arya. It was literally my job to help foster a healthy environment in Rodin College House, and the 3rd floor in particular was my jurisdiction. If I didn’t see her at my hall events, it was literally my job to knock on her door and ask her how she was doing. Our motto in Rodin College House is “To be, rather than to seem,” so it was literally my job to try to figure out how people actually were by doing the hard work of pushing past how they seemed. Arya seemed the picture of brilliance and joy. I should’ve known that she was actually depressed, hurt, broken, pained, because that was literally my job.
The first night after Arya passed away, I sat on my bed and looked out my window into her now darkened dorm room. I realized that the lights would never come on again in Arya’s room because they would never come on again in her life, and I mourned.
In that moment, as I was alone in my sadness, fear, condemnation, self-loathing, guilt, shame, and grief, a spirit of anxiety that had plagued me for the first 21 years of my life, from which I had only in November 2011 experienced deliverance because of my blossoming faith, came back. The voices of condemnation that had been silent for over a year came back.
The enemy of my very soul began whispering, sneering into my ear: “This is your fault. You feel guilty, and rightfully so. You messed up big time this time, Cindy. You had one job, and if you couldn’t handle it, you shouldn’t have signed up for so many other extracurriculars and classes. If you weren’t going to be able to do it all well, if you weren’t going to be able to give it your 100%, you shouldn’t have taken on so much in the first place. Or at least maybe you could’ve tried a little harder. Every single night, when you sat on this bed reading your Bible, talking to your ‘Heavenly Father,’ ‘Abba God,’ ‘resting,’ you were actually just being lazy. You should’ve stopped by Arya’s room and checked in on her instead. You should’ve been planning more hall events. You dropped the ball, Cindy. Don’t try to come crawling back to God now, He doesn’t want you. You had one job, to take care of His sheep, and now one is lost for good, and you’ll never be able to bring her back. You really effed up this time. Don’t you get it? You failed. Do you really think God still loves you? Do you really think He still wants to hear from you? Do you really think He’ll come to rescue you tonight?”
And the fear began to creep back. The fear of the nighttime. The fear of my own guilt and inadequacy. The fear that the same evil and despair that met Arya each night in her now dark room would be sneaking into mine, because, the scary thing was, the enemy was right.
I hadn’t been enough.
I hadn’t been able to do it all.
As hard as I tried, I hadn’t been able to juggle everything on my plate, and now one thing, a life, had shattered.
Even with my best efforts, my best efforts, I hadn’t been able to stop Arya’s death.
Even my 100% had been insufficient.
I had not been a good enough friend.
I had not been a good enough RA.
I had not been a good enough caretaker of Abba’s precious sheep.
And now Arya was dead, Abba was mad at me, and this time He would not save me.
He wouldn’t save me from the voices in my head telling me I wasn’t ever going to be good enough, from the doubts, the insecurities, the despair, the self-loathing, the condemnation, the inadequacy, the anxiety, the failure, the feelings of not being good enough, the feelings that my life wasn’t significant. He wouldn’t save me because He didn’t love me anymore. He wouldn’t come rescue me, protect me, hold me, or fight for me, because He didn’t love me anymore.
He didn’t love me anymore, because I had failed. I did not deserve His love.
For a little while, I sat there, numb, terrified of the setting sun and the darkness that came with night, a darkness that would inevitably engulf me.
Then, silently, hope broke out. A glimmer of light shone into the darkness in the form of verses from my favorite chapter of the Bible, Romans 8:
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
No condemnation? How could that be possible? How could that be true?
2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
This glorious truth is possible only because when Jesus died on the cross for my sins, not only did my failures get applied to Him, but His righteousness was also credited to me.
Hear me again: the gospel of Jesus Christ means that not only does my failure (F-) get applied to Jesus, but Jesus’ A+++++ 100% gets applied to me.
In the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and I declare this with AUTHORITY over Penn, there is no need to be crippled by the “W” or “F” that shows up on your personal transcript, because God struck that from your record when He put it on Jesus’.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
By Jesus’ merit, you will never be rejected by God.
You will never be rejected by God.
You will never be rejected by God.
In the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and I declare this with AUTHORITY over Penn, there is no need to be crippled by the fear that you won’t make the GPA cut-off needed for God’s OCR, because when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, His summa cum laude 4.0 GPA gets applied to you.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
By Jesus’ merit, you will always be accepted by God.
You will always be accepted by God.
You will always be accepted by God.
That night in February 2013, this truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ put the fight back in me, and I STUBBORNLY REFUSED to succumb to the crippling fear of inadequacy again.
I paced back and forth in my little room next to Arya’s now empty one, clapping my hands to break chains in the spiritual realm, stomping my feet to break down strongholds, and I declared war in LOUD SHOUTS AND CRIES to SILENCE the voices that threatened to flood me once more.
I would no longer fall back into the despair of anxiety,
of depression,
of self-condemnation,
of self-loathing,
of fear of inadequacy,
of fear of insufficiency,
of fear of anything,
because I was a daughter of God.
I held on.
I held on.
Not to the hope that I was good enough, but the unshakeable hope that JESUS WAS AND IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE GOOD ENOUGH.
By His righteousness alone, I could and can and always will approach the throne of a Holy God completely unashamed,
with no more fear,
no more guilt,
no more self-loathing,
no more condemnation:
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Right now, in Jesus’ name, I rebuke and cast out EVERY spirit of shame, inadequacy, insufficiency, fear, and self-condemnation that has been lurking through the nooks and crannies of every GSR in Huntsman, every desk in Van Pelt, the PennMed, and Fisher Fine Arts libraries, every table in the Starbucks under 1920 Commons and cafes throughout Penn campus, every rooftop lounge in the high-rises, every computer lab in Hill, the Quad, Kings Court English House, Gregory, Stouffer, Mayer, every lounge in Sansom East and West, every step on Market, Chestnut, Sansom, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, every heart of every Quaker, and every heart of every person reading this post.
For far too long, it is that spirit that has snuffed out life after life, story after story on the campus that I love, in the college where I not only found myself, but more importantly, I found Jesus.
Spirit of death, spirit of condemnation, spirit of timidity, spirit of self-loathing, spirit of fear, we command you in this moment to CEASE. No more. No more. We declare in Jesus’ name, no more. Penn is not your playground, that you should continue to run free as bullies. We cast you out in Jesus’ name.
If any of my readers are currently wrestling with such a spirit of continual condemnation, continually feeling like nothing you do is ever enough, nothing you accomplish will ever matter, even your best intentions will amount to nothing, I urge you to keep holding on, not to your own righteousness, but to the righteousness of the Jesus Christ who was crucified for you. Cling onto the cross of Jesus Christ. Keep holding on!
I pray for you in this moment, that the Holy Spirit would come powerfully and quickly and replace your spirit of fear with His spirit of adoption as a son or a daughter, a Spirit by whom you can cry out to a loving Heavenly Father, “Abba!” Yes, you too can call Him Daddy. He will not reject you. If you have been waiting for a sign from Him that He loves you, this is it! If you need to talk to anyone about ANYTHING, let me know! You can feel free to email me ([email protected]) or Facebook me, or send me anonymous questions on my blog. I am more than happy to sit with you in this season of darkness and shine the light that Jesus has brought into my own heart, once a dark playground of fear. I count it my joy and privilege to sit with you and declare over your darkness that the light and hope has already come in Jesus Christ, so it will come for you.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” - Isaiah 9:2
In the meantime, please also take a few minutes to listen to one of my favorite songs. My prayer is that it will speak over you a truth and a hope, and strengthen you to not just hold on, but to FIGHT!
Embracing Accusation
By: Shane and Shane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI3I6xYor6E
The father of lies coming to steal, kill and destroy all my hopes of being good enough.
I hear him saying, “Cursed are the ones who can’t abide.”
He’s right.
Hallelujah, he’s right.
The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed, that I am cursed and gone astray,
I cannot gain salvation, embracing accusation.
Could the father of lies be telling the truth of God to me tonight?
If the penalty of sin is death, then death is mine.
I hear him saying, “Cursed are the ones who can’t abide”
He’s right.
Hallelujah, he’s right.
Oh, the devil’s singing over me an age old song, that I am cursed and gone astray.
Singing the first verse so conveniently over me, He’s forgotten the refrain:
“Jesus saves.”
He redeemed us from the curse of the law.
In Jesus’ name, I say with all my heart, Amen, Amen, Amen.
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
snowghoul
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
