Words are coming to me today, and I feel like I can put them together in sequences that will build others up. That is a big deal lately, something I haven't been able to do in a while.
I never want to "overshare" in a way that will steal others' joy or make me a target, and sometimes I am unsure of where the boundaries are, but today I feel sure.
Observing myself and others around me, which I do pretty much automatically on an exhausting 24/7 basis, I realize most of us don't know or understand anything about ourselves, much less others, yet we pretend that we do and we try to "control" it all with our beliefs about how we should be, how things should be, how others should be, and we spend so much energy trying to be what we should be that we miss who we are -- and we miss who God is too.
I am blessed to be part of a couple Christian communities where members can be honest about their uncontrollable issues that can lead to sin, but ON THE FLIP SIDE can bring so much glory to God. We each have something: an addiction, a mental illness, a physical cripple, a sexual desire, a past trauma, etc.
But we stay committed to our families on hard days.
We ask for help when the evil is so strong to seduce us.
We feast on God's Word, remembering it is alive and active and that we will always be learning new things about His heart as he builds ours.
We are the support, not the enablers, when people we love need strength to stand back up or go a new direction or a friend to sit by on the curb and cry.
By sharing ourselves we shed light in dark places where moldy sin grows.
But it is so hard to do.
Something I have always struggled with, but barely understand, because it manifests itself in different ways, and because I am human and really just don't know a lot (although I have learned a lot and can always learn more), is depression/anxiety. Some seasons I am strong against it, others I am weak and eaten up with it. The past several months it has exploded. And it has stunk. It stinks, presently. It is still here.
I have begged God to help me be stronger, to help me be a better person, to build my character, to please all the people around me whose outsides lead me to assume they have it all together, so maybe if I please them that means I will be together too. I honestly get angry because I have mistakenly believed the Spirit living in me, with all its wonderful fruits, is something I can control. That I, Nicoll, can force an apple of love, an orange of joy, cherries of patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to magically appear in the juiciest forms on my branches. But I am not the Gardener, the Builder, the Cultivator. That isn't the way depression/anxiety work, even though I WISH it was. I wish that was the way so many battles worked for so many people I love.
Even though our weaknesses make some days hard, unbearably horrible, I see so much of God's power in our refusal to give in to the Evil One, the one who throws flaming darts at us because he wants us to give up.
The most depressing YET EMPOWERING thing I have heard recently was something a friend shared a couple weeks ago in a video. (Here is the link. It is about ten minutes long, and totally worth your time, if you have it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jRJ2vEy6Kpo ) The speaker in the video also struggles with depression/anxiety, but I believe it is beneficial for any form of uncontrollable weakness that rears its ugly head from time-time. He pointed out the scripture in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10. Everybody really likes the part where Jesus says to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." But what if we singled out the verse right before that, where Paul says, "Three times I begged the LORD... and he said NO." What if we posted that on our walls or embroidered those on our fancy pillows? The speaker also points out the blind man that Jesus says was born for God's glory in John 9:3. That makes an audience ooh and ahh. But what if you were that man, blind for every day of his life?
So that was the depressing part.
But when you pair it with Jesus's magical mud-spit healing the blind man. And then with Jesus's answer to Paul -- and the person Paul was, through all the persecution and physical discomforts he faced to BOLDLY tell the world of Jesus's salvation: Whoa! "TO GOD BE THE GLORY, GREAT THINGS HE HATH DONE!"
I am going to give birth to our third baby in roughly six weeks. The agony of pregnancy AND birth... holding that precious little human in your arms and kissing his face... the seemingly endless mourning becomes joyful dancing that makes every pain wirth it in a *flash*. It can't be summed up in words.
I have been reading a chapter in Proverbs each day for months, the one that corresponds to the date. On the twenty-fourth of each month, in verse 10, I say, "Ah, CRAP!" because it reads, "If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength." That is how my mind works. There is no room for weakness or failure because one bad moment will define my entire being. But I have several bad moments. And I can't give up there, literally or figuratively, because verse 16 says, "for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again..."
I can't give up in verse 10 of my life because God's grace makes room for verse 16.
And history has proven that in reality we are all going to fall a lot.
But we will rise again (and again) (and again) (and again)...
I personally have never been one to be peeved that we are seemingly pawns in some kind of eternal battle between good and evil. I know that really bothers some people. And I know my words can't change that. But my breath, my body, my mind, the very things that give me life and personality, are not my own. I did absolutely nothing to initiate myself or keep my systems in rhythm. Nothing I have is my own. I just am. (Even though I put so much pressure on myself to be anybody but me.) And I believe with all my heart -- no matter all the cynical bickering I have listened to and pondered and considered -- that God made me because He loves me. And I am okay if I have no control over the good, the bad, and the ugly that will ultimately bind me to that love forever. I sure do fight to have control. But the more I fight it, the more I have to open my hands in surrender and see who God is. And then the better I understand who I am in a way that allows me to accept myself. Which slowly helps me accept others. And all in the Light of Jesus, the One who helped make me and redeem me, and Whose Words, even if I don't get them, point to the me and the people and the world I can never control because it isn't mine to rule. It will take until eternity for me to accept myself and others, but there is a lot of glory and fruit in the tiny steps I am taking toward that.
So in the meantime, on bad days, when no matter the words I tell myself or read or hear from others, and I still cannot overcome the sorrow, restlessness, hopelessness, and the weariness, what do I do? Do I follow all the bad thoughts in my head that tell me to give up in this way or that way? Or do I just let go and rest in the love of God and the precious support system, the anchors He has provided (my husband, my family, my friends, my umpteenth professional counselor (everyone should have one)) for the times I cannot control my spirit but can lean on His? (And it is so hard, not simple or easy or magical.)
I do have control over one thing: TO NOT GIVE UP, whether that means resting or putting one foot in front of the other or asking for help to keep standing or to make this choice or to not make that choice. I can NOT and will NOT give up. And if I take a step in the wrong direction, I can turn around. I can ask for help to know which way is better. I can ask for help walking to that better path if I have taken several wrong steps. I can surround myself with people who will build me up, not tear me down. And tearing down comes in shameful shapes and enabling ones, so I pray for discernment to seek God's Kingdom while trying to live in His call for justice and His tendency toward mercy.
To go along with my Spiritual fruit control issues, my counselor gave me a metaphor a couple of months ago, very appropriately timed, that has also been carrying me through hard days: Trees. Trees grow and continue to live, even when they are covered in ice and standing strong against icy winds for the months of winter. Not all days are full of blossoms and green leaves. I can be like that too. And I am. All the winters of my life that I look back on with regret, where I feel like I have failed, actually I was a shorter and weaker tree then than I am now, and despite things not going the way I thought they SHOULD, God has still provided fruit and growth in the warm seasons that have made me a closer-to-whole Nicoll than I could have been on my own terms. I am like those trees, covered in snow, appearing to be fruitless for a short time, but appropriately waiting for another season of revival. You have seasons like that too? Right?
I said at the beginning of this that the words came to me in a way I could make them into sense and order, but I still have a life of little loves who require my attention, so maybe this came out terser and less eloquent than I wanted. But I know from what I see in the news and social media and sad faces that I am not alone in an uncontrollable weakness (unique to each person and your story) that requires support through wintry seasons occasionally.
I hope wherever you are today, that you can rest in God's love. It's okay to just be a tree in winter. It's okay to beg God and wait for His answer, whether it is relief or a "no" that displays His power. Don't give up. Your tree is still growing, even if winter has it bogged down right now. You will rise again.
