I haven’t written a post in many moons. My mind is always coming up with ideas to share, mainly about daily life and overcoming depression and anxiety — on a moment-by-moment basis, not a fix-it-forever gimmicky illusion — but those thoughts are usually unfinished distractions in my role as homemaker and homeschool Mom with three mighty, darling boys (ages 7 (in two days), almost 4, and 8 months).
In the days it took me to write this one post over multiple sessions of breastfeeding our third sweet chunk of sugar from Heaven, I became overwhelmed and disrupted by all.the.things. Homeschool. Violin. Halloween costumes. Birthday party activities. Teaching Bible class. Trying to be a somewhat decent friend and family member. Building my running mileage with a thrice post-partum body. And pesky things, like eating and showering and sleeping. Any outer success you see involved a lot of explosive combustion and too much striving. But that’s where the pressure pushes out what doesn’t belong and refines what’s best. Please remember that I am an art piece in progress, not a finished exhibit, as you read.
Writing is where my abundance of thoughts and emotions can meet on a straight path. Writing is a tool I was given and must use for my own survival. (After running has helped my body and thoughts meet in a safe place.) Hah. November is nearly here, and I cannot possibly write 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, while doing this life season, but I CAN write a blog post each week (by Friday) for three months. And then we’ll see where I go after that.
Life moves so fast. Here I am, 32 years old, so blessed and filled. I can’t put into words how richly and deeply I experience every moment of our tiny-but-mighty corner of the world, whether it’s good or bad or ugly. But I deeply like trying to find the words. I have found a deep joy for trying to put the beautiful things God works inside me, the ones that fight against the despicably selfish things, into practice. Just like my little boy’s violin practice or my running goals — practice, repetition, new challenges, necessary changes — so many things — make each day a continued project of life art from my soul, my heart. Looking at it this way helps me overcome the failures and keep moving with the successes.
A dark negativity has always lain under my high hopes — er, more like expectations — for constant improvement. The higher my expectations for things to be the way they “should be,” including myself and the world, the harder disappointment falls on my weak shoulders as reality unfolds before my limited sight of a broken world. Some of my beliefs are cushioned by naïveté, yet centered by some degree of wisdom, and I seek shrewdness to deal with the sorrowful and joyful spectrum of reality in a humbly hopeful way.
I am always on inside, thoughts constantly churning. The process is exhausting and results in a lot of confusion, outer paralyzation, and many blunders. Instead of focusing on the negatives, though, I am searching for ways to nourish this vigilance I have been given. Neurotic or vigilant? Both? Can I connect those two as different sides of a watchful coin? Hah! In a world full of automatic reactions set by the status quo and blind allegiances, it can be useful to constantly sift my heart’s contents and over-analyze my identity as a fellow citizen of Earth under God’s Light. Can sharing my experiences, the thoughts to which I am incredibly sensitive, fan the waning embers in other beautiful but discouraged souls?
Hope exists. Real hope. True faith. Committed love. And none are magical or urgent or instant or painless. My Christian faith assures me there is a Destination. I recognize it is a separate place/realm than this world, across a bridge of death and resurrection. But I go through each day acting like I should already have “arrived” at perfect thoughts and behaviors. I see people treating each other like that person or this person should have arrived too. And then we judge ourselves and others like nincompoops who missed their bus stop. (And even as I write this, I am judging myself and some specific people, honestly.) But maybe if we treated ourselves as constant sojourners, ever-learners, we could see others as the sometimes-desperate-wanderers and other-times-comfortable-
Faith, hope, and love are an intentional and slow process of woven threads through every choice and disruption in our lives, the things we can control and the many we cannot. They shade the happy moments with humble gratitude and strengthen the sad moments with perspective. When the threads break or get tangled by our sins or mistakes, the Master wants to make them beautiful by helping us start again, as we move forward in our stories. He can weave in loose ends or change the design as the process continues. He can help us rest with the purpose of moving forward when the time becomes right.
Each day is a continued piece of the art of my life. I wake up with goals for the future, with disappointments from the past, with plans to do better today than I did yesterday — more with internal responses of peace and compassion than outward accomplishments. But the piece includes it all; and seeing it take shape, accepting that I have responsibility to affect it but no control to rush it, makes it more peaceful, even with the fast pace of life with three kids in this very busy culture.
It’s hard, beautiful work. It’s mine, as a thoughtful investment from God with His oversight. It’s my purpose. And it isn’t an epic direction with a clear script. It’s an unfinished piece of art that becomes more intricate and shapely as I learn more about myself and others and God.
This time last year, I was suffering under a deep depression and anxiety. Several months pregnant with our third child, and homeschooling our then-kindergartener while also raising our then 2-year-old, I couldn’t function. The check marks were accomplished each day. But inside my anxious thoughts were like hundreds of trains barreling through my mind, only to get stuck where they collided with each other in the center of me — until I became paralyzed in the wreck, hopeless about tiny decisions as well as the outlook about significant life missions. I don’t have to share details here.
But I can share generally about where I’ve been, where I am now, and how I keep moving forward in growth.Your day is your art project. Is it a day for changing direction, barreling forward with momentary clarity, or just quietly observing the pretty strokes or the big messes until you know how to proceed with the next tiny stroke? And then the next tiny one, and so on? What is your art today?
The easy and the hard -- they help me learn what matters most and what I am willing to sacrifice or push through (no matter how long it takes) to attain a Christlike heart in my unique place. I am a vigilant guard and a persevering artist. This helps me grow, instead of giving up because I think a bad-attitude grade ruined my eternal GPA once and for all — a constant process for an ever-enlightened (but very precious and beloved) idiot.
Some posts to expect include:
• a comparison of life without an anti-depressant versus with one. I had a lot of assumptions and misunderstandings that postponed it longer than I should have, and now I have a clearer view of those.
• unconditional self-friendship. It’s vital. I have so much to share about this. Being kind to oneself, oh.so.hard. But.utterly.important. Taking care of yourself as a vessel for Jesus is NOT the same as selfishness.
• how getting back into running shows me what the tension between resting and working means for progress, as well as some other all or nothing misconceptions that mess up every little thing.
• Boundaries: Compassion, yes. Enabling, no. Urgh.
• Words that strike me, like “unrest” and “stay” and “traction”
• Plus more
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