Having had a breakthrough last week that culminated on Sunday, I'm finding I'm not fighting myself - not fighting my life or circumstances emotionally, but operating in those boundaries and being productive. I am losing perfectionism in the process. It's not completely gone, but I'm not attacking myself. I'm feeling the urgency without the overwhelming powerless feeling. And I knew it was coming - that I would stop fighting myself so much because I realized a month ago that was what I was doing, but I didn't know the level of peace I would feel.
The past couple of days, I have felt something new and old at the same time. I have felt equal to everyone I was interacting with - I wasn't comparing seasons of life, I wasn't thinking that I am not "equal" just because my life looks different. I wasn't thinking that I'm "the help" or that I'm "less than" - I was just thinking "I'm me" - no subtext, no running conversation of life stages in my head, no judgment about my messy basement, no comment on my financial reality, no comparison that I'm not married but that I have a lot of degrees, no back and forth. I felt like my time was MY time, valuable and useful and for what's important to God's plan for me. It's not the time that I should spend worrying how I should be like so many people I know, so many people I love. It wasn't so comparison-y as I make it sound - it was a depression over not being where I had thought I'd be. The catch is, I have no idea if I would be happy where I'd think either. And that should tell you to strive for peace where you are. We lie a lot to ourselves how we think things should be.
But do you know? The knowledge part of my brain knows that stuff wasn't true anyway. The knowledge part of my brain knows that God has a plan specifically for me - there are good works for me to do that He wrote into reality before the foundation of the earth. I know that we are equally depraved. I know that all have sinned. I know that I am not under wrath or under punishment. I know that my single life isn't some sort of punishment nor is married life a reward. It is the life I have been given and God is to be praised because I live in the most blessed time, in one of the most blessed places. I do not suffer like other believers and that is a thought I refuse to leave me. I will remember where God placed me.
But now, I have finally come to believe what I know... God is writing it on my heart as His Spirit leads me to lay all my thoughts down before Him. Being completely honest with God - not giving what I think "should" be how I should think or "should" be how I feel, and approaching God with the depth of the ugliness I can currently own (there are always untouched places, dark, that we don't even want to or can't own just yet), I feel like He heals me when I can be real. The minute I pretend, though, I can't get down to the work of it... it takes admitting what I can't or won't admit. And I finally was able to do what was bothering me for so long because I was so tired of it. In quitting depression, it was like I could really see the mess for what it is, but also that it is not a consuming crisis. I could also see how little steps aren't painful because the emotional fighting I have been doing has stopped. I'm not ruled by those emotions, so I am able to do the little at a time to keep making small, but meaningful steps.
I'm still lost as to what to pursue after I leave teaching. I found out some disappointing news today, but I'm not spiraling. My mind is working and I believe God will meet me again at the right time with the map I need to get to the next stop. In the meantime, I will continue to sing His praises because I never would have escaped my own mind. I feel like I can finally believe what I'm being told in the word and fight against the lies that I've believed for a long time.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Sunday, June 17, 2018
The Sinister Selfishness of Depression: What God Is Teaching Me
I want to preface this post with a caveat: this is what God is teaching ME about MY depressive state and moods. Depression is complex in that it can be brought on from many sources and not usually just one. That being said, I am sharing what I am being convicted of in the hopes that someone in my similar position may find hope and freedom. I pray against anyone who may feel condemnation because that is not what God has for anyone who is in Christ Jesus.
I have been working through depression lately because life is just not what I hoped for. Add to this that I don't know what I hoped life would be, so there is this often despairing feeling I find myself deep in. It is a real feeling and real tears have been cried in earnest.
But God convicted me of something even this week about it. Depression is making me ineffectual as a believer, as a friend, as a person. That is exactly what Satan wants. Rather than fighting it, I just keep talking about depression. I think most of us have heard the term "broken record" - the broken for me is sure there. Just like music lyrics, just like a phone number I rehearse, just like anything I practice, I become good at being and talking about depression. Constantly. And I'm tired of being good at it and tired of talking about it because my life is not depression. My life is Erin and it is hidden in Christ, in the folds of mercy, redeemed forever, sanctified daily. It is not perpetual grief about what life looks like now nor the real hurts of the past and present. Depression is not my life. I need to stop rehearsing it over and over, bringing it up over and over.
I need to breathe that God is on His throne and that I have good works stored up for me to do. So long as I continue in a pattern of focus on what my life is and isn't, constantly refocusing on that, I will never be of use to anyone, not even myself. And that is exactly what Satan wants. If there is anything I do not want for my life, it is his victory over my ineffectual wallowing. God has put it in me to fight it - to fight for joy in my life and to stick it to an enemy that will stop at NOTHING to kill, steal, and destroy the good God has allowed me to have. I won't be an easy conquest in self-pity and demotivation. I will not be lifeless on the front of great need before me because I'm consumed with inadequacy. I refuse to let depression just happen and not confront it with REALITY. The truth is, every minute I focus on what I am not, what I have not, what I have lost, the trouble I have found, what I regret, what I wish, is a minute I don't focus on loving someone else who needs it. It is a minute I don't spend on checking up on a friend. It is a minute I don't spend calling a family member. It is a minute ineffectual. It's even a minute I didn't use to solve my own problem.
Well, people, I am done. I'm done with bad minutes. I'm done with the perpetual grief. I know that life comes in seasons, some long, some short, some exquisite, some excruciating, some quiet, some loud. I can survive them because God is vastly bigger than seasons, never-changing, ever present, always glorious, unceasingly gracious. I can do it. I am still mopping up the mess in my mind - the plans, the hopes, the hurts, but I am done with the constant cloud - the dreading of the coming day - the frustration with my faults. I was reminded today that I can plan all that I want, but anything undertaken without God's counsel, without His consideration is total vanity. He must be my first consultation and my ultimate consolation as I walk this daily life. I am exchanging Jesus daily for depression, constantly reminded that I must start my day with the Lord, learning (reading the Bible) and dependent upon Him (praying), acknowledging that without anything else, I fall prey to myself. That's the only way I'm going to get through it or accomplish anything because that is how much integrity I lack in following through on my own plans. And I am done with the hopelessness and embracing the authority God has given me in Christ.
This has been a process and it is by no means complete. But I want to share some transitional steps that have helped me arrive at the place where God is helping me see great, dramatic victory over my tendency to be ruled by my emotions:
1. The change started with thankfulness. When I started to go on a downward spiral, I began to work on thanking God for every big and small blessing in my life - those things I take for granted as an American in the most comfortable place on earth: hot water, a running car, the availability of groceries, the luxury of entertainment, air conditioning! It may seem stupid, but it puts what life looks like for the rest of the world vs mine in great perspective and helps to shut up the complaining of my heart over what is truly minor.
2. Crying when I gotta cry. There are zero points for being stoic. None. I can attest that for every tear I held back as a child, I cried three fold in my twenties and continue to. I do it before the Lord and I let it happen. And then I work it out in prayer to get to a point of peace. I don't let it stay there. I get reconciled in my heart and I move forward what I can do.
3. I stopped running. I left my over-planning and I started just doing one thing to make something done - one phone call, one load of laundry, one room, one dish! The power of one has helped me get out of the all or nothing funk and I can enjoy small movements in the right direction. The "power of process" when I want to have it ALL finished is what I am working to embrace more of now. God is helping me to see that tiny steps of progress toward a task outweigh all-or-nothing hopes that overwhelm me into inaction. Slowing my thoughts to daily, small things that lead to big process is HARD for me. But what's harder is the drift in life to where things get so out of control and coming to terms without how it got there. I am like a child in this phase, but I can recognize this as my greatest area of weakness and God's mercy is overwhelming me with patience for myself and willingness to fight my penchant for 100% perfection in theory over 90% completion in actuality. Overcoming lingering depression is so key to this fight because my emotions are so powerful over my pragmatic living - meaning, if I don't "feel" something, I struggle greatly in "making myself" do it. I don't want this. I want to master those emotions and push through. And that is why the power of one effort means so much to me - it means that I CAN fight - small, but mighty in the face of a negative mindset.
My prayer in sharing all of this is that it might give some inspiration to those with similar struggles. I have come to find that for myself, my emotions have way too much authority over my effectiveness. Until I master them, they master me. I want to have more integrity with myself than letting myself plan and fail. But for that, I have to fight. Now's the time.
I have been working through depression lately because life is just not what I hoped for. Add to this that I don't know what I hoped life would be, so there is this often despairing feeling I find myself deep in. It is a real feeling and real tears have been cried in earnest.
But God convicted me of something even this week about it. Depression is making me ineffectual as a believer, as a friend, as a person. That is exactly what Satan wants. Rather than fighting it, I just keep talking about depression. I think most of us have heard the term "broken record" - the broken for me is sure there. Just like music lyrics, just like a phone number I rehearse, just like anything I practice, I become good at being and talking about depression. Constantly. And I'm tired of being good at it and tired of talking about it because my life is not depression. My life is Erin and it is hidden in Christ, in the folds of mercy, redeemed forever, sanctified daily. It is not perpetual grief about what life looks like now nor the real hurts of the past and present. Depression is not my life. I need to stop rehearsing it over and over, bringing it up over and over.
I need to breathe that God is on His throne and that I have good works stored up for me to do. So long as I continue in a pattern of focus on what my life is and isn't, constantly refocusing on that, I will never be of use to anyone, not even myself. And that is exactly what Satan wants. If there is anything I do not want for my life, it is his victory over my ineffectual wallowing. God has put it in me to fight it - to fight for joy in my life and to stick it to an enemy that will stop at NOTHING to kill, steal, and destroy the good God has allowed me to have. I won't be an easy conquest in self-pity and demotivation. I will not be lifeless on the front of great need before me because I'm consumed with inadequacy. I refuse to let depression just happen and not confront it with REALITY. The truth is, every minute I focus on what I am not, what I have not, what I have lost, the trouble I have found, what I regret, what I wish, is a minute I don't focus on loving someone else who needs it. It is a minute I don't spend on checking up on a friend. It is a minute I don't spend calling a family member. It is a minute ineffectual. It's even a minute I didn't use to solve my own problem.
Well, people, I am done. I'm done with bad minutes. I'm done with the perpetual grief. I know that life comes in seasons, some long, some short, some exquisite, some excruciating, some quiet, some loud. I can survive them because God is vastly bigger than seasons, never-changing, ever present, always glorious, unceasingly gracious. I can do it. I am still mopping up the mess in my mind - the plans, the hopes, the hurts, but I am done with the constant cloud - the dreading of the coming day - the frustration with my faults. I was reminded today that I can plan all that I want, but anything undertaken without God's counsel, without His consideration is total vanity. He must be my first consultation and my ultimate consolation as I walk this daily life. I am exchanging Jesus daily for depression, constantly reminded that I must start my day with the Lord, learning (reading the Bible) and dependent upon Him (praying), acknowledging that without anything else, I fall prey to myself. That's the only way I'm going to get through it or accomplish anything because that is how much integrity I lack in following through on my own plans. And I am done with the hopelessness and embracing the authority God has given me in Christ.
This has been a process and it is by no means complete. But I want to share some transitional steps that have helped me arrive at the place where God is helping me see great, dramatic victory over my tendency to be ruled by my emotions:
1. The change started with thankfulness. When I started to go on a downward spiral, I began to work on thanking God for every big and small blessing in my life - those things I take for granted as an American in the most comfortable place on earth: hot water, a running car, the availability of groceries, the luxury of entertainment, air conditioning! It may seem stupid, but it puts what life looks like for the rest of the world vs mine in great perspective and helps to shut up the complaining of my heart over what is truly minor.
2. Crying when I gotta cry. There are zero points for being stoic. None. I can attest that for every tear I held back as a child, I cried three fold in my twenties and continue to. I do it before the Lord and I let it happen. And then I work it out in prayer to get to a point of peace. I don't let it stay there. I get reconciled in my heart and I move forward what I can do.
3. I stopped running. I left my over-planning and I started just doing one thing to make something done - one phone call, one load of laundry, one room, one dish! The power of one has helped me get out of the all or nothing funk and I can enjoy small movements in the right direction. The "power of process" when I want to have it ALL finished is what I am working to embrace more of now. God is helping me to see that tiny steps of progress toward a task outweigh all-or-nothing hopes that overwhelm me into inaction. Slowing my thoughts to daily, small things that lead to big process is HARD for me. But what's harder is the drift in life to where things get so out of control and coming to terms without how it got there. I am like a child in this phase, but I can recognize this as my greatest area of weakness and God's mercy is overwhelming me with patience for myself and willingness to fight my penchant for 100% perfection in theory over 90% completion in actuality. Overcoming lingering depression is so key to this fight because my emotions are so powerful over my pragmatic living - meaning, if I don't "feel" something, I struggle greatly in "making myself" do it. I don't want this. I want to master those emotions and push through. And that is why the power of one effort means so much to me - it means that I CAN fight - small, but mighty in the face of a negative mindset.
My prayer in sharing all of this is that it might give some inspiration to those with similar struggles. I have come to find that for myself, my emotions have way too much authority over my effectiveness. Until I master them, they master me. I want to have more integrity with myself than letting myself plan and fail. But for that, I have to fight. Now's the time.
Friday, June 15, 2018
Does Everyone Have a Dream?
What is your dream?
I don't know what mine is. I am quite stuck. Thankfully, serving in church helps me love on others to glorious distraction, but frankly, I cannot conceive of what my dream is or was. My parents would tell you I wanted to be everything under the sun. I loved learning and school up until 8th grade when academia had finally burned me. But amidst all of the learning, I cannot drudge it up. Practicality has virtually neutered my creativity, and my penchant for the creative has killed my motivation to embrace complete practicality. I feel like a living paradox. And it really grieves me as I drift further into a career of public service that feels like it's out to crush both me and those whom I serve. I can't keep living like this.
I also feel as though I can talk myself out of every idea. Making sure I'm not in love with a romanticized notion of something is very hard to sift through - do I like ALL of the idea or just my imagined story of what I think it will be? I have some of the entrepreneurial spirit of my maternal grandmother in thinking big and even taking steps but the hesitative caution of my dad in knowing exactly how good I am at failing and the unpredictability of life. I am at a loss.
I have little, small goals. But I find without a big dream in the long run, I have no drive. I was not like this as a child - I was not so heartsick and sad. What takes the light out of us? I'm desperately trying to answer this question for me. I think I'll heal if I do and find the drive that was lost to me.
I don't know what mine is. I am quite stuck. Thankfully, serving in church helps me love on others to glorious distraction, but frankly, I cannot conceive of what my dream is or was. My parents would tell you I wanted to be everything under the sun. I loved learning and school up until 8th grade when academia had finally burned me. But amidst all of the learning, I cannot drudge it up. Practicality has virtually neutered my creativity, and my penchant for the creative has killed my motivation to embrace complete practicality. I feel like a living paradox. And it really grieves me as I drift further into a career of public service that feels like it's out to crush both me and those whom I serve. I can't keep living like this.
I also feel as though I can talk myself out of every idea. Making sure I'm not in love with a romanticized notion of something is very hard to sift through - do I like ALL of the idea or just my imagined story of what I think it will be? I have some of the entrepreneurial spirit of my maternal grandmother in thinking big and even taking steps but the hesitative caution of my dad in knowing exactly how good I am at failing and the unpredictability of life. I am at a loss.
I have little, small goals. But I find without a big dream in the long run, I have no drive. I was not like this as a child - I was not so heartsick and sad. What takes the light out of us? I'm desperately trying to answer this question for me. I think I'll heal if I do and find the drive that was lost to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)