It's January 24th again. And I didn't even realize it until I wrote the date in my quiet time journal first thing this morning.
After a rough past week (IYKYK), today "should" have been a bad one. The 8th anniversary of the breakdown that has shaped all of my life since. Reminders right in my face of what it continues to cost me.
But instead? I'm content.
PRAISE to our gracious God, who granted me strength and courage to make the decision and declaration on Thursday that I belong to Him and choose to trust Him!
I don't have a lot else to say - other than that God's faithfulness is the evidence I need; every day of my life HE is faithful!
I didn't intentionally put this blog on the shelf. I just quit blogging for most of the past three years, period.
Life's been busy - working a full-time job (including volunteering at a Women's Conversation Club), a volunteer side gig of helping my Ugandan sister by fundraising here in America for her grassroots nonprofit, and of course trying to keep up with my social calendar (I've got a great core group of me and four friends) and normal life stuff.
But something important happened that MUST have a presence here!!!
I heard about a conference for women at The Hope Center, an office space where about 60 Christian groups have office space. It was one evening, so I signed up to go! I didn't really know what to expect; I basically just knew the speakers' names. BUT GOD - He had something planned for me!
The first speaker, Abigail - who basically introduced the concept of Still She Sows, works at The Hope Center and God planted the seed of the conference in her. She told us about how her dad died suddenly in the pulpit in Africa, and how she struggled with God about "WHY?"
Her story naturally brought to mind my long-term struggle with God over why He yanked me out of Uganda the way He did, and why I went through a year of intense depression and why I went through a spiritual drought for several years.
Then Abigail shared three lessons she learned during that time, one of which sank into my soul. She said that when something happens--especially something bad/unpleasant--there are two lenses we can view that situation through. One is the Fairness Lens - a WHY ME? view. The other is the Faithfulness Lens - a why NOT me? view that focuses more on God's steadfastness and the fact that He has a plan for everything He causes/allows to happen.
That really resonated with me, but it was just the beginning!
After some worship, including the song I'm including at the end, Hosanna--the keynote speaker--started talking about identity. It was a powerful teaching that started with her personal experience and rooted into Scripture with the story of Jesus calling the four fishermen.
Then Hosanna performed her spoken word, "I Have a New Name." I would definitely encourage you to give it a listen - the link is to her official YouTube video. Basically, she talks about all the negative names the world can give us; BUT GOD has some other names for us. And which names we answer to is critically important.
She asked the audience to stand for which name they identify with. By Paraclete's prompting, I stood to BRAND NEW. Having the whole post-Uganda situation brought to mind, hearing Hosanna talk about changing our negative identities - I wanted to camp out on the fact that I'm not defined by past failures.
But God - He wasn't done yet!
The band was leading worship again, and there was a prayer team up front. One of the members was Terri, the woman who had invited me to Still She Sows. Paraclete was whispering for me to go up to her, but she had someone else she was praying with. When that person sat down, I was waffling - did I really need to go up for prayer? But then the Holy Spirit's voice turned from a whisper to an imperative command: GO UP!
So I did - I told Terri that I'd had a mental breakdown in Uganda and that I had been letting it define me for years. She said "No, that's the enemy! You have a river flowing through you. I've seen you grow in joy these past couple years .... You have a river flowing through you!
At first I thought it was just a reference to the song we had sung. But after she prayed for me and I went back to my seat, Paraclete reminded me of something:
That was my Sept. 2017 prayer card. When I designed it, that verse was my prayer for 2018. What I didn't know then was the breakdown that would come just four months later, eventually ending my time in Uganda.
It gives me goose bumps now. Because, see, I'd been letting John 7:38 hang like a banner of defeat over my life for SEVEN YEARS. Because I couldn't live it out. Because I failed. Because God took me from the adult life I loved. Because of the spiritual drought and the wilderness of depression.
BUT GOD.
He filled a syringe with healing power and plunged it deep into my heart, into the depths of the trauma onion that I've been gradually peeling outside layers off of through counseling.
With Abigail, Hosanna, and Terri's words, He showed me that I am not defined by the past. NO, I am BRAND NEW in Him.
I can't even begin to tell you the new-found freedom I walked in the next couple of weeks. I told everyone who would listen the story. And now I'm posting it here. Because I do NOT want it to be a one-off mountaintop experience. Rather, I want it to define my life moving forward.
I wish it weren't so easy to forget ... to slip back into old habits and ways of thinking. I don't want to forget - I want to remember and live out. So I made myself a new bracelet: white and gold stripes, to remind me that I am BRAND NEW.
Please pray with me that I'll live in this freedom!
Wow, it's been almost four months since I wrote on here!!
Praise God, they have been four pretty level-headed months. I've been sleeping well for the most part, especially during a two-week vacation in Northern Ireland.
While I was away, there was a situation that arose at Christar which has sucked up a LOT of time and energy from the team I work on, zapping my boss and my editor. Since I got back, I've just been on the outskirts of it, not working serious overtime like they are.
But right before I left, another (smaller) situation reared its head - and I've been smack dab in the middle of that one since I started work again 2.5 weeks ago. It's a long story - but basically I made what my mom and one of my mentors view as an honest mistake that made one of Christar's project managers unhappy with me. (As my mom says, "expectations will getcha every time.")
Yesterday I finally sat down and wrote a draft of the apology that my boss strongly urged me to send.
But you know what? In this situation I am thankful. Because, back in November, I let something even smaller put me in the hospital for five days. But this time, I very consciously made a decision early on that I was not going to let this affect me that deeply. Yes, I am disappointed with myself, frustrated with the miscommunication, and not quite looking forward to sending the apology. BUT GOD - He's enabling me to remain pretty emotionally even-keeled about it.
When it rains it pours ... there is yet another personal event which has caused me some consternation and sadness. But I am trying to grieve it responsibly and work through it proactively. It will probably be a long process though. As with the previous situation, I have decided that I won't let this take me deep into despondence. My housemate even remarked on how well she saw that I was handling it on the emotional side. So that was encouraging :)
The reason I navigated to drafting this blog, though, was because of the song I heard on the radio this morning. I feel like it could be a theme song for anyone else dealing with mental illness, particularly depression or bipolar disorder.
I'm not brave, but I don't have to be .... the things that I'm afraid of are afraid of GOD!
Whew, what a week it has been ... I am not even sure where to start.
But then again, I do: Praising God for His abundant goodness, faithfulness, grace & mercy!!!
So, I'm going to change things up a bit and put this post's song early:
This song really touched my heart when it played on Pandora as I was endeavoring to work yesterday. I love Andrew Peterson's "Is He Worthy?" and so I'm not surprised that this song hit a bulls eye in my heart too.
So ... now where from here?
The short story is that I had what I believe was a bipolar insomnia/hypomania episode, beginning Saturday afternoon the 23rd and potentially continuing into the present.
I am so incredibly thankful to my psychiatrist who is very available and was able to get me in for an appointment on Tuesday morning. I'm also SOOOOO grateful to my parents who let me move back into their home for a few days so that I would be in a safe place around people who love me :) {Not that my housemate doesn't love me - she does! But she has her own life to live and isn't always home.} Both of those pieces meant that I did not have to go into the psychiatric ward, which is a huge praise for many reasons!
My biblical counselor also made room in her day for a rather spur of the moment, hour-long session, which was a blessing to me. It was a mixed session, I told her both that I hate talking to her and that I know talking to her is good for me. To be honest, I'm not sure that she sees bipolar disorder as a mental illness. I want to talk with her more about that when I am "sober" (more level-headed). I've really appreciated the time and accommodation that she has given me over the past year and a half or so, though!
So, right now I'm on double doses of three of my medications. The psych made it sound like that is hopefully temporary. I see him again on Tuesday.
Please pray for me and my team at work. As one of my coworkers pointed out to me yesterday, a lot of us are getting hit with things of varying severity. He thinks it could be spiritual warfare because of our very busy schedule right now, producing our "Annual Snapshot" magazine and preparing to do a total rebrand of ALLLLL our materials.
Between Monday and Thursday, I only worked 2-3 hours, because I was very sleep deprived/groggy/not thinking straight. So my poor boss (who is the best boss in the world!!) had to juggle everything I usually do in addition to her own things and managing everyone else :( I feel so bad about that, but I believe it's just what needed to happen. Yesterday I was able to work about 4 hours, so that was encouraging. I plan to work as much as I can next week, probably from home to begin with but maybe from the office.
Anyway, that kind of updates y'all on what's been going on with me, without getting into alllllll the details. If you have questions because you care about my wellbeing, feel free to reach out to me privately :)
Thinking about what this poster says is almost giving me chills - because, I think .... 4.25 years after my mental breakdown .... I'm finally able to begin seeing this as practically true in my life.
I am no longer the relatively naive 20-something who freaked out when she quit sleeping and was slapped with sudden-onset, severe depression. I'm now a 30-something who is learning {albeit slowly} to maintain a steady course of forward progress in the midst of emotional/mental/spiritual/social/etc. ups and downs. I'm continuing to build a toolkit of coping skills and safe people that I can turn loose in my life when it seems overwhelming.
And through every step of that journey, God has been faithful. So, so, so, so, so immeasurably faithful. His presence in my life hasn't always looked like I wished {in the moment} that it would ...... sometimes QUITE the contrary--so much so that it felt like an absence. BUT GOD. He HAS been present and faithful every moment and every day. So yes, this song at the end of this post is a repeat - but it's what was playing as I turned this post from a simple Facebook share into a full-fledged blogpost and typed this paragraph, and it FITS.
{cue break in writing where Esther binge-listens to this song on repeat multiple times and decides to read the lyrics as a prayer of praise & thanksgiving, (and yes, confession ....) at her small group from church tomorrow night}
I have so many thoughts right now, I'm not sure where this post goes next. The cynic in me wants to say "It's all just the hypomania talking!!!" And yes, I do think that is partially true. But let's rewind to that paragraph where I was talking about God's faithfulness. Because that's not where this post was initially headed. I got there, praise Paraclete, but I was just going to talk about my side of the equation.
Upon more mature reflection, I think I need to let the rest of my thoughts simmer and not write/post them in the heat of the muse/moment. So I'm going to end this here for now. :)
I'm taking a step of faith and writing this blog post at the beginning of the month.
I don't know yet what most of April 2022 holds for me. But I have hope in God that it will hold His purposes and plans for my life, and that whatever those may be, He will weave it into *good* in my life.
April 3rd is the fourth anniversary of my departure from Uganda. But this year, I haven't been boxed in and defined by the anniversaries and failures of that 2018 season that I felt defined me for those first three years, including when I first started writing this blog. Now, at last, I've been back in the States for almost as long as I spent away from the States in Uganda.
God has most certainly been at work in my mind, heart and life over the past four years, and I am so very grateful to Him for all that He's done in and through me. That is NOT to say that I am perfected. Not in the least! Just on Friday I had to have a good-but-tough conversation with my boss because of something I had fallen short in at work. That will be an ongoing struggle over the coming weeks. But I'm learning to use the tools at my disposal to fight each battle a little better than the one before. And in that, I see progress!
If you can't tell from the title and what I have said so far, this post is about moving forward in life! No longer being constrained by my past failures, but being strengthened and renewed by Him who IS my life, to continue working out my own salvation with fear and trembling; as it is HE who works in me both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13, paraphrased).
God's been building up to this point in my life for a while - and now I'm endeavoring to continue following His lead by taking a giant step of faith. I have been SO incredibly blessed to have a tight-knit community of people supporting me. But not everyone has that. A couple weeks ago, God impressed upon me the idea of beginning an online support group for Christians who have bipolar disorder.
Lord willing, I plan to launch this membership-based website in August of this year. Until then, I'm learning about running such a business and soon will begin creating/curating content to populate the site!
So I'm passively moving beyond my past as the time flows on and God works, and I am also endeavoring to actively move into the next phase of my future! Five years ago, God only knew what was coming. And now, once again, only He knows what comes next. But no matter what comes, I'm learning more and more of His goodness and faithfulness!!!!
When I flew to Colorado to see some friends at the beginning of February, on the plane rides back and forth I read the entirety of The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering. I'd had it in my Kindle library for a long time, so I don't recall where/how I found out about it.
It was a very helpful memoir of a woman who has been through a lot humanly speaking in her life, but has chosen to cling to God through it all. But this highlighted passage in chapter 7 really made me stop and think:
It was at that point that I decided March's post here in my story would be a lament. And yesterday as I was walking to my church thinking about a couple things, I was literally stopped in my tracks by a realization about what specifically I needed to lament the most.
As I write this post, the fourth anniversary of my decision to resign from New Hope Uganda was earlier this week. In glancing back at that post I wrote a year ago today, it's amazing the difference in my outlook and perspective!! But we'll get to that :)
So here goes a different sort of post: a lament. {There are certainly some lines of paraphrased Scripture included, I'm just choosing not to clutter this with citations.}
He Is There
Where were You, oh Lord,
When sleep escaped my eyes
When I felt lost in a desert of doubt
When the enemy berated me?
Where were You?
"Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,"
I commanded my soul,
and yet the darkness persisted.
And then ...
It all comes to an end.
My home.
My adult life.
My ministry.
My identity.
In two weeks I was gone,
Leaving the people and place and work that I loved so deeply.
The sorrow didn't end there.
For nine months it frequently engulfed me.
For a year and a half I drifted here and there,
failing to put down true roots.
I questioned my ability to ever hold a steady job again.
BUT GOD.
Lord, You did NOT abandon me in my distress;
You are near to the brokenhearted.
And even when I couldn't see Your hand,
Now I can see the slow unfolding of Your patient and gentle work.
But in those months,
Yes - even in those first 3.5 years.
Oh Lord, I confess ...
That I was hurting deep inside,
That I clung to that hurt as something I deserved.
That so very often I was angry;
Angry at Your plan,
Angry at You.
Forgive, oh Lord!
I pray that You will not judge my life by that season,
I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
All Your works are marvelous,
and that my soul knows full well.
I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for God;
Be strong and let my heart take courage;
And wait for the Lord.
Open my eyes in faith,
Oh Father, I pray.
Teach me to humbly surrender,
To lean into you when I don't understand.
You work all things together for good,
to those whom You have called
and who love You.
Rejoice in God, oh my soul!
Written March 24, 2022
P.S. After I wrote this, one of our prayer time leaders at work focused a Worship session on the idea of Lament. He included a couple songs that I found really meaningful as well - so this shall be a four-song post!
