It's 3:15 a.m. as I put fingers to keyboard.
I spent the first half of this week firmly on the depression side of the spectrum. That story will be published at a later date, once I am finally caught up. By God's grace, I've swung back towards center, and possibly a little past center into a bit of mania. But after 2-ish days of depression, honestly I'll take what I can get!!
But what do I do when I can't sleep, after I've talked to my insomnia buddy? I write :) And so it's fitting that this morning I write about another time when the pendulum was swinging around: July 2018.
After submitting the Servant Teams application on June 30, my parents and I arrived at Nathan's place for a Fourth of July week of fun & family time. It was wonderful! We went camping, got lost on a long hike, etc!! :D
According to Facebook, it was on July 2 that I found out I would be interviewing for Servant Teams - so they didn't keep me waiting long before they let me know about that, which was nice of them!
However, by the time the 11th rolled around (the day of the interview), my pendulum had swung back toward the depression/emotional struggle side of the spectrum. I remember sitting on my bed, being interviewed on the phone by Mandee, one of two Servant Team leaders. And she asked the hard question - something along the line of "Your references mentioned that you were dealing with depression. How is that going?"
I think I gave an answer that kinda beat around the bush, but I was definitely feeling the weight of the despondency that had stolen my life in Uganda from me.
That was on a Wednesday. The next week was VBS at my home church, and I was serving as the photographer for the event. I remember haunting the halls of my church building for the first couple days, questioning my sanity for being there, wrestling with the feelings of depression that I thought then would never ever totally go away.
I think it was Wednesday the 18th that I got a phone call from a phone number I didn't recognize - so as is my habit, I didn't answer - thankfully Yevette (the other Servant Teams leader) left a message!!! She asked me to call her back, so I took a really deep breath and did that. And she said the words I never thought I would hear: I was accepted into the Servant Teams program!!!!!! I was like "REALLY??????"
It literally took another day or two for the news to sink in and pull me out of my despondency once again. I had the opportunity to go and do something real with my life again, something more than be at home and go to counseling and try to put the pieces of my life back together again - this was a chance to go and prove to the world, my family, New Hope, etc. that I was healthy and worthy again.
{Major spoiler alert - that's not exactly how things worked out!!!! But that was my dream and my hope!}
The rest of the month was a flurry of rolling out my plans to my email list and Facebook :) I couldn't wait to leave my parents' home again and strike out on my own for the first time in ..... all of four or five months.
Obviously, looking back from this vantage point, {2020 vision, am I right? Haha} I can see the flaws in my plan. In some ways, I'm not sure why God allowed everything that would follow in the next 5-6 months. Although, if I hadn't gone to Portland, I would have drudged on in the same muddy rut of seeing the same psych and the same counselor, neither of whom were particularly/uniquely good for me. {Another spoiler alert - I'm now with a different psych & different counselor, both of whom I am SO thankful for & *greatly* appreciate, if not outright love!!}
This song, "God of All My Days" by Casting Crowns, was out back in 2018 - but I really didn't know it then. It played this morning on my Pandora station as I sat down to write this post ... and it fits. No, I definitely wasn't perfect in July 2018 {spoiler alert numero tres, I'm STILL not perfect!!!}, but God is the God of ALL my days - not just the good ones :)
Written Nov. 12, 2021
