“You know,” he began as we drove home, “I wouldn’t trade you and the kids for the world…but if I had it to do differently, I don’t think I’d have moved in with you when I did.”  –He was talking about 7 1/2 years ago, when I hastily asked my then-boyfriend if he wanted to move in.  Truth is, as soon as I’d said the words “Guess you could always move in here,” I’d regretted them, frantic at what my parents would think (not even taking the time to consider what I thought).  It was one of those you can’t go back now moments – someone was going to get angry and hurt no matter what.

“But if I had it to do differently…” The words echoed in my ears.  Truthfully, there are probably a million things I would love to be given a chance at a do-over in my life.  But then it occurred to me:   What if life wasn’t really made up of mistakes and victories, or failures and successes?  –What if it was simply a series of choices, some of which may not turn out quite the way we’d hoped? I’m not proposing that sin doesn’t exist (it does), but what if some of our less-than-great ideas weren’t really mistakes, just choices?

My husband had begun the conversation, meaning only that he would have waited.  He wouldn’t have been so hasty.  He would have saved his money and….  But, the truth is:  Neither of us were the people we are today.  Seven-and-a-half years ago, my sweet husband hadn’t yet learned some of the financial wisdom he now knows and understands.  Back then, he would’ve made promises to save for our future, but as soon as the first pretty toy came along, his savings would’ve been depleted.  I would’ve seen him as a flake.  Dishonest.  Bad news.  I wouldn’t have stayed around long enough to get engaged, and would probably not be with him today.  We wouldn’t have gotten married.  We wouldn’t have had the opportunity to pull through some really rough times together.  We wouldn’t have these two beautiful girls together…and we wouldn’t be building this amazing life together.

It’s easy to say from the outside looking in that the choices we made were a mistake.  And while some of the choices we’ve made may lack a certain degree of wisdom, proclaiming them a mistake is extremely short-sighted, because none of us can see from one brush-stroke what the masterpiece will be when it’s finished.

How silly is it to judge who I was (or others!) by who I am today?  Who I was 5 months ago is VERY different than who I am today…much less who I was 7 years ago.  Wisdom rarely comes easy, it’s our “mistakes” or the consequences of our choices that break us down only to build us up, making us stronger, wiser, and more compassionate people.

The past few days have been…trying.  From harsh words to a beating heart, stilled…to bad news and even more complexities in an already uncertain situation.  Ah yes, trying.  Tough.

But, even as the tears rolled down my cheeks, I kept counting.  I kept being thankful.

Then, there was yesterday and I could feel the adrenaline leveling out, leaving me at some low place with little to say, and only the past day’s events circling through my head.

But today, as I sat on my porch swing, journal in hand, I forced myself to name at least one thing I was thankful for.  And with that first scribbling of ink, many more poured out of me.  Thanksgiving poured out, and yet I was filled up.  Amazing, how that is.

Storms are moving into our area, potentially devastating and frightening storms, but for the moment, the weather outside is calm and warm.  It  reminds me a lot of how I feel my life is right now – so many things stacked up, not going the way I’d hoped.  And, in certain areas, things promise to get harder before they get better, and yet I move forward, face towards the sky.

I just wish I was better at this.  It takes practice, I know.  Walking and living in constant thanksgiving must be learned, but oh how I could use it now!  I wonder if I’ll always need to be reminded (like the Israelite people coming out of Egypt) of God’s greatness, always counting, or if I’ll ever be able to just hold onto it.

But, then again… I’m not sure if I’d have it any other way…I kind of like finding the treasures amidst the supposed rubble.

Part Two.

I think it became evident when the anti-depressants stopped working for me.  – That this had become a heart matter. *

And as big of a realization as that was, it still left me standing in the middle of nowhere, clueless and directionless.

So, now what?

How could I possibly fix my heart if the things in my life that were breaking it were still in place?  How could I change my life if everything was going to stay the same in it?

Looking back, I can now see God in the details, even through the darkness.  As close as I’d come to completely wrecking, He’d always sent someone (or something) to cushion my fall a little.

Consistent sweet texts for a time, “Good morning, Princess!  How is your day?  Love you much!”

A flurry messages checking in on me.

Flowers.

A friend bringing food by.

A sweet card.  Gifts on my doorstep.  A rainbow in the sky.

Wind-chimes.  Birds singing.  A sudden unexplainable burst of joy as sunlight warms my face.

In the darkness, I had thought I was hitting rock bottom.  Instead my Savior was catching me.  It was His hands I had felt underneath me.

Feeling like I was at the end of my rope, I walked into a group of women one night – I felt defeated, hopeless, and angry.

Truth be told, I was there because of a relationship that was hurting me – I was there because I wanted to know how I could fix that relationship.

As a couple dozen eyes turned towards me, I could feel my insides ripping loose, as I dumped the raw hurt all across the table.  Years of pain slipped between my lips, filling every silent corner of the room.  Tears, like little highways, made their way down my face.  After being bottled and shaken for so long, I just couldn’t be still any longer.

For a few terrified seconds, I waited for the roof to cave in and collapse on my head.  It didn’t.  Instead, I found love, compassion, understanding, and a sense of camaraderie.  They may not have lived my exact story, but we were all sinners just the same – and together, we were embarking on a journey both inside those walls and out in the “real world”…

*When I say it was a heart matter, please understand that I’m not minimizing my (or anyone else’s) depression.  I had MAJOR depression, but the fact of the matter is that medication has it’s limits.  Sometimes, it just can’t cure everything.  Due to a hurtful and hard past and current events, my heart was broken and shattered.  I needed to look at the CAUSE of my pain and affliction, rather than just medicating myself and trying to wish it all away.

This journey, I can’t say exactly where it began because it feels like I’ve been trudging uphill most of my life.  Perhaps I have.  But, I can tell you the point when it turned a sharp curve and headed steeply downhill.

Being as it shadowed most of my history as me, I began to wonder if perhaps I was just never made to be happy.  –If maybe, just maybe, I was a defect living in this happy “normal” world.

And so things went, these thoughts always looming in the back of my mind, following me.  They say life is like a roller coaster, and boy was mine.  Except, somehow I got on the broken, rusty ride where when you took a dip, you never really knew if you’d ever stop safely at the bottom – sometimes, you felt like you’d just crash to smithereens.

I had bad days and I had good-enough days.  Two steps forward, one step backward.

Wearing someone else’s smile, shoving the hurt deeper below the surface as it threatened to seep out.  A room full of people, yet so alone.

My worst enemy had become myself, yet I didn’t feel safe anywhere I stood.  I had engaged in one of the most complicated and dangerous wars – the kind from within.

Thoughts attacked me.  Worthless.  Ugly.  Good-for-nothing.  Loser.  Un-Loved.  Incapable.  Not good enough.  If anyone knew you, they’d leave too.  Oh, and how they went on.  There were days when I’d lie in bed, unmoving, only because I feared that if I moved, I’d be pulled toward a tool to end my life like a strong magnet.  I would grit my teeth, crying out in anguish to my God.

My first breakthrough came with a sudden thought.  My daughters.  Beyond the initial pain of losing their mother, but to their future.  Could I really rob my daughters of a best friend?  Could I rob them of hugging and holding when they first experience heartbreak?  Or, consoling them when life seems too big?  Was I willing to take away the experience of being able to be there for them as they each walked down the aisle?  No.  I couldn’t.  Wouldn’t.

It became a switch, this new realization that even if I couldn’t fight for me, I would fight for them.  While I may have seen myself as one big, drippy mess…they were pure and lovely.  So, as the darkness creeped in, I would use my switch (and, often).  It didn’t make the darkness go away, but it made me safer.

Despite my major stride, I was still floundering through life.  I was barely floating, sputtering for air as my head kept going under – darkness clouding my vision.

Part Three.

Like black charcoal dust, the secrets swarmed inside, swelling, threatening to burst out at my seams.  It seemed the harder I tried to succeed at LIFE, the harder I fell.  Even in the simplest things, my life felt like a never-ending arrangement of falling dominoes.  I wanted it out of me, this swirling of secrets and lies, but sometimes it’s just not that easy.

And so, I would pour out just a little of my black dust over a cup of tea, but it never went down right and left me anxious and regretting that I’d ever even let it out.

So, I’d pull it all back in, letting it swirl and poison my insides.  Slowly, parts of me began dying away.  I could feel it eating me alive.  I could feel it sucking my joy dry.  It’s an interesting feeling – wanting to escape this death and wanting to escape by death all at once.

I was crushed.  Drowning in quicksand.  The more I flailed, begging for help, the more I sank.  A message board.  A counselor.  Advice from well-meaning people.  My own thoughts.  – They all told me the same message in different words.  This thing I was trying to save?  USELESS.  (And, some even ventured to tell me that it was me who was useless.)

I laid on my pillow, soaked in my own tears, crying out to God, pleading that He’d just take it all away.  That He’d just tell me what to do.  But, when the tears dried, I busied myself with “concocted plans” of things that *I* could do.  I asked for God’s help, but since it didn’t come immediately, I figured He had left me too.  Who am I, that even my own God doesn’t love me for all of my secrets?

And as much as it made sense for me to quit altogether on paper, something held me back.  I couldn’t see this invisible force that pulled me back, time and time again.  But, the things that made sense on paper just didn’t make sense in the bottom of my soul.

I was in a maze, trapped, every exit was nothing but an illusion.  I wanted out.  I was alone and drowning and it felt like I had nothing but a shore of spectators.  So, I reached out even further, hoping someone would just help me out of this.  The truth is, no matter how much you may think you want to die, when the air begins to leave your lungs, your survival instincts kick in, propelling you towards life.

And thus, someone suggested I just pray.  “JUST pray?”  I asked, incredulously.  Didn’t they get the memo that God didn’t care about me anymore?  Besides, God was great and all, but what was He going to do?  I didn’t need a little help, I needed full-blown resuscitation.  Besides, I wasn’t too sure I hadn’t gotten my answer.  But, who were these crazy Jesus-freaks, thinking that ALL I needed to do was PRAY?  Sure, praying was great…you know, AFTER I had a real plan.  I think I saw prayer more as a complement to a plan of action, rather than the other way around.

Then, there was the issue of God’s plan.  I never really doubted God’s plan, but when people used it as a form of reassurance for me, it made me cringe.  I knew God had a plan, but I didn’t really think it involved much of anything for me that I’d LIKE.  I’d already seen how a good portion had turned out in my personal life, and I wasn’t really impressed.

I looked around and saw all of these people with “normal” lives, people that were happy, and I wondered how the heck I got the short end of the stick.  And, while I knew that someone stuck in the quicksand couldn’t possibly pull another person out, I didn’t really want these “happy” people telling me how to be happy when they could never understand.  But then again, I really wanted that “happy” – I wanted to have “my time” in life where things would stop flying at my face.  And, I really wanted it RIGHT THEN.

(Part Two.)