My life is a testimony of God. Today isn’t as dark as it has been often of late… but there was spiritual warfare yesterday on my behalf. If I am going to be held in bondage to my mental health, I am no longer going to be held in bondage of the fear and shame and pride of keeping silent about the fight. I am alive today. I will make it through today because today I know my Savior lives, and the Holy Spirit of God dwells within me, and is fighting for me.
However, let’s not pretend that the above statement sounds anything like I felt or thought forty-eight hours ago. Something heavy has broken off and I feel the lightness of my real life right now, not the oppressive weight of depression that has been smothering the joy from my home this year. But is this just a moment of sun (Son?) between storms? I have to take this moment to share while I have the words, because God works best in weakness, and I am glad to share my story of living the tension between giving up and fighting for my own life.
I know I am one of the lucky ones. I am tethered to this existence by my Creator’s hand, but I have tied the lives of five other humans directly to me and I cannot escape that fact, even when I want so desperately to cut the ties that bind me to this world. Even that is a tension, though, between wanting them to be happy and whole and successful, thinking they cannot achieve those things while I am in their lives, and recognizing that my presence is what they really need.
God has extended me a certain amount of grace during this season. I am a mom of four, nearly forty years old, and my youngest (likely last) is nearly two, cosleeping, night nursing, and the size of a small elephant. Sleep is not a luxury for me, but a necessity, and I struggle to wake up each morning to get my older kid out the door for school on time. This is just such a hard part of life, even though I wouldn’t trade it. But please, please, stop telling me to just get up earlier to spend time with God each day because it’s so important. I just am going to feel like a failure because I can’t force my body to respond to internal desires to spend time with Jesus (and those are real, deep desires of my heart), when I am struggling to react to external stimuli (like my alarm which I also have to set to something gentle so I don’t wake up the sleeping toddler next to me). I get it. I do. But I don’t need to hear get up earlier, when I am at the mercy of motherhood. As a matter of fact (and here’s the revelation for me this morning), I don’t actually need your solution for my life, because God already has one in play, if I choose to let Him. God has given me a small measure of morning grace, a short time after I wake up when my nerves aren’t fried, my patience isn’t thin, and my desire for quiet in the house helps me maintain my tone and volume if I feel challenged by my daughter getting ready for school. This is purely Grace on His part, but it is cultivated in relationship with Him. I have been sowing the seeds for this by continuing to walk with Him during the hard times, by failing day after day, and still turning back to God at the end of the day and thanking Him for letting me exist in my life.
I try… I try to pray for Him to heal me and think about medication v. healing and I WANT TO BE MIRACULOUSLY HEALED BY JESUS CHRIST OF MY MENTAL ISSUES. The tension I live in day to day right now requires me to have faith that I will both survive the days until then, and yet one day receive freedom from the bondage of my emotions! Pray on that! I tell God that I don’t think I can go through a low like the last one, and He reminds me that I did come through the last one, clinging by a thread to Him.
If I turn down my emotions, I turn down my connection with the Holy Spirit. When I drink, I can’t hear Him at all. I worry that if I am medicated, I will lose the intense moments of connection that I have felt with Him. I’m afraid.
So here I sit, quietly in the darkness, asking God to deliver me from the sadness, the madness, the insecurities that cripple my desire to live free. And here, in the darkness, I find Him; a light burning in the blackness, a thread of hope that I cling to, He is my Savior. This is the cup He has given me, and my cup overflows.
This is not the war that I have won today, but it a victorious battle, hard fought and not without loss. Those people I have tethered to myself feel the pain, the inconsistency of living with someone that experiences such extreme emotions. I have hurt my family, have caused them heartache and discomfort, and they still love me. How do I reconcile this with my desire to love them well? How do I crawl out of this hole, repair the damage I have done, and how do I walk in the freedom that Christ offers? I can’t answer those questions today, because if I examine myself too closely, I find myself staring back down into the darkness, seemingly grasping at the injuries and finding nothing but contempt and bitterness to hold me captive.
“Awake, awake, Clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion; Clothe yourself in your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; For the uncircumcised and the unclean Will no longer come into you. Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem; Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus says the Lord, “You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money.””
Isaiah 52:1-3 NASB1995
Redeem me, Oh Lord. Deliver me from the darkness that threatens to consume me. Give me strength today to shout Your praises, to step into the light of Your goodness. You showed me a moment where my words could light a fire for someone else in the darkness, and I pray expectantly for that day. Until I wake again and the sun shines on my face, I will praise You in the darkness.
Chelsea Finds Jesus 
Leave a comment