God

A Story

anxiety, christianity, depression, God, inspiration, mental health, postpartum depression

Is there a specific event, a time in your life that you can recall as being very significant?

Perhaps it even has a date with it, a day that when it comes up on the calendar…you remember. It could have been one of the happiest moments, or days in your life. A day that when you reflect back on it, it brings joy to your heart and a smile to your face.

Or, there might be an event that has the opposite effect on you when you remember. The memory of that time brings about negative emotions. Pain, fear, anxiety, trauma, regret, sadness.

This time of year usually brings about mixed emotions for me since going through my own dark, specific event that I’ll never forget. October is a beautiful month where the trees’ leaves change colors and the crisp, cool air brings about an energy with it. It is also one of my favorite months because it is the month that my daughter has her birthday and we celebrate her life and the joy she continues to bring to us.

After October, comes the month of November on the calendar. As the seasons change and the colorful leaves start to fall, for me it sometimes can still trigger painful memories.

I’ll always remember the date for me. November 17, 2014.

It was when I got blindsided by an illness that came out of left field. That I was not prepared for. It was an unwanted diagnoses. Postpartum depression.

It was a time when I was supposed to be my happiest. My daughter, our first baby, was born just one month prior. But I was sick. I was in a dark, scary place in my mind. Depression and anxiety were both playing off each other so well.

The good news to that story is that I got better! God healed me!

When I look back on the almost now past five years, it can bring me to tears. Sometimes I can get so focused on the negative things that happened because of PPD and the challenging journey it has been ever since finding healing years ago. The ways I have felt stuck. Enslaved to fear. Anxiety as my seemingly constant companion.

But…I MUST remind myself…

Look at how far I’ve come! Look at what all I’ve done since that time! What all I’ve overcome, how I have stepped out of my comfort zone countless times?!

THIS is what I need to focus on. It’s so hard for us to see this sometimes, because we are often our worst critic and do not give ourselves credit. We forget to see the beauty and to thank God for all He has done for us.

What event is it for you, that you need to release your grip from? To release to God? To come to peace with the fact that you might not ever know “Why?” Why it happened. But to thank God that you are standing where you are now. Thank Him that your heart is beating. That you are breathing. He has a purpose for you. You made it through, because You Are A Warrior.

Whether you see yourself that way or not…look yourself in the mirror and say those words out loud. “I am a warrior!” Let the tears fall. Let the lies vanish from your mind. Let the walls you’ve built to protect yourself come down. Let TRUTH permeate into the hardest parts of your heart. Let your heart soften to God’s truth. That He LOVES you. That you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And that dark memory…that date on the calendar that you don’t like to think about?

Know this.

“That’s not my whole story.

That’s a PART of my story.”

PPD is only a chapter in my story. A significant chapter that in many ways changed my life, for the better and in not so many great ways. It left wounds yes, but these invisible scars also remind me. They remind me of the almighty God who longs to rescue us from peril, who shows up to comfort us in our darkest hour.

But that chapter? It Does Not Define Me. It left me feeling crippled, weak and like I had failed after it was all over. It has held me down, held me back, for a long time. I’ve stepped out boldly and grown, and yet in many ways fear still keeps me a prisoner, because of the memories that still pop up from time to time of this traumatic event.

Perhaps I’m realizing, ever so slowly, that PPD does not define me. That’s just a part of my story. God has orchestrated a beautiful life for me from the time His daughter took her first breath.

There’s a purpose for me. I have not just ONE story to tell, but HUNDREDS of stories!

Of feeling God in the whisper of the wind through the pine trees at church camp as a little girl. Hearing him in the whisper of the wind. Of the moment when I met the man that God designed and made just for me, who is now my husband of eight years. Of feeling sheer delight, adrenaline and a bundle of nerves when jumping on the plane as newlyweds and moving across the world to the Land of the Long White Cloud. New Zealand. Of trekking across volcanoes. Standing underneath a waterfall and feeling it wash over my skin. Standing in fields of wildflowers, knowing that my God is a creative artist, and that He loves me. Of watching my daughter being born…hearing her cry for the first time, and the feeling of euphoria and indescribable love wash over my heart.

If you are in a place where you are struggling right now, or feel stuck in an event…please believe and KNOW that there is more to your story. There is More to You.

God ain’t done with me yet, and He ain’t done with you.

So keep on. There’s a beautiful life ahead of you, with HUNDREDS of grand stories for you to tell.

#worldmentalhealthday

It’s All Gonna Be Magnificent

anxiety, beauty, blogger, christian living, Faith, God, inspiration, Uncategorized

“And there she stands

Throwing both her arms around the world

The world that doesn’t even know

How much it needs this little girl

It’s all gonna be magnificent, she says.”


Whenever I listen to these words from the beautiful, heart-stirring song by “Elbow”, it brings so many images to my mind. 
I see me. How and WHO I want to be. 
I see her vividly in my mind. 


She is laughing. 

She is Free. 

Dancing.

 
Smiling so big that it makes her crinkle her nose. The same smile that she knows her husband fell in love with her, many, many years ago. She still smiles and laughs, but is it the same? Is it as often, back when life seemed easier? More simple?

 
I see the “little girl” that I used to be. The me before “life got in the way.” Life has been beautiful and I Thank God for all my blessings. My husband. My beautiful daughter. I have truly been blessed beyond measure. But, like most of you, I have experienced pain and darkness. Sometimes I feel like it’s taken its toll on my spirit.

 
When this song plays, I see the woman I want to be. A woman who puts her wholehearted trust and confidence in God each and every day. Who believes that He will walk with her through whatever might come her way. Shouldn’t she know that, and have the deepest faith, because He’s always been with her, even in her darkest hours? She wants to believe that God will give her the desires of her heart, and He KNOWS her heart’s desires.

 
“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” Proverbs 31:25 


Do I want to be that woman?! Do I want to laugh without fear of the future? A resounding Yes! 


Do I want anxiety do my constant companion? 

Do I want fear to STOP Me? 


Can I use this fear, instead, as a CATALYST to drive me forward into the direction, the path, I want to go? Sometimes I think we get to a point in our lives where we get so fed up with… so tired of the way we’ve been living. The roadblocks standing in our way. 


And then we feel this anger rise within us. An anger because, we KNOW, we deserve better than this. We deserve to be treated better than we have been treating ourselves. We become angry at the Enemy for the lies and doubts he’s instilled within us, that we have been listening to for FAR TOO LONG. 


I know that God is walking with me on this journey. He knows where I’ve been. He knows my heart. He knows the power of Satan, and God knows the lies that I have held onto.

 
He’s been working on my heart. This has been a year of “growing pains.” 

Growth. 

Stagnancy.

 
A stirring. 


It’s painful to grow. But it is worth it! 


If you feel stuck, you can get out. A seed has to be planted in the ground, and it works hard to break out of its shell and through the earth to blossom into beauty. To see the sun and the light, sometimes it takes going through darkness. And it takes time. Patience. 


There’s a place where I want to be, and our family to be, that I envision.

 
Striving. 

Trying. 

Growing. 

Learning.


There’s been Resistance. It makes me laugh, because Satan sees. He sees me. He sees this stirring within me, the things I’m trying to let go of, and the good things of God that I’m trying to cling to. And he doesn’t want me to say goodbye to him. He wants to dwell in my heart, soul, spirit, and mind.

 
But he doesn’t belong there.

 
God does. 


And I laugh, because I know that…

“It’s All Gonna Be Magnificent.”

The Wren

anxiety, depression, Faith, inspiration, mental health, postpartum depression, Uncategorized

The wren came to me during my darkest hour.
I was sick.
The sun wasn’t shining.
It was raining.
Clouds covered the heavens.
I was lost.
Lost in terrifying, paralyzing thoughts.
Thoughts I’d never had before.
That were not me.
That rose up within me a feeling that was truly paralyzing me.
Anxiety.
I had just given birth to our daughter a month before.
My husband and I’s first child.

So, why did I feel this way?
Where was the elation?
The happiness?
It was like someone had injected poison into my veins.
Fear.
Worry.
Dread.
Panic.
I was sick.

The postpartum depression was powerful.
It was a living, breathing being.
It truly had a life of its own.
It had become the enemy.
It was my enemy.
Attacking me.
I was fighting back, desperately.
Fighting just to stay alive.
It felt like it was winning.

Every day I would awaken to the sound of black crows.
“Ca caw!! Ca caw!!”
Dread.
Just before the sun would arise each day,
While darkness filled the sky,
The panic attacks would overtake me.
During those three months, I awoke to a panic attack.
And I awoke to the sound of the enemy outside my window.
The black crow taunting me.
And seeing the buzzards that lived in the dead tree behind the house.

Imagine the fear I had!
The visual imagery.
It was winter.
Everything was dead around me.
The buzzards looked down upon me from the towering, lifeless tree.

Hopeless.
I wanted to live, and yet I wanted the suffering to end.

I stood outside that day.
Staring up at the sky.
A break in the clouds.
I saw the sunlight streaming down from heaven.
And then, I heard him.
Faint at first, and then its song reverberated throughout the dark forest.
The melody was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
I couldn’t see the bird.
I didn’t see him for a long time.

Days later, I sat in the living room, feeling especially depressed that particular moment.
I stood up and walked to the back window.
And then, I saw him.
He sat on the red rocking chair on the back porch.
Facing my direction.
We were merely two feet away from one another.
I stood still.
He looked at me.
Our eyes locked and we both stared into each other’s eyes.
This is why I believe in Magic.
This is why I believe in God.
In miracles.
In that moment, I felt like that bird was talking to me.
He was telling me, “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

And then, I found something I’d been searching for.
Hope.
Hope flooded my heart.
I knew in that moment, that God was with me.
He had not forsaken me.
From that day forward, I kept seeing and hearing that bird.
That bird called a Carolina wren.
It became known as “my wren”.

He made a nest outside my window.
I started hearing the crows less and less.
I’d awaken to the sound of the wren singing his song outside my window.
Singing so loudly.
Scaring away the enemy.
God is in the whisper of the wind,
He’s in the things we deem as “small.”
Like this tiny, little bird that is known for being shy.
My wren was not shy.
He was sent down from heaven to give me hope.
He knew he had to work his magic.
And he had come at just the right time.
When hope had been failing me.

It was still a journey,
But with the Spring came my healing.
At last.

With the Spring came new life.
The wren’s nest outside my window
Now housed a family of tiny, baby wrens.
Life was beginning again.
Healing.
Redemption.
Life.
I was alive.
God had saved me.
He sent me a wren.
Yes, the wren came to me during my darkest hour.

[Photography credit: Tom Mann]