New Mercies and All Saints - 7 Years of Healing

Today is the 7th Anniversary of my experience of healing from overwhelming depression.

I wrote about it for the first time 6 years ago today.

I've written about it every year since (you can find those posts by going to November 1st in my blog archives, every year since 2006).  I think one of my favorite of those reflections is the one I wrote last year.  It's my favorite because it was a moment of recognition - of recognizing the fact that that day marked both an ending and a beginning.  It marked an ending of hopelessness.  An ending of the all encompassing spiritual darkness and oppression that had marked my days for the previous 7 or so years.  And a beginning. A beginning of another journey of healing.  A beginning of a journey to self-awareness.  A beginning of a journey to know Christ's heart more deeply and personally.

It's that ending and beginning that I find myself reflecting on again this morning.

It's hard for me to believe that I've now been without that hopelessness and overwhelming darkness for seven years now.  That I've been without it for as long as I lived with it.  It seems crazy, because the combination of those 14 years marks nearly half of my life.

Last year I wrote about my journey with the word "heal" and the ways it manifested.  As I continue to journey towards a place of wholeness, I find myself thinking about those manifestations again today.  About the blessing that an excellent therapist, medication, and the development of a number of wonderful friendships over the last year have been in that journey of wholeness.  About the ways that will look moving forward - about coming slowly to an end of that therapy journey, and beginning a journey with a spiritual director that my therapist has recommended to me.

I woke this morning with an overwhelming peace.  A recognition of the gift of these seven years since that moment of healing encounter with Jesus.

I find myself incredibly aware of the new mercies that have become part of my life in the last year.  The mercy of feeling stable and (relatively) whole.  The mercy of healthy relationships.  The mercy of people with similar hearts and temperaments.  The mercy of moving towards a profession and calling.  The mercy of sweet honorary nieces and nephews who never fail to bring a smile to my face, and the mercy of their parents willingness to include me in their lives.

This year I find myself reflecting, too, on the reality that this anniversary of healing falls on All Saints Day.  This morning I read a translation of Pope Benedict XVI's reflections on All Saints Day, and was struck by these lines, "And so this feast day helps us to think about the Church in its dual dimension: the Church journeying in time and the Church that celebrates the never-ending feast, the Heavenly Jerusalem. These two dimensions are united by the reality of the "communion of saints": a reality that begins here on earth and that reaches its fulfillment in heaven."

This reflection of the Pope's strikes home for me in a year where I have spent much time considering the "communion of saints". I am acutely aware of the presence of what the author of Hebrews refers to as "the great cloud of witnesses" both on earth and in heaven, cheering me on, moving me forward in this journey towards wholeness and towards a greater reflection of Christ in my life.  I feel their presence deeply, and find myself so encouraged by it as I go through my days. Pope Benedict put it like this in his address, "In each of them [the saints], in a very personal way, Christ was present, thanks to his Spirit which acts through the Word and the Sacraments. In fact, being united to Christ, in the Church, does not negate ones’ personality, but opens it, transforms it with the power of love, and confers on it, already here on earth, an eternal dimension."  I love this idea - that being united to Christ takes who we are already and transforms it into something eternal - that it is used deeply.  These words resonate with the journey of healing that I have traveled for the last seven years and expect to continue to travel for all my days on earth.

New mercies and the communion of saints - these are the things I find myself reflecting on today as I celebrate seven years since that moment in which God's Spirit so interrupted the course of my life.  I'm not sure I've found words that are all that profound to describe the ways these things are resonating within me right now, but they are, and I celebrate this anniversary with great joy, peace and hope, looking forward to celebrating it over and over again in years to come, and reflecting each year on the ways that Jesus has continued to work His healing and presence in my life.

Looking Back Before Moving Forward

One year ago tomorrow, I announced that my One Word for the year of 2011 would be "heal."  That same day, I posted a list of goals, hopes, and dreams that went with that word in my head, heart and life.

Before I post the One Word that found me for 2012, tomorrow, I wanted to take time today to revisit that list and add some comments on a number of the things it contained.

Yoga:  this one started out strong, and then petered out a bit as the year and my plans changed.  The yoga studio I fell in love with closed somewhat suddenly.  I started working for the temp agency, and ended up at the job that took a huge amount of my time.  I did fall in love with yoga, though, and I'll definitely be working to reincorporate it into my life and schedule in the year ahead.

Scripture Reading:  I finished the chronological trip through the Bible just a few minutes ago.  This was the first time in a long time that I've made the commitment to get through the entirety of scripture in a year.  I'm so glad I did.  I admit that some days I very much skimmed, but it has been good for me (if hard at times) to make time in scripture on a regular basis again.

Cook:  I lost count of how many new recipes I tried this year, but it was definitely more than twelve.  Pinterest brought new life to my attempts at cooking and baking and was the source of many recipes and much inspiration.  Some favorites included pumpkin snickerdoodles, chocolate, peanut butter pretzel cookies, and even peanut butter fudge brownie trifle.

Read:  Yep - way more than 2 books a month.  More like 2 a week (I haven't totaled up the final tally yet).  So good to devote a lot of time reading this year.

TOMS:  Not yet.  I'm still going to buy a pair - hopefully in the coming year, but it will all depend on how my finances look as I take on full-time studenthood again!

Kiva:  I did it!  I made several loans (about 7, I think) over the last year.  The first investment has more than come back to me, and I keep reinvesting.  I love this program, and I think you all should take part and invest.

Those items are kind of the highlights.  It was a very unexpected, but very good year.  I'm glad for it.  I'm glad for the way that all of these things played out.  I've even glad for the way the things that didn't quite go as planned, played out.  I'm looking forward to seeing which thoughts and ideas present themselves to be played out in the year to come.

Wrapping Up "Heal"

My one word for 2011 was "heal".

It wasn't the word I'd initially thought I would choose, but it was the one my heart landed on on December 31, 2010, as I walked and prayed on my way to and from the passport office.

I was in a good place that day, and heal didn't seem intimidating.  It seemed perfect, really.

I was expecting to hear, either within days, or within months, that I was accepted into a nursing program.  What better word for the first year of nursing studies, I thought, than heal?

I was in a good place mentally, emotionally, and spiritually - riding the high of some changes and progress I'd made, heal seemed like the natural continuation of that high, of the victory I was experiencing after many months and years of a tiring fight.

The year didn't turn out quite like I thought it would.

Heal, it turns out, is not all victory and highs.  A lot of it is hard slogging.  A lot of it is tears, and work, surrender and sacrifices.

Nursing didn't work out like I expected.  I didn't start school in January, or September, as I thought I would.  It was a full year of waiting for that part of my journey of healing to happen.  I will start school and that much desired nursing program in 2012, a year whose word has yet to be determined.  The first rejection from the program hurt.  It was a shattering of dreams and expectations.  The second one hurt less so, perhaps from experience, perhaps because of the practical reality of knowing that very few people were accepted in that second application period.

And victory?  Well, changing relationships and tears and struggling are all more apt descriptors of the year.  Uncovering, digging, surrendering.  Yoga.  Chocolate.  Loving friends. Transitions. Knowing Jesus in new ways.  Hard choices.  Hard work.

And yet, as I stop today and recall the past year, I can tell you that it has been a year of healing.

I am healthier - physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I have made choices I never thought I would make and they have changed me, they have helped me heal.  I feel emotionally and spiritually stable in ways that I haven't in more than a decade.  I have friends who I have leaned on in some pretty challenging situations, and who I know I can trust with the messy parts of myself as readily as the tidy and together bits.  I know Jesus in new ways - in ways that convince me that He loves me more than I ever could have believed.  And more than that, I am growing to understand that I, myself, am worthy.  I'm learning that caring for myself, loving who Jesus has made me, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and profound gifts of healing that this year has offered.

The year of heal didn't turn out at all like I expected, but it has been a year that has moved me, and a year that has lived up to it's name.  I can't wait to see what word reveals itself for 2012, and the journey that that word will take me on.

Reformation Day

The church history geek in me much prefers to acknowledge reformation day than halloween on the 31st of October.  That said, this year, on the day when so many people are acknowledging one of these two "festivals", it occurs to me that neither is particularly in the spirit of where my heart is at.  On this day before one of the most significant anniversaries of my faith journey, I am pondering these two festivals, and reflecting on the places in my heart that thoughts of them are touching.

I don't like halloween.  There's something about a holiday that demands the use of costumes and masks to disguise oneself, and seems to embrace the imitation of evil that just doesn't do it for me.  This year I'm thinking particularly about the use of masks and costuming.  After spending the vast majority of workday on Friday listening and observing as two coworkers planned, shopped for, and then tried on their costumes for a Saturday night party, I am struck by the need to hide one's identity.  What sort of day requires the putting on of masks?  The hiding of who one is, and assuming an alternate identity.  There is something about this that seems beyond the child's play and fun the world seems to preach.  For me, it's simply this - when I have fought so long to find an place of joy and comfort within my own skin, why would I choose to embrace another identity, and particularly one that is evil?

And then there's Reformation Day.  Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenburg, and the world changed.  In the past I've written posts about Reformation day, seeing it not so much as a reminder of the splintering of church factions, but as a reminder of the need to be constantly re-formed.  To be constantly open to being made new.  I still think about that.  I've thought about it a lot in this year where my One Little Word is "heal".

But this year I'm thinking too about the splintering.  I've seen much splintering of friendships that I'd thought were permanent over the past years, and it's nothing in comparison to the splintering set off by Luther's act.  And while I'm a member of a protestant church, in faith somewhat a daughter of Luther's act, this splintering grieves my heart deeply.

I am one who has spent a chunk of this year realizing that my heart loves deeply, and once it loves, is intensely loyal.  If you have found space within my heart, I will welcome you openly.  And yet, I've learned that at times that loyalty breaks me.  And so, today, I find myself thinking of the shattered body of Christ called the church, and grieving just a little that we would celebrate this day.  Mark it?  Yes, I think it's one that needs to be remembered, but celebrated?  No.  I am reminded again of a passage I've prayed often over the last years, as I've experienced some of those shattered relationships.  The words of Jesus, praying shortly before the crucifixion, "I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one - as you are in me, Father, and I am in you.  And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me...May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me."

So, October 31st.  I'm thinking about another Monday, October 31st, six years ago.  About how the events of that night led into the following day, and ultimately changed my life.  I'm thinking about the journey of the last six years, and coming from a place of not wanting to wear a mask, but not being comfortable without one to a place of celebrating the work of reforming that Jesus has done within me to make me more wholly present with Him, in my own unique role created for me by Him.  And I'm thinking about celebrating the process of being healed, of being made new, acknowledging that there are times that this process causes pain and splintering, and that my heart remains heavy to pray for unity - for the healed wholeness of my own spirit, and for the healed wholeness of Christ's body here on earth.

Facing Forward

It's nearly mid-October, now, and I find myself staring at the onset of the weeks that seem to be the hardest every year, and wondering what they will hold this year.

They are the hardest weeks for many reasons, these weeks that lead up the anniversary of healing and freedom that I celebrate on November 1st.  This year will mark six years since that day, and even now, these weeks are hard.

Six years ago, they were weeks full of darkness, hopelessness, anger and despair.  They were weeks marked by the numbness of one who has been so assaulted that the blows no longer register.  In the years since, though the weeks remain hard, they are nothing in comparison to the weeks before that moment of healing in which I encountered God.

But that moment of healing is not what this post is about.  I'll talk about it, as I always do, in the days and weeks to come, but not today.  Today I'm facing forward, feeling the challenge presented by the coming weeks, and wondering what they will hold this year.

They are the weeks leading up to halloween.  Weeks that are challenging given my particular sensitivities to the spiritual realm.  Weeks where the heaviness that is invisible so much of the year seems suddenly visible, flaunted even.  Graveyards and witches and monsters abound as people decorate their yards.  Pumpkins leer and one house in my parent's neighborhood proudly displays bloody, severed, grasping hands reaching out of the soil of their flowerbeds.  Mall windows sprout spider webs and I shudder.  These are the weeks where I am tempted to hide indoors, to cocoon and avoid.

They are also the weeks full of memories of that darkness from years ago.  The weeks where I feel it try to encroach, and peace becomes just a bit harder to deeply rest in.

I feel it now, just the beginnings, and I wonder what these coming weeks that lead up to the anniversary I mark with joy and relief each year will hold.

And yet, as I pondered that earlier this week, my attention was caught by lyrics that played on my ipod as I walked:

high up on a rock

looking out at the horizon
watching as the storm rolls in
wondering if my heart will survive it


as the waves crash all around me
and can't remember what it feels like to be free

i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken


oh You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved


You say, I've got you my baby
I've got you
it's quite the mess you're in
but it's nothing Love can't fix


so sit here upon my shoulders
and watch as it all unwinds


You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken


i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved

And in those lyrics, in the reminder of the thing that Love fixed six years ago, and in the reminder that there is nothing that Love can't fix, I find the place I will choose (most likely daily, and even hourly) to rest for these weeks.  Facing forward, trusting, knowing that I am being made into a mountain that cannot be moved, even when shaken.
 

Finding Rhythm

I'm in my sixth week of this temp job, and last week was the first week where I began to feel like I was catching my breath, and finding a new normal.

I tend to forget that adaptation takes more time than I think it will.

This job starts earlier than anywhere I've ever worked.  I need to be in the office at 7:30 am.  That means I need to be at the bus stop at 6:30 am.  And that means that my alarm clock goes off at 5:30 am.

That's right, this avowed night person has been starting every day at 5:30 am!  That's a full two hours before the current sunrise, y'all.

It's pretty much horrible!

And it has definitely taken some adapting of schedules and rhythms.

You see, over the last year I've discovered that my much despised mornings are easier if I wake up with about an hour before I have to be out the door.  It really only takes me maybe 15-20 minutes of that hour to get out of bed and out the door.  The rest of it is spent waking VERY slowly.  Checking a few emails, or reading a few blog posts.  Anything that can be done from a prone, still curled up under the blankets, easing into the day kind of position.

Another newish rhythm has to do with sleep.  On weeknights I try to carve out the last hour before my lights need to be out as a time to wind down.  No television, no phone calls, no computer screens, or cell phone screens.  Just me and some time to write, read, pray and think.

That rhythm has been challenging since, with the early mornings, I need to have my lights out by 10pm, 10:30 at the latest.  That means I need to be done with emailing, blog reading, game playing, web surfing, and television watching by 9 pm.  Do you know how hard this early to bed thing is for me???  Let me just tell you - going to bed that early is almost worse than getting up so early!

Add in full days in an emotionally draining office environment, the need to juggle a family, church and social life, and the ongoing process of exploring my one word for the year, "heal", and it's been quite the struggle to adapt.

I feel like I'm starting to catch a second wind, finally, six weeks in.  Like I've made some strides in figuring out what does and what doesn't work.  Like I'm adapting to this crazy new schedule of sleeping and waking (or at least hating it a little bit less as I recognize that discipline in this area is paying dividends in physical and emotional health - and by extension my mental and spiritual stability).

It's a good thing, and a hard one all at once, these new rhythms.  Nothing I would have expected or chosen, but an encouragement to find footing even in this newest of spaces and challenges.  And that, my friends, is something I'm grateful for.

"If..." Take 7

If you were to name the healthiest thoughts you have on a daily basis, what would they be?
(from "If...Questions for the Soul" by Evelyn McFarlane & James Saywell)

My list of thoughts that are healthiest would probably look something like this:

• Maybe I am healing.
• What made me smile today?
• That was beautiful.
• I'm thankful for...
• That's a lie, and I can choose not to believe it.

What are the healthiest thoughts you have on a daily basis?

Reverb 11 - June

The June Reverb Prompt is:

What can you let yourself off the hook for?

Hmm... An interesting question to ask half-way through the year.


I think the answer for me is "expectations."


In my year of "heal", I've already talked about the fact that it looks nothing like what I expected.  I think it may be a simpler second half of the year if I release myself from my own expectations and timeline.  If I can simply take the days as they come.  If I can live more peacefully within that space.

I think the other half of that is choosing to release myself from expectations of others - whether they're real, or simply something I perceive and take on myself.  To choose to live freely in my own body, meeting my needs and caring for and loving myself.  To be okay with the things that make me different - the things that make me uniquely me.

One Word 2011 - Halfway

Alece has reminded all of us that we are now half-way through the living of our 2011 One Words.

So, it's time for an update.

My 2011 One Word is "Heal".

It's a fascinating word, and it looks nothing like what I thought it might when the year began.

The first days of 2011 were a high.  I'd just made some pivotal relational decisions that were resulting in a profound freedom.  I'd been working on healing already, and was seeing progress.  I think I started 2011 assuming that heal was going to be a victory lap, rather than a journey or a battle.

I was wrong.

It's been a journey.  A long and hard one.  One that at times is probably more accurately described as a battle.

Healing has required humility.  A willingness to throw aside pride and admit how truly broken I've been.

It's required patience for a slow process instead of an instantaneous miracle.

It's required flexibility as changes have come, and new decisions have had to be made.

It hasn't looked anything like the victory lap that I thought it would be.

And yet, I'm seeing healing in new and deep and unexpected places.

Just in the last week, I've seen incredible glimpses of healing in my relationships with my brother and sister in law, and especially with my other brother.  If you had told me that the sort of conversation I had with my brother J early this week was possible, I wouldn't have believed you.  And yet, in a relationship that has been constantly marked by judgment, we had a conversation marked by grace.  The kind of conversation where I closed the door behind him as he left and simply stood there, stunned.

God is being faithful, in the places in which I'm being deliberate in seeking in healing, and in the places in which I least expected it, to work this word out in my life.  It doesn't look how I thought it might, and it has been hard, yet it has its own unique, painful, wonderful beauty and grace, and I'm so very thankful for that.

Stuff Worth Reading

I came across a couple of blog posts in the past few days that really spoke to me, and wanted to share them both with you.

Gitz wrote here about control, and being open to change.  It was a thought I needed to ponder again, as I'm in a space in the midst of a great number of hard changes.  I was also challenged by her comments about struggling with food and body image, since I've fought (and at times continue to fight) my own battles with food.

Over at JennyRain, she's talking about controlling healing.  This was a post I flagged in google reader and went back to several times over.  It's a topic I've been thinking a lot about the last few weeks.  My one word for the year is Heal, and that process hasn't turned out to look anything like what I thought it might.  It's been slower, messier, harder, and full of things I never thought I'd say or wrestle with.  And I've been struck again and again by how it's a process in God's hands, not mine.  A process that I can't control.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these posts.  Or, if you've read something fabulous lately, leave a link for me in the comments.  I'd love to check it out!

One Year

A year ago today, my life changed drastically.

At the end of the work day, I was called into a manager's office, and told that my three year tenure with the company at which I was employed had come to an end.  Immediately.  They watched as I packed my office, escorted me down the elevator to a taxi, and sent on my way, with decisions to make about signing documents and severance.

I did a lot of crying, consulted a few trusted advisers, gritted my teeth, decided to take the money I was being offered, and choose to see this as God's hand moving me forward.  Two days later I left for a two week road trip with my dad, and a few weeks after that I announced that I was going to pursue nursing as a career.

A year later, I can tell you that my life, though it looks nothing like I thought it might, is better for the end of my tenure at the company that my roommates referred to as "the soap opera." 

But there remains painful twinges, as I think about that day.  It's a bit of a humiliating thing to have a job end that way.  Escorted out as if you can't be trusted.  No chance to say goodbye to the friends you've shared the days with for three plus years.

It wasn't the start to a new path that I would have chosen.  It's yet another thing in my life where I have to look at it and say, "even with that, I trust you, Jesus."

It has ushered in new and unexpected things, and today, as I ponder them, as I ponder this year of healing, I feel just a bit melancholy and sad.  It's different than I would have chosen, because so rarely do my plans seem to be in synch with God's, but it's good.  Today I'm thinking about the losses of this year of deconstruction, and praying for the healing and rebuilding that has begun.

Reverb 11 - May

The May Reverb Prompt is:

If you participated in Reverb 10 during December of last year, are any of the things you wanted to manifest in 2011 revealing themselves?

Well, the big thing that I was hoping would manifest is healing.

And I think it is, though, as usual, it looks nothing like what I'd expected.

It has looked like decisions I never expected to make, and a semester of school I'd preferred to have avoided.  It has looked like long conversations, changes in relationships, and even stepping into a few things I was certain I wasn't ready for, but that God has asked for.

And it has looked like a million little things that can't be named or shared.

But it is happening.  It just looks different than I thought it might.

Good Friday

Good Friday is an odd sort of day to encounter, when you're having a year in which you've boldly declared that this year the thing you're giving up for Lent is in fact the practice of Lent.

It's odder still when you in fact gave up Lent because it had become a grinding obligation - a continual and unending suffering, with no room for feasting or joy.

I woke this morning, and stood in the shower (the place where I do some of my best thinking and praying) and pondered.

For the last several years, I've lived the Lenten season as a reflection of life.  My life seemed to only carry suffering, there was little love or joy in my faith, and Lent seemed a perfect fit for that - a season of fasting, suffering, denial, preparation.  A season that moves inexorably towards this day that we mark the crucifixion, the death of a savior.  Easter had become a sort of afterthought - an "oh yes, and there was resurrection," but I was stuck on that Friday, stuck in death and pain and anguish.  I lived out my days and months and years in a Friday mindset.

And this year I declared that enough was enough.  I wasn't going to encourage my natural proclivity for suffering and angst.  Lent moved quickly, this year, with an awareness of the coming of Easter, but not the weighing, dragging of days that it has had for the past several.

I read somewhere that Christians are Easter people, living in a Good Friday world.  I was just a Good Friday person most of the time.

And so I found myself pondering in the shower this morning, feeling almost offended that a day had arrived that demanded my attention focus, at least for a time again, on the suffering.  How dare I be forced to think about that?

And yet, if I can't, if I can't pause and recognize this suffering that has been marked for my healing, what good am I?  How can I be an Easter person, if I can't also see and empathize with a Good Friday world? If I close my eyes and cloister myself in my own controlled world?

I become useless cloistered away in that fashion, and I wither.  And, the reality that these last years have so clearly taught is this - I can't control even my own world, my own desire to avoid personal suffering.

And so today I'm pausing.

I paused through an hour long Tenebrae service - a carefully constructed meditation on shadows, with roots in the fourth century.  I walked in silence from the church, with the others in attendance.  The solemnity that follows the removal of Christ, his laying in the tomb.  The entrance to the days between.

And I'm pondering.

I have learned that being a Good Friday person isn't healthy, and I'm working to learn what it is to be that Easter person, while still carrying great empathy and compassion for a Good Friday world.  I'm learning what it is to exist in those Good Friday moments, without them becoming overpowering.

And I'm thinking about my one word for the year.  Heal.

I'm recognizing that without a Good Friday moment, that healing would not be mine.

And so I wait, today, for resurrection Sunday.

Reverb 11 - April

The Reverb Prompt for April is the following question:


What's blossoming?

Well, it's early April, and I live in Western Canada, so trees are not yet budding, and the only flowers that are blooming live indoors.

But I think I'm blossoming, maybe just a little, in this year where my one word is "heal".

I made more decisions this week.  Decisions I would have deemed impossible a year ago.  Decisions to care for myself and my heart, to give that priority.

I started a job.  A job that seems to fit me well.  No pushy sales.  No big corporate structure.  Lots of handmade, natural products to help people feel pampered and cared for.  Friendly people.  The only downside so far is that it involves using really big knives.  Knives scare me.

I'm learning that I am more capable than I feel, and that I really CAN juggle all the spheres of my life and be happy.  April is going to be a month that will test that theory, as I juggle work, school, church and personal obligations.  I'm tired already, and it's only a week in, but things are getting done when they need to be.  And, at the end of this month, the juggling will get easier as school ends for a bit.

I feel like I'm becoming free in new ways.

It's pretty much a messy, wild thing. 

One that still requires a lot of healing (it is, after all, my word for the year).

But one that is blossoming within the quiet spaces of my heart.

One that grows as I make daily 5 lists, and make choices to care for myself.

There is joy blossoming as the sun tries to make an appearance and bring growth and color and life.

Emerging newness.

And I love it.

Heal: One Word 2011 Update

I've had this post that Alece wrote a couple of weeks ago flagged in google reader, as I tried to figure out what to say for an update on how my "one word" for this year is going.

My word is "heal", and I announced it here  and here (and you can find all of the posts I've written about it here.)

I think, when the year started, I was kind of thinking of "heal" as a triumphant thing.  It was finally here, everything was going to be better, and rosy.

It hasn't turned out that way.

Healing, it turns out, is hard, slogging, work.

Good work.

But hard and slogging.

There have been some good things - I had a goal to try a "real" yoga class, and I fell in love with this form of exercise.  I've made some other self-care things a priority, and they are making a difference.

But it's been a lot of hard stuff too.

A year of deconstruction, on the tails of several years of hard challenges, leave a lot of pieces to be sorted, picked up, ordered, and then discarded, or reassembled.  There's been a bit of all of those processes so far this year.

Physically, some of the health stuff that had seemed to finally be turning around as the new year came, has taken a step back, and I'm paying a bit of a price for that.

Emotionally, I've been diligent in working for health.  In reading, in seeking help and wise counsel, in making sure to leave room for margin and rest, and for things like yoga, and time alone - the things that give me space to breathe.

Spiritually, there is growth, and healing happening.  Wounds are settling out, and maybe even closing.  But some have also been uncovered, ripped open, and made visible.  I know God more intimately now, than ever before.  But many of the emotional and spiritual wounds run deep, and I have shed buckets of tears as I've walked this journey of "heal".

It's a word that is shaping my consciousness.  A word that is forming my year.

As of last week, this came in the mail, and it's a word I wear around my neck, reaching up to touch it, to finger it, to be reminded as I feel it sitting against my skin.

It's my word.  And it's been a very mixed journey, but one that is good.

Heal.  It's the word God gave me for this year, and, a quarter of the way through, it's definitely holding my attention, making me curious, excited, nervous, and a little bit scared to see what comes next.

I am learning...

I am learning about choices and perspective and proportional response.

I'm learning that my responses become disproportionate when I haven't slept well, or eaten properly, but especially when I haven't slept.

I'm learning that I can choose whether or not something is a setback. That I can choose how I respond. That the grade that is lower than I prefer can be a day-ruining disaster, or that I can acknowledge that I probably should have studied more, and choose to do that the next time.

I'm learning that chocolate really is essential, and that being thankful for the little things really does make a difference.

I'm learning that humbling myself enough to admit the struggle is huge. That so often the internal cease fire comes when I stop to write it down or share it with a trusted friend.

I'm learning that writing or sharing it can restore proportion.

I'm learning to recognize those ever more frequent moments when my internal dialogue shifts and my heart voice begins to quiet the voices of fear and shame and guilt that have taken up residence in my head and some sort of equilibrium is restored.

I'm learning that so often that shift of voices comes when I humble myself and ask the ones I trust to pray.

I'm learning that I am held on the breath of those prayers, heard or unheard by my ears.

I'm learning that the shift of voices, the humbling, the breathy prayers, usher me onto holy ground, if I will only let them.

I'm learning to let them.

Because I'm learning to believe that it is there that healing is coming.

Coming Into Herself

It's no secret that Grey's Anatomy has played a huge role in my life and journey for the last seven years.

God has spoken to me over and over and over again through the years in the various episodes.

And, in a lot of ways, I feel like my journey has very much paralleled that of the characters, particularly of Meredith.  That sort of coming of age, and growing into oneself, and healing and overcoming the "dark and twisty" pasts.

I was thinking about that journey again on Saturday night as I watched last week's episode of Grey's, transcribing the monologue for the blog I maintain with the various monologues from each episode on it.

It wasn't so much the monologue that caught me in that episode, as the decision Meredith had to make.

She had her choice of two clinical trials to participate in.  One was seeking a cure for the Alzheimers, the disease that her mom died of.  The other, being pushed at her by the chief of surgery, was working to cure diabetes, and was being promoted as her "birthright" - her legacy.  It was based on research left behind in her mother's journals, and she was being told that it was really very much hers to carry on her mother's work.

And so I watched as she wrestled with the decision.  With the pressure coming from the chief, and, to a great extent, the pressure of her terrible relationship with her deceased mother, and all the years of wounding and healing that that had led to.

And I watched, as, at the end of the episode, she walked back into the chief's office, finds him poring over her mother's old journals, listens to his pitch one more time, and then calmly handed back to him the folder of information on his proposed trial.  "You knew the woman who wrote them.  That's why I gave them to you.  I was happy to read them and to understand her better, but the woman I knew was different.  But I am starting to realize how scared she must have been.  That had to be why she was writing everything down.  She must have been so scared.  So please, go ahead, I think it's right that you continue her work, but I really, just, want to cure her disease.  Good night, Chief."

I'm having trouble finding words for it, but watching that scene was a moment of clarity for me.  In a way that her character hasn't before, she was able to say, "No.  Despite all these other things, present and past, this is who I am, and I don't want to carry on her legacy, I just want to prevent the thing that killed her from killing others."

She stepped into herself, and in watching that I felt Jesus reminding me that I am learning to do this to.  That on the same night I watched that episode, I'd had a realization of an area in which I needed to step into myself again.  That that night I was able to see a decision that needed to be made, and make it.

It's an interesting thing, this coming into oneself.  This thing where it becomes about me and God, not me and all the people I try at times to please.  Not me and all the fears and guilt and pressures.  But me and God, and He offers me the chance to step into myself.  To heal a little tiny bit more (because that is my one word for the year).  And if I turn Him down, it's disobedience, and sin.

And so I'm choosing to step into myself in this moment.  To make that choice, to be obedient.  And I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Sunday's are for Resting

Yes, yesterday finished slowly.

But I ended up spending a great deal of it feeling fairly ill, as some health stuff that flares up occasionally flared.

I cooked a fabulous new dish, part of my goal to make at least 12 over the course of the year, and ended up barely being able to eat any of it.

A long treatment from mom left me feeling a bit better, and I headed towards bed.  The bonus is that for the first time in several days, I slept fairly well.

And so, today is mostly for resting.

I haven't changed out of my pajamas yet. I'll get up in a while and shower.

I'm working on some things that need to be accomplished, but I'm doing them from a chair, watching Top Chef, wrapped in a blanket, and with magic bags across my sore hips and neck.

So I'm resting.  Because today, caring for me, letting myself heal, looks like rest.

Feel Good

In last night's daily 5, I mentioned that I'd marked an item off of my to do list that had been sitting there for literally months.

Ages ago I came across this fabulous "Feel Good" list from UpUp Creative.  I loved everything about it, and especially the story behind how it helped the creator overcome postpartum depression.  I was broke at the time I first spotted it, and life wasn't quite as challenging as it has been for most of the last year, so I didn't place an immediate order.

Months ago I decided that I wanted to either make my own version of this list, or order one, and it sat on my mental to do list through all of the hard stuff that life has thrown at me for the past year.

Finally, when it became clear that my one little word for 2011 would be heal, I decided I needed a fun way to keep track of whether or not I was taking time to care for myself and make self-care a priority, and the feel good list came to mind.

A couple days ago I got in touch with the creator of the list to place an order, yesterday I filled out the form, and later last night my custom list was returned to me.  I'm not going to share the items here - I used some of my own, and some of the creator's and I can't wait to press the list into use starting Sunday.  For me this is a way to mark moments of healing and taking time to care for myself.  To chronicle my weeks through the remainder of this year and beyond.  Hooray for self-care and healing!

Find Your Voice

How could I not share this great find, especially since earlier in the week I wrote this post about my one word for 2011 (heal) and about finding my own voice as a part of that process of healing.

Found here, on this fabulous blog that you should all subscribe to.  Such a fun concept - messages on post it notes, left in random public places.