Healing

It’s been awhile! I’ve missed this outlet for my thoughts and feelings, but didn’t feel it was an appropriate time to share them until now. I just re-read my previous post and remember thinking things couldn’t get much worse than they’d been. I was wrong.

Within a few days of that last entry, I was inpatient at a local mental health facility. It was a scary time, but I needed to be in a place where I was safe and could focus solely on myself and getting better. Satan had more than one field day with me during that time. I was consumed with thoughts of worthlessness, anger, resentment, fear. I tried to think of ways I could end my life. That scared me into getting help. The week in the hospital didn’t cure me, but it certainly helped get me on the right track towards healing. I was started on a new medication and learned a lot that week about severe depression and how to live with it. After I was discharged from the inpatient program, I spent a week in partial-hospitalization and continued getting the help I needed. After that week, I was connected with a wonderful counselor at the Christian Counseling Center. My previous therapist was a great person, but wasn’t helping me change my thought processes. My current therapist is a licensed psychologist and has provided me with a constructive environment in which to share my feelings and do the work necessary to heal.

A lot changed for me in the weeks following discharge. It was a difficult and painful adjustment at times, but through a lot of prayer and hard work, I know that I am right where God wants me to be...in HIS hands (where I’ve been all along!), and I’m not fighting it anymore. I spent a lot of time being angry at God. Why would He allow me to be so miserable? Why would He put my family through this? Why, if He were truly good, did He let this happen? The answer to that, I’ve been reminded over and over, is that this isn’t the way He intended things to be! We live in a fallen world. Nothing is perfect. As long as we live in a sinful world, we will have troubles. None of us are immune to them. I look around me and see suffering everywhere... two children in our church who don't have a dad and just lost their young mom, my 35 year old friend who was just diagnosed with breast cancer, marriages struggling to survive (mine was one of them during the last couple of months), people losing jobs...it’s EVERYWHERE and we are all affected by it in some way or another.

About two weeks ago, I felt as though the cloud had lifted. I had felt this way before, briefly, but not to this extent. I was in church on a Sunday morning, and (as best I could with a still-messed-up TMJ), sang along during the worship service. I hadn’t been able to even sing during these past months...and if you know me, that’s a HARD thing to have ‘taken away’! It felt so good to finally be able to sing the words to those songs and mean them.

I’ve found so much joy in life the last couple of weeks...joy that I thought I’d never feel again. Things are not perfect, by any means, but I have learned how to work through the difficult moments instead of feeling overwhelmed and defeated by them. I’m re-connecting with my kids, my husband, my friends, my church family. I have so missed being ‘present’ in my own life. I am so thankful that God brought me through the storm (and I find it ironic that I used to sing “Jesus Bring the Rain” over and over, and when He did, I was mad about it!). God is good, friends...all the time.