Fighting the Undertow

un·der·tow [uhn-der-toh] noun

1. the seaward, subsurface flow or draft of water from waves breaking on a beach.

2. any strong current below the surface of a body of water, moving in a direction different from that of the surface current.

[from dictionary.com]

One of the things I've been struck with the most lately is something I wrote in my last entry:

Life continues on. It doesn't seem like it will when we see the charred remains and ash is still resting on your car in the morning. But, one day, you drive home and realize the smoke isn't pluming into the sky any longer. One day, it does begin to rain. You celebrate another birthday, another homecoming.

But today, I'm still a little overwhelmed. I am, however, praising God for the rain, for the fact that He protects, and for the blessed assurance that He both sees and knows each and every one of us. 

And it's true. Life continues on. It has after several horrible and tragic events occurred, as it has for millenia. Fires destroyed houses and lives. Cancer has walked people we love into incredible places of faith. A gunman took lives in a movie theater, of all places.

It is nothing new to me that life is hard, but I too easily stuff it away and let it simmer under the surface, which is what I've had to fight for the past few years as I've moved my way out of depression - because if I don't fight the undertow of this world's trajectory, it is too easy to be pulled under.

So I've been in hiding, to a large degree.

As an introvert, I expend incredible amounts of emotional energy to be around people. It's not that I don't love people - because I really do - it's just that it takes me longer to recharge after being social. The fact that I now work most days in a given week means I'm now social more days every week.

It's good, and it stretches me, but it's been hard to recharge in ways that are effective, and so this blog has taken a back seat, and I want to apologize for that.

Christopher and I were talking the other day about how freestyle isn't really the most efficient use of your energy (because we went swimming, so we were talking about it), and how if we were in the middle of the ocean (I'm assuming there would be no sharks to eat us, but maybe he thought differently), we would want to do something that was more efficient to get us through the waves and back to land (eventually, because the ocean is BIG).

And I think that's kind of where I've been. I don't splash around a lot on the surface, making it look like I'm trying to make my way through the water - I'd rather slip underwater and glide with the current rather than try to fight the waves (like with a nice breaststroke). But I've definitely been processing under the surface - lives being changed by fire and cancer, a former classmate's death in a movie theater, and even the stupid stuff that really doesn't matter so much like our cars both getting hit in the church parking lot in a freakish accident that I'll get into later this week.

It's not that I'm completely processed, but I'm working on getting there, and I'm now at the stage in my processing where I really should be writing a lot more than I am, so maybe you'll hear a little bit more from me.

But what it all boils down to is that Jesus is the only way for me to fight the undertow. The grace that rescues me in this life and allows me to stand in His presence in the next is the only force that isn't degrading from this world's entropy - His grace won't get shot down in the middle of the night by a crazy man; it won't burn with the hottest of blazes; and it will always be in mint condition (unlike our car).

And I have to cling to that, even when it seems like there's nothing to do but to keep swimming and make it to land somehow. It's the only thing that can keep this world from pulling me under.

Thursday Thoughts: The Halfway Point & Thirteen Years of Little Books

This past week, I finished up my latest prayer journal. Closing in on my thirteenth spiritual birthday, I felt led (as I normally do) to start revisiting the last year, its pages, and the pages of some of those that preceded it.

It's incredible to see even the changes that occur between the first pages and the last pages of such a record. I started the last book after the death of my second grandfather (see "Completion," from 2007), only months into my marriage and a job that would cultivate my heart for God's church and its mission.

I was learning how to be a wife, a leader for a college ministry small group, to resurrect relationships that had been broken by distance and hard things, to figure out what it meant to follow Jesus in the workplace, and so many, many other things. Life was opening before me.

But so was depression. Since starting its pages in 2007, I battled two full rounds of depression: One centered on the death of my grandfather that first fall and continued by some family issues the following spring, and the second centered on the very quick failing and death of the first of my grandmothers just before I began my graduate work. As I've mentioned in previous posts, depression is a war that has been waged in the depths of my soul for more years than I am proud of (see "A different kind of happy," from 2010), and I finally emerged from this last round in a much different place - ready to fight to the end of myself to not find my life in its grasp ever again.

In the midst of this, we were witness to many weddings, several years of family celebrations, a few lovable oddball roommates, the addition of one and then two precious pups to our home, an insane amount of new babies in both our blood and church families, injuries, new jobs, answered prayers, times of intense waiting, a new home and, most recently, struggles with infertility.

Life has changed a lot, but there is one thing that remains: The God who rescued me that lonely night in April thirteen years ago, who loved me in spite of my depravity and raised me up in the promise of salvation - He still remains the same. This reality is lasting. It does change things. I am proof of that.

And now I'm feeling a bit old, I suppose. Thirteen is not a small number. I remember writing for saLt about my fifth spiritual birthday and thinking it was a huge deal ("Six," from 2005 is an updated version of that; and if you don't know what saLt was, I'm sorry you missed that piece of my life, though I do wonder sometimes if Laura and I both just had the same vivid dream for a year).

Thirteen! That's half of my age!

Yet, it's starting to make sense that this is my life. The last vestiges that I had hidden away from the blinding and purifying light of Christ's grace have finally been brought into the open to be sifted through - and the incredibly breathtaking thing is that, for the first time, I think I'm finally understanding what it means for Christ to satisfy every deep-seated desire of my heart.

From here on out, my life has not been mine in the majority - what a good and glorious thing! That means I can look back on this growing collection of these crazy little books I began writing in so many years ago and see my life mostly marked by the grace and leading of an incredible Savior.

And in those pages, I find hope to move forward. At every step, at every juncture, Christ has met me, challenged me to be sanctified, and answered my prayers. In one way or another, every prayer I have ever put before His feet in these books has been set before me - and the most beautiful ones were the ones that didn't turn out in the least as I expected.

Lately, my stones of remembrance have been placed a bit closer together. Life has been hard. My dependence upon God for the daily stuff has been critical. The first half of this last journal was written over the span of roughly three and a half years, while the second was composed in little more than a year. My need for grace is growing, especially as I continue to be more aware of the daily battle to keep my life free from the bonds of depression - something that can so easily be physically, emotionally, and spiritually emptying of all that is inside me.

So the tipping point is starting somewhere different. For the first time, I am abiding in the love and provision of Christ - mostly because I can look back and see it in these little books, these little books that urge me to move forward in the knowledge that He will continue to love and be faithful in what is to come next.

I wrote "Sweet Dependency" nearly seven years ago, just a week after my sixth spiritual birthday and two days after my dear husband suffered my then-rejection of his pursuit of my heart. This last year, it has become the anthem of my heart, as I re-wrote it on the piano (including a different bridge, from "Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night" by William Sleeper) and have sought to understand its meaning in a much different time.

The chorus is what gets me, though. I think I understood then something that it has taken me seven years to come back around to - the truth that only God has a right to claim my life, He who bought it with His own blood, and who offers me redemption and newness of life:

May I be brought to my knees, in sweet dependency in You alone.
For at the end of this time, if I still think that I’m mine,
Please break me and bring me back home.
("Sweet Dependency," ©2005/2011 A. Kate Grinstead/A. Kate Reynolds)

A different kind of happy

Go on and ask me anything - What do you need to know?
I'm not holding on to anything I'm not willing to let go of to be free.

I feel as though I'm emerging to new life in a very profound way. About a month ago, I was approached to share my testimony with the group of teenage girls and their moms, who I hang out with a few times a week. Since that time, I've been processing through what my story looks like, which is something that I haven't taken the time to do in a few years - at least not in any great depth.

Perhaps the greatest surprise has been a fixation on my battle with depression over the past 13 years. As some are aware, I have been in the midst of a major depressive episode since last August. It has been my third major battle with the disease. In my reflection, I've noticed patterns and triggers, and I've discovered a general sense of finally being able to understand what has happened off and on for more than a decade.

I've had several amazing conversations with my husband, who has been gracious and seeking to understand - perhaps all the more, as I have been more open than I have been in the past (as I begin to understand it more myself). I had the realization while eating lunch with one of my best friends today that I had never been candid about this particular area of my past with her - not necessarily because it wasn't important, but because I didn't feel it was necessary as it encompasses so much of my everyday life that I often can't separate it out.

And, in the midst of all of the processing I've been doing, I've realized that depression isn't highly addressed in Christian circles.

In looking back, I realize that I felt strange being a kid from a believing household and being constantly both down and lacking in joy. It never seemed right to talk about it. Until I was well into college, I didn't know that my mom had struggled with depression herself.

It just isn't talked about, which is why I've felt that it's been laid on my heart to focus on when I share Friday night. The society that we live in steals our joy - and we must fight for it.

I've got to ask you something - But please don't be afraid.
There's a promise here that's heavier
than your answer might weigh: It's me.

There's a beauty in resting in Christ's assurance of forgiveness and love, even when dealing with the heavy things. As believers, we should never be afraid of condemnation.

And, yet, as believers, we can so easily condemn others for what they share.

The result is that we each hide ourselves away and keep ourselves from true fellowship. The isolation we feel simply compounds until we feel entirely alone and without hope.

As humans, we fail every day. But we must be faithful to those of the household of God (and of those who are not!) - to love and forgive, because that is what has been offered to us.

It's a sweet, sweet thing -
Standing here with you and nothing to hide:
Light shining down to our very insides, sharing our secrets,
bearing our souls, helping each other come clean.

Secrets and cyphers - There's no good way to hide.
There's redemption in confession and freedom in the light.
I'm not afraid.

How sweet it is to belong to the household of faith. How beautiful to be able to stand before my husband and know that there is nothing between us that is hidden, no matter how much it may hurt to have it out in the open. There's a wonderful freedom in having those things that reside in darkness being brought into the light of the grace and forgiveness and love of the Gospel of Christ.

I feel as though I might be discovering that freedom for the first time - hence, this odd little emergence I've been experiencing.

There's a "different kind of happy" that I'm learning to embrace. I don't have to dwell on what has come before, nor on what I've lost.

God has been faithful to me and, for the first time, I think I'm realizing that the God I am coming to know here will always be the God that has claimed my heart and life - nothing can change that or take that away from me.

When death comes, I want to be like my grandmother, who crossed that threshold and was not surprised at Who she found on the other side.

He is always mine. That means now and that means then.

And that means before the beginning of the world, I was His.

What a glorious thing to celebrate at this time of year - The promise of continuation when life on this round, ruddy rock has expired. Praise God!

[[words from "Different Kinds of Happy" by Sara Groves]]

Impending change and all that stays the same

Change is a funny thing. The more you experience what surprises it may hold, the less those surprises actually surprise you when they happen. In fact, there is something within us that knows change is coming - we just never know when or quite how it will take its effects. And, for that, we lie awake in the middle of the night wondering what comes next.

But I don't know how to deal with what comes next.

Mountains high, valleys low -
These are the things that makes us grow.
But all I want to know is if You can hear me,
and all I want to know is if You're still there.

It's easy to struggle these days. My life consists of constant busyness, and I so easily hide within it. There are a lot of changes coming into our lives very quickly, and the result is that all sorts of things that are hidden - that I still can't even name - are making their way out into the open.

My battles with trying to feel a part of the kingdom of God as an individual are nothing new. For the last few years, my few posts have largely dealt with that topic - of feeling inadequate, useless, fickle, and disconnected.

I think it all boils down to feeling burnt out when it comes to the personal Gospel of Christ. It is not difficult to believe that Christ came to die for me. I am easily a sinful, bitter, defiant child who cannot save herself. But for some reason, I have not been able to connect that to love for my Father, for my Savior, for the One who should be at the center of all - either lately or often.

It has become difficult to separate the spiritual defiance from the psychological defiance. And, please, don't get me wrong when I talk about psychology... I do believe that there are specific responses that are built into our bodies - I do not, however, believe that they excuse behavior. It is second-nature to blame my depressive tendencies on all that is happening now - and perhaps I need to start with those tendencies, unravel and attack them, before attempting to figure out why I have been feeling so defiant.

I keep using that word - defiant. Nothing else seems well-enough equipped to describe my current mindset. I am boldly resisting and challenging much of what has come my way over the last few years, as well as many of the things that I know are coming. In the sincerest sense, I hate that I do so, but I also feel powerless to quench it.

And perhaps that is where I have to remind myself that the love of God is impermeable and immutable - there is no depth I can traverse that He does not readily hear me and is not eager to be by my side. There's such a blessing to know that I am His forever, even if I don't know it.

So I can feel Your love wash over like rain;
I could feel Your joy in the midst of my pain.

Can You shine? Shine, on me.
And give me the faith I long to believe, please?

I wish I knew what my soul was longing for me to believe in! All I know is that there is a strong desire within me that is looking for some rest, some peace of heart, some reassurance - and yet I have no idea what it is, much less how to take it before the Lord.

Seasons change - Well, I change, too.
Like spring and summer, I fall to You,
and all I want to know is if You can heal me;
and all I want to know is if You're still listening, God;
and all I want to know is if You're still there, God.

The leaves have been changing outside, and in their brilliant displays of reds and yellows and oranges, I find myself marveling at how beautiful change and the cycle of death and regeneration are in life. The problem is that I feel as though my soul is failing to regenerate this time - as though I've run out steam in the dying process.

There are times when I wonder if I'll ever know the springtime understanding of freshness and new life. It's easy to crawl into a hole and hibernate, and much more difficult to crawl out and embrace a new season where everything is unfamiliar and uncertain (you never know when you'll get a snowstorm in May!).

And, yet, I am beginning to see that I am in desperate need of Spring in my soul.

So, why don't You shine? Come on, shine on me,
and give me the faith I want to believe?

I believe. I said, "I believe." No one's gonna take away that from me.

Perhaps that's where it starts - with understanding that no one can negate that Christ died and rose and conquered that death and my sin for me. Why do I not understand this daily? Why can I so seemingly move from activity to extra busyness and forget why I live in the first place?

No one can take Christ from me - not even me!

So why don't You shine? Come on, shine on me.
I know You will shine on me.
I know You're going to shine on me,
and You'll give me the faith I know to believe.

Seasons change - Well, I change, too.
Like spring and summer, I fall back to You.

I don't know how to handle what is coming.

I am perfectly certain that this next season will not be easy for me to bear. Regardless, it will be fruitful and it will be full of my stepping out in faith in new ways, hoping to see and know the One who has saved me in new ways.

Some days, I wear struggle like a piece of clothing. Today was one of those days.

And when those days are here, I pray I remember Christ is my strength - and fall back to Him.

[[words from "Mountains High Valleys Low" by Phillip LaRue]]

in•som•ni•a |inˈsämnēə|

noun     habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep

I had no idea the pain could be this strong

I had no idea the nights could last this long

In my darkest fears, the rights become the wrongs

I am still running; I am still running

Build me a home inside Your scars

Build me a home inside Your song

Build me a home inside Your open arms - 

the only place I ever will belong

[[Jon Foreman, "I Am Still Running" from Winter]]

The last few weeks have been somewhat brutal. I have redeveloped a level of insomnia that I haven't seen in myself for four years. Most of the evening is spent in various pursuits before I drag myself to bed thinking that I am finally ready, when I simply wake up all over again.

So many things have been happening... just one after the other. Christopher's bike was stolen; we had some family issues arise; I misplaced my wallet (which I have yet to find, still); my parents had to put down one of the puppies that they just got because he contracted Parvo virus; I worked almost full-time this week, which is crazy; we started up summer things with the Rock. Lots of changes. Lots of nights weeping as I sat awake into the strange hours of the morning. 

And, yet, while I know that God is still in control of all these things, I also know that it has been so easy for me to just want to be numb. There have been a few occasions where I cried out to God that I simply wanted to stop feeling. The emotions came and went, in severe degrees, and in such a multitude of shades that I don't think I really recognized them all.

I still haven't reconnected with everything, though. Part of me still so desperately wants to run away and hide until Christ comes to make everything right. 

But that's why the lyrics of this particular song have come to mean so much to me. Though I am numb and hurting, I am still running because Christ has rescued me and, for that, there is no other reason to truly live. I have no other home than in the scars that purchased my life for me, than the arms of the One that have forever been pursuing me to restore me to Himself. 

The pain is strong. The nights are long, especially as this insomnia has kicked into full force. My darkest fears have been brought to the surface, as so many things in my life seek to define what is truly 'right' as 'wrong'.

But I am still running, and I will continue to do so until my dying breath, because I know the One that will give it to me - and He will give me the strength to endure.

If you think of it, pray for us. We need to fully lean on Jesus and all He has promised.

Mood: Relaxed Reading: Old thoughts, song lyrics

Listening to: "Feel This" by Bethany Joy Galeotti and Enation

The Ninth Letter

Let us thus think often that our only business in this life is to please God, and that all besides is but folly and vanity. You and I have lived about forty years in religion (i.e., a monastic life). Have we employed them in loving and serving God, who by His mercy has called us to this state, and for that very end? I am filled with shame and confusion when I reflect, on one hand, upon the great favors which God has done, and incessantly continues to do me; and on the other, upon the ill use I have made of them, and my small advancement in the way of perfection.

Since by His mercy He gives us still a little time, let us begin in earnest; let us repair the lost time; let us return with a full assurance to that Father of mercies, who is always ready to receive us affectionately. Let us renounce, let us generously renounce, for the love of Him, all that is not Himself; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him perpetually. Let us put all our trust in Him. I doubt not but we shall soon find the effects of it in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nothing but sin.

We cannot escape the dangers which abound in life without the actual and continual help of God. Let us, then, pray to Him for it continually. How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him but in thinking of Him often? And how can we often think of Him but by a holy habit which we should form of it? You will tell me that I am always saying the same thing. It is true, for this is the best and easiest method I know; and as I use no other, I advise all the world to do it. We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure. This is an argument which well deserves your consideration.

[[Brother Lawrence, "The Practice of the Presence of God"]]

I have been very numb of late, wanting so desperately to hunger and thirst for spiritual things and yet I have not even been willing to take the first step, to simply talk (or wait) with God, or to even open His Word and ask that He direct me.

I have felt so incredibly dirty, an outcast of the very kingdom to which I so desperately cling. This evening, I looked over countless old songs and wondered what it would be like to be back in my six-year-old shoes and looking at a God I knew was stronger than anything I could ever face.

Granted, that part still lives inside of me - the part that knows my God is so much more than I could ever dream up in a hundred years. I, a mere member of the human race, am entirely incapable of understanding all the facets of this God that I serve.

Above all, I still cling to these three things:

1. In spite of my circumstances, my God is still good.

     Nothing can change this. No human; no animal; no grain of sand - not Satan himself. 

2. In spite of His goodness and His love, my God is still just.

     There would be no use in worshipping a God who did not punish evil. I don't want to.

3. In spite of God's justice, my God is still merciful.

     The death of Jesus Christ upon a cross 2000+ years ago still stands as the atoning sacrifice for anyone who dares to enter the living waters and breathe deep - to die with Him means to live with Him. It is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He paid for my wretched little life with His own so that He could be restored to fellowship and relationship with me! He punished evil - our evil - but He found a way for us to be justified without seeing that punishment ourselves!

Christ died so that we might fulfill our only purpose - to please Him!

Yet so many are still captive. So many are enslaved within darkness and try to ignore the disease that has set itself into the very marrow of their bones. If they do not have to be reminded that they are sinful, they do not need to even consider the fact that they might have been created by One to whom they will give an account for that sin.

And, all the while, the very cells that are diseased cry out for their Creator to be glorified - to receive the reward of His suffering. How long, Lord Jesus, before You set these captives free?

But some of them may never know freedom, and it is for those that I weep tonight. We hold onto hope, however, knowing that if "our only business in this life is to please God, and that all besides is but folly and vanity," then, perhaps - just perhaps - God will continue to be good in granting mercy through His fulfillment of justice in Jesus Christ, and a few more might be awakened from death into life.

I love the first chapter of Colossians... "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves..."

All that is needed to illuminate the darkness is the smallest bit of light. I cling to that.

I need the reminders tonight, perhaps more than ever - that is, perhaps, why I was at the Ninth Letter - and God has been gracious to grant them. 

...all besides is but folly and vanity.

Mood: Broken, yet edified Reading: Red, Ted Dekker [finished yesterday, actually] 

Listening to: The rain as it falls outside of our apartment