Life SUCKS!...Really???

There are just times where it’s hard. You can’t explain it to anyone. It isn’t as if you are ungrateful for everything that you have been given. Yet, the frustration is stifling & you feel the walls begin to close in. You waft between reaching out & spilling all that deep down dark blackness or curling up into a tiny ball, hoping no one notices. The struggle to be everything to everyone, a delusion of your own mind, seems an implausible & frustrating task. Your heart aches from the emptiness. It’s in these moments you wonder how God puts up with you – how anyone puts up with you? You question yourself & everything. You’re angry at the world, but more importantly, you are angry at yourself. The blackness has crept back in; when you swore it would stay at bay.

Depression is a real & unexplainable thing. I cannot put my finger on it. I cannot wish it away. I cannot even explain it when I am going through it. I usually don’t. It is often accompanied with physical symptoms, so I use them as the excuse for my morose behavior. And yes, I have been feeling depressed this last week.

I know how wonderfully rich my life is. This is why it is so utterly frustrating.  And, yet, I couldn’t escape it. This morning was physically painful. Then, while taking the trash out at work (there is a metaphor for life somewhere in there), God whispered, “Just go through it, Melissa. Accept that this is the season of your life & it is okay!”

This was extremely refreshing to me, because anytime I get depressed I am always trying to get over it as quickly as possible. I think it stems from fear. I have a very close family member who has dealt with clinical depression first hand. Watching the results of this disease, accompanied with substance abuse, has left a deep scar on my soul. I assumed there was something wrong when I got sad, overwhelmed, & felt ill equipped to handle life’s daily grind. But, it is okay. God said J

He also promised to walk through it with me. He had a dear brother in Christ pray over me. And, He blessed me this afternoon with two beautiful boys sticking Happy Meal boxes on their heads & acting like robots. He blessed me with Wyatt getting excited with all the “work” he had to do outside. He blessed me with the baby & Steven during snuggle time. In fact, we were snuggling on one couch & I got up to get my phone & went to the other couch & they both followed. He blessed me with laughter & joy when Wyatt, Steven, & I went to clean up the back yard when Millie escaped.

He restored my soul!!!

We aren’t just meant to get over things. Sometimes the hard times can’t be over quickly & wishing they were, in essence, is a disservice to the work God is trying to do in us. “Life Sucks!”, could easily be a bumper sticker. But, it is about perspective. I don’t want to keep pain away if it means I don’t get to feel, experience, grow. I appreciate the fact that I’m not a robot & I have a choice. I CHOOSE LIFE!!!!!

I do pray that God will give me the strength to live the dream He has for me. He doesn’t have a Plan B folks. He has a divine appointed Plan A!!! It is beautiful, confusing, painful, wonderful, simple, complicated, full, empty, sorrowful, & joy-FILLED!

This is the life He wanted for me!!!

Thank you Jesus!!!!

 

Brilliance of Simple Moments: http://reflection24.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

 

“God has infinite attention…You’re as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He’d ever created.” – CS Lewis

 

“My body’s tired from trying to bring you here/ my brow is furrowed trying to see thing clear/ so I’ll turn my back to the black & fall/ And wait for the mystery to rise up and meet me…” – Mystery, Sara Groves

 

Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
⁷ She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’
⁸ She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.

⁹ “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her naked body.
¹⁰ So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
¹¹ I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
¹² I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
¹³ I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the Lord.

¹⁴ “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor^[b] (trouble) a door of hope.
There she will respond^[c] as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

¹⁶ “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.^[d]’

Hosea 2: 6-16