Coming around a corner

I wanted to share that I had a real breakthrough with my depression last week. I haven't been exercising and I haven't been to a playgroup yet (though I am trying to get out of the house more often and I did join a playgroup on Meetup.com) I have been praying and getting back into God's word.

For awhile reading the Bible became such a chore. I felt guilty if I didn't do it, like I couldn't be close to God if didn't read my Bible, but every time I sat down I would get frustrated and angry. I wasn't hearing God and my spirit wasn't being fed. I was struggling with such basic things like is God really there and is anything I was taught to believe as a child true? Plus I was walking through a thick cloud of grief and shatterd dreams. My friends encouraged me to not equate my relationship with God to my quiet times. So I set my Bible aside and have only picked it up now and then for probably two years now. I don't know if I was right to let myself go without regular Bible readings for so long, but I know that in some moments it really was the right thing for me.

Last week though I took some time to read a little bit of the Word and pray and just really seek God's face and to fill me with His love fore me. He did.

The sadness isn't all the way gone and my life still feels so out of control but I feel God's hand, holding mine and I hear Him saying that He is with me, He has never and will never let me go, we are walking step by step through this together. I feel the peace. I finally feel the satisfying love of Jesus. God's word is coming alive again to me and feeding my spirit and drawing me closer to God in worship of His awesomeness.

I have so far to go. I have so much to learn about what it means to walk with God. But this week I've said to myself that there is only one thing I need to do today - I need to be with God. Some days that means praying as I load the washing machine and listening to God as fold pants out of the dryer. But I've re-connected with God... and it's made all the difference in the world.

Things that make me happy

My little boy when he says "thank you Mommy" it just melts my heart!
Hot Cocoa from my new uber-awesome Keurig coffee maker that Daniel bought for me, just because he hope it would make my day.
Whipped Strawberry Yogurt (the yopliait vanilla flavor also rocks!)
Dancing with the Stars - lame, I know. But it really makes me happy!
Hugs from my sweet little girls, and laughing with them.
Praying and feeling God's love and peace fill me.
Reading "Where the Wild Things Are" to Josiah for the hundredth time and feeling him snuggled close. I want to hang onto these moments forever.
Playing outside with my kids in the golden fall sunshine!
Waking up to realize that no kids climbed into bed during the night.
A hot bath and a good book.

Emma helped me make dinner on Sunday night - it was just one of those clean out the pantry kind of nights. Just Tuna Toasties, creamed corn and cranberry jelly sauce. Emma said that these kinds of meals with lots of good food make her feel like God is close.

A question... or two

So my therapist gave me these two behavioral assignments for the week: to plan for more socialization and to get excercise. I'm totally clueless about how to go about both! Okay, well maybe not totally clueless. I requested to join a playgroup in my on meetup.com and I looked up story times at my Library and the local bookstore. Any more ideas?

Depression...

These are some photos I've taken when I was feeling overwhelmed by life, and the messyness of it. I've always known that I'm prone to feeling low, it's sort of a rut I live in. Recently I was diagnosed with depression. It's real now. I actually have to deal with it. I think admiting you have a problem and getting help with it is a good place to be, or at least a better place than ignoring and denying that anything is wrong.
Today has been one of the worst days since being diagnosed. My kids are sick and I feel trapped at home but I can't get anything done. It's one of those gray dripy, misty Atlanta mornings "the kind of morning that lasts all afternoon, stuck inside the gloom." Plus I've got therapy tonight and I'm sort of dreading it. I'm not sure why.
But here, stuck inside the gloom, I choose to believe that God is with me. I long to feel Him here with me, like I know He is. I long to break out of these ruts I've lived in of dissapointment and brokennes and fear and junk.

learning a lesson

This is a photo of my Beth. She's such a "typical" first-born. She's a take-charge kinda' girl who has a lot of power struggles with the mama. She's awesome and brilliant but we have to work really hard at having a relationship.
I'm reading this book called "Redirecting Children's Behavior" and it's been a great tool, it causes me to look at my parenting from a new angle and gives lots of examples. Today I was reading about power-struggles and how to re-direct a child's desire for control by giving them the opportunity to make choices.
So I had this idea - I'll take Beth with me to the grocery store and I'll let her make all of those little choices I hate to make - sometimes I think that the spaghetti sauce manufacturers have it in for people like me, I mean come on! Do we really need ten different flavors of spaghetti sauce?
It was awesome Beth enjoyed her time with me a LOT. I bought her some chapstick and a .33 package of Funions and she was just the happiest little kid in the world! She made a lot of really great choices. I directed her towards the brand I wanted to buy and she usually chose stuff that she's seen in the house before so there was zero fighting. I think I got through my shopping faster too cause she was there to help!
So I thought I'd share this little nugget of wisdom, since it worked for us.
BTW: Emma (daughter #2) has more need for attention so I'll be taking her next week so we can have one on one time.

More thoughts

Today I was thinking about old(ish) movies that I want to see -

Sleepless in Seatle - love Meg Ryan's hair! I also love the way Tom Hank's charicter talks about his first wife.

You've Got Mail - another Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie. It's sort of a cliche story but the ending gets me every time, and Greg Kinnar's charicter is just great. I also love her apartment, for some reason, I guess it's all the white and bookshelves. I also love the part where she writes about how her life reminding her of something that she's read in a book and she wishes it were the other way around - I can relate to that.

Sabrina - Greg Kinnar is in the newer version of this one too. I watched this movie a lot when I was 13-14 years old and I just adored Sabrina's wordrobe and hair, and her photography.

While You Were Sleeping - it's my favorite Sandra Bullock movie. I love how she celebrates Christmas. I relate to how lonely she feels during that time and to her romantic daydreamyness.

I am also looking out for a time to watch Pride & Prejudice again. It's been awhile. I also have Sense & Sensability and while the one I have mangled the story a bit, I enjoy it a lot nonetheless. I've been watching BONES on TV. I think that Booth is a modern Mr. Darcey and get all swooney at his relationship with Bones. Especially in the episode "Night at the Museum"

A letter from Samuel Rutherford

Today I've been cleaning - a little bit here and a little bit there. I was packing up some books and cracked open "The Letters of Samuel Rutherford" I remember when Daniel and I were courting he would sometimes read to me from this book. I opened to a letter and read it and it spoke volumes to me, so I thought I'd put a few quotes here:

"Time cannot change Him in his love. You may yourself ebb and flow,
rise and fall, wax and wane; but your Lord is this day as He was yesterday. And
it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your own
making, neither have you to do with a Christ of your own shaping.
God has singled out a Mediator (Psalm 89:19), strong and mighty: if you
and your burdens were as heavy as ten hills or hells, He is able to bear you and
save you to the uttermost. Your often seeking Him cannot make you a burden to
Him. I know that Christ has compassion on you, and moans for you, in all your
lows and sadness; but it is good for you that He hides Himself sometimes. It is
not dryness or coldness of love that causes Christ to withdraw and slip in
behind a curtain and a veil, so that you cannot see Him; but He knows that you
could not bear with a fair gale, a full moon and a high tide of His felt love,
and always a fair summer-day and a summer-sun of a felt and possessed and
embracing Lord Jesus. He could not let out His rivers of love upon His own, but
these rivers would be in hazard of loosening a young plant at the root; and He
knows this of you. You should, therefore, first seek the fullness of
Christ's kindness, till you and He be above sun and moon. That is the country
where you will be enlarged for that love which you can not now
obtain.
Cast the burden of your sweet babes upon Christ and lighten your heart
by laying your all upon Him: He will be their God. I hope to see you up the
mountain yet, and glad in the salvation of God. Frame yourself for Christ and
gloom not upon His cross. I find Him so sweet, that my love, suppose I would
charge it to remove from Christ, would not obey me: His love has stronger
fingers than to let go its grips of us children, who cannot go but by such a
hold as Christ."

I hope that this blesses you as it did me!