It has been a long time since I have written, but it feels clear that I must begin again. Recently I've been reading a book entitled Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. It's a book I've had forever and have picked up and put down, reading a little hear and there for several years. There is so much to write about, so much that has happened in the years since I have written. Mario and I have been married for almost six years, we've had two babies, and there have been too many ups and downs to recount! But I must try. The Lord has made it clear that I must tell my story...for me and for others, whether I see how it helps people or not. That is where the book comes in. Shauna Niequist writes the way I think, in a very artistic, conversational style. So it speaks to my soul. At the end of her book, she encourages her readers to tell their story. Because you never know how God could use it to help someone else. And as I read that, I heard God whisper. I heard it faintly down in my soul, but my heart was open just enough to hear it. Just enough, when my heart has been so wounded and shut down for some time now. It was open just enough.
My first step of obedience in this was one that left me very vulnerable. I wrote my story to a group of women, a community I am a part of, to make a desperate cry for help. I was afraid. So much has happened both long ago and in present history to make this a big risk, one that could likely end up with me being hurt and still feeling very, very alone. But I was at a point where I just didn't know what else to do, and this community - I had seen glimpses of people who were genuine in their care and who were suffering in their own ways too. So it seemed like it could be safe. It seemed like maybe it could be a soft place to land, a place where I might find a warm embrace, so that maybe, I could feel the warm embrace of my Heavenly Father again, too.
So I did. I wrote and I made my heart and my hurt and my struggle known. And I am so thankful to know now that what I sensed about this community is true. These women, they are struggling like me, but more than that, they do know the Lord, and they are being His hands and his feet.
As I look back, I can see how God has been weaving together little things hear and there that allowed my heart to open just enough to begin to hear and obey his voice for the first time in months.
The first piece was God's graciousness in having someone in my life who could help me recognize that I was struggling with Post Partum Depression. And then the journey to beginning medication to help. And then realizing that the medication is only part of it. That there were still things to wrestle through and figure out, and the medication made it possible to have a clear head. Then I piccked up the book, just so I had something to read before bed instead of staring at a screen. And in the book I heard another person's story of struggle, and how they wrestled with God and how he leaned in. And then how God is showing me that it is not my job to try hard to be something to people so that they see him...it is simply my job to be obedient, to depend on Him. He will do the work, and I just need to rest in Him, trust in His plan, and allow Him to work.
In just this past couple of days after telling my story and asking for help, God has shown how being vulnerable...how being in this place where I am feeling so broken and so alone...is helping others. It's not my favorite. In my head, I am this super together woman swooping in and doing all these things for others, etc, etc, etc...but how many times do I have to be brought low to learn the lesson that all he wants is for me to be me, not some version of me that is trying to be someone or something else that I think is the best version of me. When will I learn that one of the greatest gifts I have to offer is my vulnerability, is the story of working through the struggle, is depending on Him. He has even had people telling me that recently, but I was just too in the depths of the despair to really be able to hear it. And that's okay. Because I hear it now. I am learning the lesson again. He is restoring me again, healing me from my own sin and brokenness. Help me to hear your voice, Abba. Help me to rest in you and who I am in you. I choose today to lay down my earthly tools that I want to use to build myself into something I am not. And I ask for you to fill my hands with what you have to give. I surrender. Wrap me up in your tender love and speak to my broken heart. Heal me from the inside out. Amen.
