Happy "New"!

It's my first post of 2011! To be honest, I've been doing a whole lot more reading then writing. It's been great to hear about everyone's thoughts about the New Year, resolutions and goals, dreams, hopes, and reflections. It's been so inspiring and encouraging that it's kind of left me at a loss for my own words.

When I was hopeless and jaded, the New Year was nothing but a turn of the calendar toward another string of empty days. I didn't count down with excitement. I thought I knew what was coming.
My paradigm has shifted a lot since finding hope again, but the idea of a man-made calendar writing so many choices for people still bumps me a little bit. I suppose there is still this part of me with a foreshortened sense of the future - an urgency for the immediate - that begs a resolution every day, not once a year. Life's unpredictability makes it necessary for us to live each day to the fullest, not coasting on toward the next major milestone where we'll start over again.

On the other hand, I'm touched by God's heart toward mornings and beginnings. My God is a God of the new. God brings about the sunrise after the darkest of nights. The colors are among the most vivid and awe-inspiring in all of creation. It's as though it's His way of displaying the full splendor of His new day. The rainbow after a storm - colorful and vibrant. (It's a DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!)
I love to see the things that make my kids' mouths drop open in wonder. Most of them are things that are new and surprising and beautiful. Their faces reflect the Father's heart. My God loves new things.
And while He makes no guarantee of my tomorrow, He does promise that a New Year will dawn as long as the Earth remains.

"For as long as Earth lasts,
planting and harvest, cold and heat,
Summer and winter, day and night
will never stop."
(Genesis 8:22, The Message)

So I thank God for another year and for the opportunity to experience a New Year. I'm in awe that there is still breath in my lungs... I honestly never expected to live to be 30 years old. I'm so aware that each day is on loan to me, and while I don't always act it, I understand what a huge responsibility that is.

While I'm not at all a fan of resolutions, I do resolve to live each day on purpose. Gone are the days of being chased along life's current in a sleepy stupor. Last year I got to test out my new legs. I'm almost ready to run.

I also have some goals for this year - physical, emotional, spiritual:

I want to hear God's voice for my family - whether or not we home-school, whether or not God wants to add to our family, etc - and see His plan come to pass this year.
I'd like to get 300 pages down on a book by year's end. Considering I still have no concrete ideas for this book, this will be a miracle.
I'd like to add fasting to my spiritual practices.
I have a goal to read through the entire Bible this year, cover to cover.
I'd like to meet some physical health goals, including improving my flexibility and participating in a few races/runs.
I want to knit a pair of socks.

I'm writing these and other goals down in the front of my Bible, so that at years' end, I can see where God has taken me and what He's helped me accomplish. I'm interested in what others' goals are, so if you'd like to post a link to your blog entry or jot a few down in the "comments" section, that'd be fun. I'm excited to see where 2011 will take us, and I'm filled with peace knowing that no matter what victories or trials we encounter this year, God is truly in control working His greater good in to every situation.

Love, love, love
Emily

Merry Christmas!!

It's been an incredible year. Walking this journey of victory over darkness has been a daily act of faith and learning. My heart has been tempered in ways I never thought possible and has, at this moment, left me feeling raw and vulnerable and wonderful. I cannot begin to express in words the gratitude that courses through me... gratitude, along with a myriad of other emotions I didn't think I was capable of experiencing. I am rendered almost speechless.



Two years ago at this time, I had just been released from a psychiatric unit in a local hospital. My heart was torn apart, my will to live was non-existent, and I was weary on a cellular level. I had no hope- no vision beyond the pitch black blanket over my soul. I was hospitalized by my psychiatrist, who was worried I was a danger to myself. She could see the emptiness in my eyes. She could see that I had given up. It's hard to imagine, and it's hard to describe. Despite my beautiful family and faithful husband, all of the good things in the world could not penetrate the broken, sorrow-filled pit in me. 

While I was in the hospital, the doctor deemed my depression "treatment resistant". He recommended that I try ECT and an MAOI class anti-depressant as a last-ditch effort to offer some relief. I declined the ECT but allowed a medication overhaul. Unfortunately, the MAOI put me into a manic state, and coupled with the depression and anxiety, I became even more dangerous and hostile - if that were possible. I spent the evening on Christmas of 2008 in my bathroom, injuring myself to quell the voice of self-loathing. I wanted nothing more than to die.

Here, two years later, I stand in the light of dawn. By the grace of God, I've been self-injury and eating-disorder free for over a year. My eyes are opened to the amazing gifts around me, and my heart has been revealed to experience love for the first time in my life. I'm building new memories with my family almost every day. God's repairing broken relationships, bringing in new friends, and helping me let go of destructive bonds. I feel fragile, still, at times like an opening flower bud. But I'm anchored in a real relationship with Christ. I've looked into His eyes and heard His heartbeat and He has breathed new life into my soul. Someone once spoke over me, "God says, 'You begged me for a second chance. I'm not into second chances. I'm into new life.'"

If anyone has read what I've written here over the past year, you know I'm not trying to pretend like life is simple, or even easy. My life is very much a work in progress, and I'm grateful that God didn't drop me off at the curb after "fixing" a few issues. The healthier I become, the more I realize my humanity. The more I understand the power of God, the smaller I feel - but the stronger as well. I'm living. It's taking me a while to figure out what that means - living life to the fullest. But I can see it. The things that fill my world are astounding. Even the pain. The fact that I can feel pain and not run for the nearest blade or bottle is a sheer miracle.

I could go on and on, but that's the gist. Christmas is a celebration of the dawning of a new era. The coming of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ changed EVERYTHING about how God relates to humanity - how God relates to me. We celebrate the love and the sacrifice, and we give gifts to each other to emulate in some infinitesimal way the consummate gift that is Jesus. Christmas is about the opportunity to have a new life, and to literally be made into a new being. I've gotten to experience that in some very literal ways this year. So when we sing, "Joy to the world, the LORD has come", we celebrate the arrival of Hope.

Hope has changed my life and the lives of my family. Merry Christmas! Praise be to the One who saved the world. Even me. 

the day after the day after that

I wanted to post one more blog before I leave town. There's a good chance we'll have internet at Kurt's grandparents' house, but I'm not positive. Hopefully I'll get to write... I've been missing it so much.

Mentioned in my last post that I've been sick. Really sick - in bed wiped out bacterial infection - sick. It wasn't until today, four days into antibiotics and finally feeling more myself, that I realized how unwell I've truly been.  It's hard to have perspective in the moment, but it's like that hum you don't notice until it stops. The sudden "silence" and ability to think in contrast to how I've been the last almost month is startling!
Anyway, I digress.

I sort of feel like I've been spit out by a whale. There's a verse that talks about God's mercies being new every morning. A fresh start, a clean slate every day. I wasn't sure of the reference, so I went to my "The Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance" by Goodrick and Kohlenberger III (sounds impressive, huh? LOL)  and there is a full three columned page on "morning, morning's and mornings".  In the Bible there is so much reference to dawn and morning and birth and re-birth. God is a HUGE fan of "new".

I drop back in awe.

It's difficult to verbalize the amazing, cleansing freedom of a life in Christ. I never knew. I think everyone knows the agony of regret. Big or small... life-changing or just a wrong turn in the middle of a day, there is a tearing inside that is almost unmatched in human suffering when it comes to regret.
I've talked to several God-given guides in my life about this lately, but it is becoming more and more apparent to me that I have lived under a constant umbrella of guilt and regret. That hum. It's exhausting and life-stealing. And though God's walked me through a TON of the "why" and "what" of it, there is work yet to be done in that area.  It's a dark, evil place - regret. Because there is NOTHING I can do about something already said and done. I make amends, take responsibility, and ask forgiveness, but then what?

Joyce Meyer says this, "God will tell you what you are about to do wrong so you can change your mind before you make a mistake. Satan waits until it's too late, when you can no longer do anything about it, and then tries to bring regret and ultimate condemnation upon you." (Enjoying Where You Are on the Way to Where You Are Going)
Yep.

God's economy can be summed up in one word: "Morning"
Daybreak. It's almost like taking a really deep breath of cool, clean air. A sigh of relief followed by a rush of joy and gratitude that brings me to tears. Oh, God, you are so good.

Lamentations 3:19-24
"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.  I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.  Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.'" (emphasis mine)

How amazing that every 24 (ish) hours we get a sun-up reminder of God's unrelenting, merciful love?
There's no regret in God's economy. Consequences, sometimes, but NEVER regret. Just love... love love love love love.
It's a life-saving truth. Holy Spirit, burn this on the inside of me. Let me never forget how good God is.
Selah.

rain

I'm really not feeling very well today. It's been a tricky, undefinable, exceedingly frustrating set of symptoms that have lasted about a month, now. Some days, I wake up great! I have energy, my thoughts are clear, my day is organized. And then some days, I wake up, and I'm incapacitated. Not mentally or emotionally (though after a day or two the mental games start...), but physically, I am unable to get out of bed.  Or, once I'm finally up, it's not long before I'm back in bed.
Today was one of the latter days. Please pray for my family. We've fought too hard and God has done too much to let a single day pass by without His best for our family. Like I wrote yesterday, sometimes the way that I expected things to lay out are completely different from His plan. Why did I finally come out of a three-year-long, life-threatening depression just to find myself in bed with a tummy ache?  I know that God did not make me sick. Neither physically or in my emotions. But I do know that He brings all things together for good.

welcome!

Due to frustrating load times and overwhelming content options, I decided to relocate my blog.  I've heard reports that my beloved "Pneumatikos" was glitching out, difficult to subscribe to, and a pain to comment in. So, as a favor to myself (I can remote post), and to anyone who might care to share in my exploits, I've decided to join the masses in the google universe. (it's just so user friendly!)

If you're reading this, thanks for hopping over. I love you all.