My friend Jeannett over at Life Rearranged asked me to write a guest post for a series on her blog about depression, which I battled a few years ago. When I was writing it, I came across this post from that time, which was hard to read, but also good to read. I hope you’ll read it today and read my guest at Life Rearranged tomorrow (and read the first in that series today).
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Originally published June 2009
“How’s your brain?” a friend asked me this weekend. Meaning, to ask, of course, if I was still losing my ever-loving mind.
“Eh. I have good days and bad days.” I replied.
Which is true, but it’s not quite that simple. Some days I have really good days, and some days I have really bad days, and some days, I am just not quite right. Some days it is my mental health that needs a tune-up, and other days my hormones still torture me physically.
I am working on it. I have medication, I have routine doctor’s appointments, and now, after a good talk with the aforementioned friend, I have some social and activity-related goals I am going to set for myself. To be proactive, and perhaps, help my body chemistry along a bit.
But the truth is I am tired. Tired of trying to get better, tired of waiting to get better, tired of not being better. Tired of feeling totally awesome for a couple of days and then the crushing disappointment of feeling the opposite of awesome the next day.
And sometimes, I am afraid. Afraid that this will be the rest of my life. Afraid that I will end up laying in the middle of my lawn speaking jibberish and wearing my underwear on my head. Afraid that if I post about being crazy I will not be invited to cool mommy blogger events or win friends and influence people (hey I never said my fears were rational.)
What will I learn from this…period in my life? I want to know it, this lesson, I want to have learned it, earned it, put it into practice. I want to tuck it into my back pocket and say, “Oh, I am so glad I had that experience because it made me a better person.”
The Bible says we are to count our trials as joys. Because they build faith, and character. It also says they that wait on the Lord will soar like eagles. And soaring instead of muddling sounds lovely right now, and I want to do it. So I wait. And I remember, in my saner moments, in the quiet, in the stillness, that it is enough that God knows. He knows the number of my days, which ones will be a battle and which ones will be full of effortless joy. He knows these things that it is not time for me to know yet, and for that I am so thankful. It is unknown to me but it is not unknown.
It is enough.
