February 19, 2014
All back to normal again today... I never know what's going to trigger those low lows (or the more rare high highs) or what eventually helps me out of it.
Sometimes - like today - I pop out on the other side suddenly like coming out of water for air... And other times I feel like I'm just pushing and pushing through mud when one day I look around and I'm on solid ground again and I wonder - "Huh, when did that happen?"
It feels good to be back... Just in time to wonder in regret if I freaked some people out with my last posting - but then realizing that all of this is an exercise in being honest... and that is an honest part of who I am that most people would never see or know about me... a part I tend to hide.
Just hoping it did some good... but I know my time yesterday with You going through that fire did me good... So in both cases - thankful in the end.
Psalm 95
"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving,
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods .
In His hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also."
So spot-on and ironic =P that line: in Your hands are the depths... and the heights...
Today I am full of songs without words - gratitude for life and breath and freedom and renewal and yes - even those hard times - for what they force me to see. So strange that in Your Kingdom we can even be thankful for depression - or manic-depression - or just plain crazy - whatever the case is for me - I am glad that You put me through and bring me through those times. Though I don't like them... though I'm not grateful for them at the time - I am glad that you stretch me - increase my awareness - refuse to let me walk away from suffering and brokenness so that maybe I can understand and have greater compassion and love for a broken and suffering world.
"Today, if you hear His voice;
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah
and on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work."
I put you to the test yesterday Lord - I put you to the proof - and You answered in love and deliverance - not in condemnation and judgment - so what does this mean?
I think of many who came and questioned Christ - and there were those who asked because they wanted to trap Him - and those who asked because they wanted to understand. He answered both - but often in rebuke to the former and in love to the latter.
Today Father I pray that in seeing Your work in my life my heart would not be hardened or dismissive of the affliction - "It wasn't as bad as you thought it was, Whitney, you were just being a big melodramatic baby and you made it through on your own just fine."
... Instead - I want to view it honestly - even in hindsight - acknowledge that the ridiculous crippling pain in living is something I wrestle with and that some people wrestle with all the time - not just some times - and that demeaning or demoting the suffering in my own life pushes me into less loving and more judgmental ways of being with others.
Instead Father - soften my heart... Help me to embrace even that hurting, painful part of my life and use it to increase in me compassion, love, and understanding for others in this world.
And if anyone was touched - either by the reading of my blog or in some way of Your touch in their lives as You touched and healed mine yesterday - Father - I pray against hardened hearts that keep us from coming easily to You. Lord, I pray for hearts of belief - that we would fall easily in love with You.
Amen.
