Hello Friends & Family =)
I just wanted to say a BIG THANK-YOU to everyone for walking through 2013 with me. To those living life with me, as I am learning to really starting to enjoying it and discovering what it means for me to be living it to the fullest. And also especially (as this is my blog post) to those of you who have been so awesomely supportive and willing to follow me in my randomness as I have begun taking my first baby steps in discovering what it can look like to “be online,” and as I’ve made my first attempts to look for and begin discovering my “voice” again 🙂
My December has been a nice wrap-up for my year — besides all the literal presents I got to select, purchase and wrap up for kids for Christmas, it has been one where God has been giving me opportunities to do some of the things I had hoped perhaps one day to do although I had no idea of how or if ever I’d have the time to go do whatever I would have to do to be able to do them…
If you’ve followed my blog from the beginning (or visited my About This Site page), you know that I have all these grand plans to want someday to somehow basically “make this world a better place,” literally and holistically — at a personal level and at a societal level.
And why do I feel that I can have a role to play in all of this? (Not on my own of course…but still, I feel compelled to try and play some part in this that goes beyond a few nice sentiments…)
Well, I know that I have a life story of inner and relational brokenness overcome–a life full of gained Truths and insights and breakthroughs from having wrestled with depression for so much of my life, and having really come out on top of it…not so much just because of my 10-year marriage and 3 children and a dog (who really is my husband’s dog…), but because especially this year, I can now say that I not only can tolerate being alive but that I’m actually HAPPY and GLAD to be alive. While I know this is possibly a no-brainer for most people whether or not they have struggled with some degree of depression themselves, but for me being actually happy about being alive personally has been a very intentional, purposeful journey for me — it has been something I have had to fight for and persevere through many an inward journey to find and uncover and grow to obtain.
So, I have learned how to be happy where before there was only despair, and I have finally learned to be at peace where before there was only existential anxiety.
But now the “so what?” question I have been wrestling with is how do I take what I have learned and make it useful for reaching and helping others?
As I started wrestling with this question, I realized the difficulty I now face is finding the time and space and necessary contexts (i.e. relationships!) to work out my story and insights in a way where I’m understanding “what I know” that actually helps other people “well enough” that I can actually succinctly identify and communicate it to people in a way that it is helpful…
Specifically, I felt I either would need to re-enroll in school to be amongst people thinking about and talking about these issues in a classroom setting, OR somehow God would need to begin providing people in my life with similar struggles who are somehow willing to open up to me and want to listen to my attempts at “advice” despite having to accommodate what seem to be pretty huge time, schedule and availability restraints on my end.
While I know I am still at the very beginning of my “process,” these past couple months have supplied me with a few opportunities for me to begin talking to people about their own struggles, particularly with (although not limited to) depression, and it has been very exciting to discover how some of the things I have learned along the way for my own breakthroughs really can lead to breakthroughs in the same way now for others as well! I am also excited because these conversations provide a natural context for me to identify the repeated themes that are significant for people to know, as well as a context for me to really “find my words” to explain things in ways that make sense and are applicable.
I can’t make any promises yet that next year will be the year I can start changing the world =), but I AM very excited to begin sharing more purposefully (and hopefully more clearly) some of the significant insights I have gained in my emotional and relational battles to wholeness, so that at the very least the word can start getting out that and how, as long as we’re alive, there is always hope for those of us who have or will ever find ourselves in a place that feels hopeless.
“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:5 (NIV)