Broken But Not Destroyed

Hi everybody. Well, this post is a long time in coming, and I apologize for the length between all of my posts recently. I hope to be much better about updating my blog because for one, who knows if anyone even still reads it, and secondly, there are so many exciting things coming up! For now though, I wanted to share a bit about why there has been such a gap in posts, what's currently going on, and what I am learning. Interspersed in this post will be flower pictures from last year to help break up all the words AND to help have visual reminders that spring is coming!!

I mentioned in some previous entries about the fact that I was having anxiety attacks due to so much life stress happening. These past 6 weeks have been some of the most difficult I have walked through in a really long time. I think that a lot of "stress" was going on - work stress, parents moving to a new city, I'm moving to a new city and have to find a job and home, and even discovering deeper levels of healing and hurt that need to be dealt with. I think the stress had been building over time, without me even being aware of it, until it all just reached the boiling point and my body said, "ENOUGH! I'm done!" Anxiety attacks then began, my body was so tense and stressed all the time that I couldn't relax at all, and it was all I could do to simply survive.

I've never dealt with anything like this before in my life, and it has been a humbling time. I don't like to be "weak", to not be perfect, and the fact that I couldn't relax, especially as a follower of Christ and knowing all of the "right answers", was not okay with me. I'm getting more okay with it now. :-) I finally went to see my doctor last week and did something I swore I would never do - I got some medication for anxiety. After taking the first pill, within about 15 minutes, I could literally feel my muscles relax, and I slept through the night that evening for the first time in weeks. Over these past days, I am taking very little of the medication - 1/2 pill once a day, but it has allowed my body to remember how to relax, it has allowed me to eat and sleep again, I have been able to re-enter social situations and function as a person, and I have been able to remember that God loves me. For all of that, I am very thankful for medication and doctor's wisdom! This is a very short-term situation for me, but it is helping me get over the hump and back into the land of the living.

I'm still dealing with the aftereffects of the stress - my body is very sore, as my muscles recover from being tense and tight for 6 weeks. I'm tired - you don't make up for weeks of not sleeping in a few days. But I am once again able to see and to feel a sense of hope that spring really is coming.

Easter was yesterday of course, and our windchills were in the 20's. I keep reminding myself that spring really is right around the corner. In just a few weeks time, we should have tulips blooming and a little while after that, leaves on the trees again. I can't wait. I'm ready for visible evidence that spring always comes because sometimes it's easy to forget that it does. These weeks have been a very dark time for me, but God is faithful, carrying me through even when my faith is weak.

I think in addition to the stresses going on, I have also been dealing with deeper healing, scars, and pain from all that has happened in the last two years with Jeff leaving. I'm such an analytical person, which can be good and bad. But in my analysis, I left a lot of the emotion out of the healing process, and I have been dealing with some of that now. It's a good thing - never easy, but good.

In the healing process, Easter takes on even more significance, doesn't it? Love wins. The nails didn't keep Jesus on the cross as He hung there dying - love did. And that love will carry us through whatever this life offers into an eternity beyond anything we can imagine. In the book "The Atonement Child" by Francine Rivers, there is a section at the end that says the following: "Abba Father, surely this suffering has been for my benefit. You've kept me in Your love, and I am not destroyed. Your will be done."

That is my testimony, and that is my prayer. This suffering over the past two years has been for my benefit. Through all that has happened and through all that is ahead - no matter what - God has kept me and will keep me in His love. And I am not destroyed. His will be done. And someday, in the most glorious moment, He will return and make all things new and all things right, and life will be as it was meant to be. Until that day, may we honor Him in all we do - even in our struggles and the dark times - and may He be glorified through our lives, as we point a world in desperate need of hope to the only One who can give it.

I appreciate you all and ask for your prayers as God continues His work in my life. Spring is coming again. It really is.