Guilt, guilt, and a little more guilt

Wow. I have so many ideas for this website. There are so many directions it could take, features it could have.

But I'm actually finding it really hard to work on lately. It's like my brain has just gone blank most of the day! I drink my coffee to get me going, and then I sit and watch Timothy Goes to School with my three-year-old. I can't seem to get out of that comfy chair. And I can't seem to clear the fog out of my brain.

I'm looking out my window right now, and it's a beautiful, sunny autumn day outside. The grass is still green, and if it weren't for the bare branches on the trees, I could almost imagine it was still summertime. I keep thinking I should go outside, but do you know how hard it is to get outside when you have four little kids (two of them infants) and it's nap time?

And yet, even though I have legitimate reasons for staying in, I feel horribly guilty that I'm not romping out in the sandbox with my kids while they enjoy the fresh air.

In fact, I feel guilty about just about everything these days. I worry that I'm not a good enough mother because I can't do the things with my kids that I'd like to be able to do right now. I feel bad that I haven't added any more content to YourEncouragement.com. I even feel guilty that I'm doing the dishes instead of cleaning out the kitty litter!

Believe me, I fully see the irony that I am now struggling with the last thing that I actually wrote about on my site. I realize that I'm probably focusing on all the negative things instead of the positive ones, and I should stop it. Yet all I can think is that it's only the beginning of November, and I still have months of winter left to endure, and I'm already so tired of it.

And the kitty-litter fairy still hasn't shown up.

And all my files are still laying on the floor where my son dumped them last month.

And I haven't seen the surface of my desk since last spring.

I guess getting past guilt is a process. Maybe, every day, every minute even, for the rest of my life, I'll have to be telling myself good things instead of listening to the bad. Something tells me happy thoughts won't just show up on their own. Maybe I have to search for them, and then write them on my hands, on my walls, on my bathroom mirror.

So here: I'll start with something good right now. I just wrote a blog post! I'm about to get up and feed a baby, who is absolutely adorable. My oldest son is laughing hysterically at something on TVO Kids. And the caffeine is starting to kick in.

Our Honesty Shows God's Grace

I was talking to a friend of mine today, and we were talking about our depression! How crazy is that? It's amazing how many of us are out there, but we don't always find each other!

I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned to someone that I'm taking meds for seasonal affective disorder or clinical depression (which is what we thought I had at first), only to have them say to me, "Hey, I'm on meds for that too! But I've never told anyone outside my family."
Why are we so afraid to share this with each other?

Okay, I know the answer to that. There are lots of people out there who just don't get it. And we're tired of having them look at us weird or tell us to snap out of it.

But here's what I have to say about it: Stand up and be counted! Don't be ashamed of mental illness. It's a physical condition that is just, in many ways, beyond our control. I'm not embarrassed about my depression. I find it inconvenient, annoying, infuriating, and frustrating on many levels, but Thank God! He has shown me that it doesn't make me any less valuable as a human being.

And it doesn't make me a bad Christian.

It took me a while to realize this. I was bogged down with guilt over my inability to be a "good Christian." But you know what happened? As I was lying in my bed, totally incapable of getting up and going to supper because it seemed too hard, scary, and stressful (and I did this for weeks, only eating when my roommate forced me to), I cried out to God. I just gave up trying to do anything, and I felt horribly guilty about it. My cry wasn't even coherent, really, more like a vague "Help! I can't go on!" And it seemed like he kept directing me to read the book of Galatians in the bible.

You know what the theme of Galatians is? (It took me a while, in my state of mind, to figure this out, but it finally got through.) God didn't save me because of anything I'd done. He didn't expect me to become perfect by doing all the right things (ie. "following the law"). He just wanted me to trust in his Spirit. All I had to do was cling to him. That's it.

And I realized that he was telling me that I was valuable to him, even if I was never able to get out of my bed for the rest of my life. My worth was not tied to my actions. It was tied to him, and how he sees me.

And with that realization, the weight of guilt started to lift.

He showed me that being a "good Christian," to him, is just plain allowing him in and letting him work on my heart. Everything else flows from that.

Now that's grace. And that's why I'm not ashamed to tell people I have depression.


I've got more to say about this. Go to www.yourencouragement.com/toughtimes.html to see it.

Depression is so different for everyone

I was at my ladies' group this morning, and as we were discussing our study book (Olive Shoots Around Your Table by John Visser), we got to talking about depression, of all things. Well, it's been on my mind, so maybe I brought it up!

It was great, 'cause they helped solidify a couple things in my mind. I tend to forget that people who haven't had depression themselves don't really quite understand what's going on. They can try, and they can be compassionate, but it's not the same as having experienced it.

Plus, we're all so individual in our depressive episodes. Some of us face them head on, and some of us want to run and hide and self-medicate and forget that we're even depressed... which makes it worse, I find. So how to I address the topic of encouragement for christians with depression if we're all so different?

The only answer I have is: Start with what you know.

So I'll write about the things I've learned, I guess. And I'll do some research for the things I don't know, or the things I've forgotten. (For instance, I don't remember off-hand all the symptoms of clinical depression. I'll have to look that up.)

There's just so much. I guess I'll just have to start at the beginning! And I'll keep on adding, and adding, and adding...