A Bit From Us

Heidi has been posting recently over on her blog, Live With Desire about what she has been facing this Christmas season from hormonal imbalances and weight gain. I so admire her for living, even in the crushing disappointment and frustration she experiences every day.

I also recently posted some thoughts about the nitty gritty of our Christmas at Restless Heart - no snow, no cold weather, no traditional Christmas. I feel disconnected from the season, but this is where I am.

Helpful Links Sidebar

Katherine Stone, advocate, stay-at-home mom and owner of the Postpartum Progress blog, linked to my last post about my journey through postpartum depression on her blog.

Looking over this blog, I decided that we should add a sidebar here for sites like this one that offer encouragement and help for those dealing with depression.

If you know of other such sites (for any kind of depression), please leave us a comment here.

When You're Supposed to Be Happy

Postpartum (yeesh, give me that word in a spelling bee, I'll spell out every time!) depression was not something I'd thought about. I'd heard about it, but never really considered that I would end up walking through it. That kind of thing was responsible for news stories of moms who killed their own kids.

Within four weeks of Piper's birth, I found myself fighting postpartum depression. It was like looking through a plexiglass window, where you can't hear anything on the other side, but you can see people going about their lives, occasionally tapping the window to see if you'll respond.

Here I was, a new mom, with the whole world expecting me to be bouncing off the walls about it. But they didn't know that Piper had just sort of happened to me. I hadn't spent my whole pregnancy dreaming about her arrival. Pete was studying for the Bar, and I didn't want to leave him behind. Just before we got pregnant, I had four months of really good health for the first time in years. Ten months later, I had exhausted adrenals, a renewed attack from my Lyme disease, a different body, and a baby who demanded all of my time.

Everyone made assumptions that I was happy. I couldn't just say what I finally blasted at God:

I feel like such a lousy mom. I feel so self-centered, but I know it *is* healthy for me to have a break sometimes. I guess I feel like You're supposed to have more control of this all somehow, so in a way, I guess I'm kinda mad at You. I don't want to be, really, You're just the one that things get directed at.

I know You already know all this stuff is inside me. I hate it. I don't want it to be there. I have such visions of spending time with her, cuddling, talking, loving, and when it comes down to it, she screams and screams and I can't do anything but make it stop, and somewhere along the line I lose my sanity over it and feel like I can't even be my own person.

I don't want to admit that I wanted this. I don't want to remember that I decided to try and trust You with it. I don't ever want to get pregnant and have a baby again. And I wanted to trust You with that too.

I miss Pete, God. I miss spending time talking with him without a baby squalling in the background. I miss being independent and having some time for myself to email or blog or whatever--now I can't even do my photo-editing!

I don't know how all this is supposed to work, but I know You're supposed to, and if You could just somehow make it easier...? I feel horrible asking, like I'm such a wimp, and why can't I handle all of this, but God, I don't have anything left. Am I just having a pity party here? I mean, women throughout history have dealt with all of this before, and why should I be any different?

But I guess I'm just desperate. I feel like I just can't take any more. Please, I need You to help me, because I just can't keep going on like this, and nobody else understands, and I can't explain it all to them...

I have discovered that a lot of women go through postpartum depression. My doctor told me that it can take ten to twelve weeks for hormones to normalize after a pregnancy. Mine haven't normalized because of the effect of the Lyme disease on my pituitary gland.

In my opinion, postpartum depression is the worst kind of depression you can experience. You're supposed to be happy with this new baby that you dreamed about, enjoying the attention, and learning to live a completely new, wonderful life. But because of the depression, you can't enjoy it the way you dreamed you would, and those around you blame you for having a bad attitude or not being grateful or... a million other reasons.

And their blame doesn't begin to approach the weight of your own guilt, because you just know that somehow it's your fault.

I want to say it's okay, but it doesn't always feel okay. It's scary, and it's something that I can't go through alone. It helped when I ran across a post in September from a mom who was encouraging postpartum depressed moms. The two things that encouraged me the most were her suggestions: making a list of things I was thankful for, and being kissy with baby.

The thing that helps me the most is looking outside myself and remembering that I am not alone.

I'm now 17 months from Piper's birth, still dealing with depression, still dealing with the herxheimer reaction. Still learning to trust. Still waking up every morning. Still not sure if I want to have another baby. I pray for quiet, for naps, for something done. I pray for happy - or at least, content. I am reminded in small ways that God is good. I know He is more than I am.

I'm not bouncing off the walls; but I find peace. And there is sunlight on my fingers as I type.

When Nothing Happens

Starting a blog to talk about depression when I deal daily with depression was probably not the best idea I've ever had. On the days I'm not as depressed, the last thing I want to do is acknowledge its stalking presence. On the days I am depressed, I don't have the energy or motivation to say anything at all.

Today, I'm at my computer trying not to think about the fact that my baby is in the other room with a reluctant babysitter while I attempt to ignore the all-over-my-body pain from a Herxheimer reaction.

My journey over last few months has brought me to a new place of trust in a God who loves me, but I struggle today to accept that He allows all of this to happen without giving me options that make it all easier to handle. I feel discouraged and inadequate when it comes to dealing with the responsibilities of my life - including getting out of bed in the morning.

Have you ever sat down with a friend after talking about the problems of the world and just stared into the distance for a while without saying anything else? Though the problems are still there, there is an easy silence between you. You're not alone in it. I've been finding recently that sometimes just telling God what I feel and letting Him know what's going on helps me. I think it's got something to do with having a pure heart - literally, being poured out before Him.

When my daughter bonks her head, as she is prone to do right now, there's a lot of pouring out that happens. She is in pain and she didn't want to be. She's honest about it. Short of locking her in a padded room, I can't stop the bonk from happening. I can't rewind and undo the bonk. All I can do is be there, hold her, tell her it's okay, even if she doesn't know the pain will be gone in a moment.

I've started wondering if God doesn't feel the same frustration within the boundaries that He set in the universe. But He's here, willing to hold me and tell me it's okay, even if I don't know it in this moment.

When nothing happens, the clouds don't lift, and the silver lining is inaccessible, it is okay to just sit in the rain for a while. An umbrella is always nice, but not essential. As discouraged as I am to still be in the storm with no sunlight in sight, I am grateful for the easy reach to His hand (which is wet too) and knowing I am not alone.

(Image from SXC)

Guilt

I think it's normal to feel guilty for being depressed. I think it's also normal (and important) to fight that guilt.

But feeling guilty for having a good day when you have been depressed... That feeling has sent me spiraling downward more than once recently.

I said I was depressed yesterday - am I not depressed today? And if I'm not, was I really depressed yesterday?

I am finding that depression is a confusing place to live. What is upside-down is often right-side-up, and things that are normally plain are polka-dotted, and sanity is something that people expect, but you are sane, really... You just have to convince yourself of that - and it's awfully hard to do when you have a good day and you can still see the edge right over there. You know its reality - you fear its encroachment. You don't want to be caught unaware if the edge is suddenly before you again.

But I don't want my good days to be driven by the need to legitimize my bad days.

I have noticed that my good days are the days that I take one minute at a time. Even the bad days are more bearable when I do this. Maybe I don't have a perfect yesterday or a perfect ten minutes ago or a perfect plan for the next hour or week or year, but I don't have to die over the fact that this moment is (or can be) a good moment.

Each moment is a gift. That is reality. I want to accept that with an open heart.

I'm taking my daughter and my sister for a walk when I finish this post. The air is clear and the sun is shining as it hasn't shone for over a week. I can hear the neighborhood children playing their daily games outside my study window.

Today, their sound is brighter.

If my heart is a bit lightened, there is no reason for me to hide my smile.

While Waiting, Afraid

O Thou who art my quietness, my deep repose,
My rest from strife of tongues, my holy hill,
Fair is Thy pavilion, where I hold me still.

Back let them fall from me, my clamorous foes,
Confusions multiplied;
From crowding things of sense I flee
And in Thee hide.
Until this tyranny be overpast,
Thy hand will hold me fast.

What though the tumult of the storm increase,
Grant to Thy servant strength, O Lord,
And bless with peace.
~Amy Carmichael

Paralysis

Today I stumbled across the one word that describes where I have been for months: paralysis. I have been emotionally, mentally, spiritually paralyzed in the wearing away of many of my hopes and expectations.

I am aware that my situation is facilitating my journey to the Cross, and what I bear is, in fact, an invitation to suffer with Christ. But accepting that invitation requires more courage than I own or even aspire to own - I mean, who wants to die?

I had a conversation yesterday with a friend who encouraged me not to despise the death that is overtaking me. On the other side, she said, is Life. And peace. Oh, such peace.

Once upon a time I had an idea of God. "He's going to do this for me." "He'll give me my desire if I just pray in His will." "He'll reconcile this relationship because it must be His will." "After nine days in the hospital, I know there will be a diagnosis, a reconciliation, something!"

And He didn't do. And He didn't give. And He didn't reconcile. And my diagnosis was AWOL while He did something in the life of two doctors and a nurse.

And I was furious. And confused. Oh, so confused. God had done something for them, but not for me? He helped others but not me? But I had done, and prayed, and hoped, and loved, just like He told me! It wasn't fair! What reason did I have to follow Him now?

The heavens were silent except for His repeated reminders of His love.

A love I didn't want because I couldn't control it. A love I want so terribly I can't live without it.

My friend sent me a link to several chapters from a book by T. Austin-Sparks. The first chapter is entitled Paralysis: The Paralysis of Disappointed Expectations. Here are some quotes from the chapter:

"The facts are that there is often a larger service through a certain curtailment, a fuller life through a deeper death, a richer gain by a keener loss; and we have to look for the impact of the operation of God in us in a realm where the eye of man cannot trace."

"There is no doubt that most of those who have been called into some of the most vital expressions of 'the eternal purpose' have been trained in the school of apparent Divine contradiction, delay, withdrawal, and darkness. Paul wrote to the Thessalonian saints that 'no man should be moved by these afflictions for... we are appointed thereunto.'"

"If we have God's life in us we can survive anything. The Lord is not out to peevishly frustrate our hopes or disappoint our expectations, but to either change them for His own or fulfill them in a higher and larger realm."

"The greater the usefulness to God of any life, the deeper the loneliness in experience. He takes us often where no others can enter, interpret, understand, help. Rather, by their mental play upon our strange experience, and their interpretations given to it, they create even greater painfulness and distress for us. Sooner or later we are bound to be disappointed in man but this may lead to a rich and deep knowledge of God if we are not soured and paralysed by it."

(Read the entire chapter here.)

Once upon a time, God dreamed a dream of us knowing Him as He is.

He will not be disappointed.

ABC Notices Depression

"I knew I was depressed and needed help, but there is a stigma about depression in this area," said Wendy, who asked that ABCNEWS.com not use her last name. "People think it's a sign of weakness. It means you're not capable of being a good mother or wife or teacher."

Two Studies Find Depression Widespread in Utah

Happy Flowers

I discovered something recently that has had the oddest effect on the beginning of my day.

Our bedroom window faces east, so we get full sun in the morning. This is a very good thing for me, physically, and I often stay in bed longer, just soaking it up.

I had placed the white tulips my husband bought me on my windowsill so I could photograph them for this blog template, and then because I was too tired, I didn't bother moving them.

The next morning, the sun came through my window, and the tulips stood at attention. The morning after that, they had grown taller and were starting to open.

Every night, they would close again in the darkness, and every morning, they would be open and receiving all of the sunlight they could get. They looked so happy that I felt happy. Noticing and embracing the life around me helps me remember that the world is not as dark as it sometimes feels.

So now I'm keeping tulips on my windowsill.

Being Like the Tide

I read this post today on a friend's blog that has been incredibly encouraging lately. It was me-in-a-nutshell. Here's a snippet:

Nothing I feel feels shallow. I try and fake shallow to hide the destructiveness that i surely would bring if left unrestrained. The weight that i would bring to conversations, to arguments. How do open up a storm that in its self threatens to overtake and break me? How do i trust that someone else would be able to stand after seeing this ocean? I've come to learn that most of the world does not have this reservoir within them. That they don't have the currents, the pull, the terrifying and uncontrollable driving depth to them. How then, can they understand that my words carry the weight of the tide? That when i say i am wounded, i mean it to my core. That when i say i am frightened, i shake in my depths. That when say i am angry, you can see it's dark storm behind my eyes. They are able shake off life, distract themselves with other agendas, but how do i distract the currents? How do i distract the tide?

Read the whole thing.

Pancakes

Today has been one of those bad days I've talked about. I had a really long day yesterday, what with teaching for 4 hours in the morning and going to a friend's house in the evening. I slept til noon today and most of the day have felt like I was half-asleep. Rough.

Anyway, about half an hour ago I realized I was craving pancakes. You know the kind: a tall, thick stack slathered with butter and dripping with maple syrup.

The only problem is, I can't have them.

There's an IHOP and a Silver Diner minutes from my front door, and they're both open late. I could go get pancakes. I could even send my hubby to get take-out, and he'd be happy to be able to do something to make me happy after such a rough day.

But I can't.

Every little bit of sugar I have contributes to the chronic headaches I struggle with. I swore off sugar on the 1st of the year and made it til Valentine's Day with flying colors. I also swore off Advil and after some nasty rebound headaches, the frequency started to decrease.

I had a raspberry souffle on Valentine's Day.

A week later I got my period and I had ice cream to help me deal with the cramps - Breyers all natural, just milk, cream, and sugar - but still. Sugar.

The headaches have come back. I've been fighting them off nearly every day and I haven't made it more than 4 or 5 days without a full blown one.

I feel an incredible amount of resentment right now. I resent the skinny girls I saw last night who raved about my sugar-free apple pie but nevertheless talked about how sugar might be bad for you, but it's cheaper than the healthy sweeteners, so they have sugar anyway. I resent people who can enjoy a stack of pancakes without getting headaches. I resent skinny people, healthy people, people who don't get headaches, people who can have Advil when they DO get headaches and don't have to worry about rebound headaches.

I resent what I have to deal with on a daily basis. Sometimes I resent life.

Today has been a bad day.

Good Days and Bad

I never know when I wake up in the morning what kind of day I'm going to have. Sometimes I have really good days - I leap out of bed with tons of energy, I feel inspired, even happy. I go through the day getting lots of little things done. I even practice my violin - something that has definitely gotten sidelined with being sick. I make dinner, have a great evening with my husband, and pat myself on the back. I must be getting healthier, I think. There's light at the end of the tunnel. I go to bed happy, looking forward to another good day.

Sometimes I do end up having a good day the next day. Other times, like yesterday, I wake up after what should have been enough sleep - 10 hours - and feel like I'm in a daze. My brain is foggy and my limbs are heavy. I drag myself to the computer and take my morning meds, thinking that maybe they'll help wake me up. I check my email and blogs and Facebook, still trying to wake up. An hour later, not sure what I've actually been doing for an hour, I stumble back to bed because everything hurts.

When I wake up again an hour and a half later, I still feel like I'm in a fog but now it's almost noon and I have to actually do some things. I stumble through the rest of the day, forgetting to eat until late in the day..maybe I make dinner, maybe I cave and order in because I just can't handle making decisions and standing in front of the stove. Then I kick myself for not eating whole foods from scratch - you know, the kind that will help me get well. We watch some TV and then I stumble back into bed - my constant sanctuary - wondering what kind of day I will have tomorrow.

---

It's hard not being able to count on anything. I can't make plans or have goals because I just don't know what I'll be capable of doing tomorrow, or the next day.

Lately I've been getting back into exercising, something I wasn't able to do in the earlier stages of my illness. I'm a fan of the TV show "The Biggest Loser" - I love how hard everyone works in an environment of support and respect. I want to work that hard, I want to become an athlete like the formerly-out-of-shape contestants. Sometimes I go to the gym and have a FABULOUS workout, feeling great afterwards. I'm on my way, I think. Other days my body is literally so heavy I can hardly move. So I don't. I can't set a goal of working out three times this week. Some weeks I work out five or more times. Some weeks I don't work out at all. I just don't know.

I'm starting to practice my violin again. It's like a friend I haven't seen in a long time - I love every minute I get to spend with it. I start building up my practice time, thinking maybe I can get up to something respectable like two hours a day. This works for awhile, then I have a day of such extreme exhaustion that I don't even consider going into the studio.

I love to write. Blogs, journals, something called "morning pages" that I'm doing as I work through "The Artist's Way." I would love to write every day - I feel more alive, more in tune with myself, more able to do other things well. But I swear, the minute I set a goal of writing a little bit every day, I have several bad days in a row or I get the flu or a migraine or...something.

It's depressing; in fact, it may be one of the biggest sources of my depression right now.

It's like God is asking me just to trust him for today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not a year from now. Just today. Wake up today and assess how I'm feeling TODAY...not taking yesterday or tomorrow into account. Asking, what do I want? - and then, going and doing that, not worrying about goals or plans or "have to's."

It sounds so lovely on paper...being present in the here-and-now, living every moment to the fullest of what God has given me for that moment, being honest with myself about my limitations. Just being. Excusing myself from the rat-race of life.

But I chafe.

I want to have goals, lists, plans. I want to see my life going somewhere. Though I've always eschewed the idea of a five year plan, I do like to have an *idea* of what the future is going to look like. But I don't. Hell, I don't even know what tomorrow is going to look like.

Being present, one moment at a time, is the hardest thing I've ever been asked to do. It's a laying aside of my human desire for big goals, achievements, successes. It's learning to rest, to refuse to equate my value with my doing. Sometimes it's struggling with the depression and isolation of not being able to relate to everyone else's busy lives and packed dayplanners.

But then I'm reminded that depression isn't always a bad thing. Oh, it can be. It can be ugly and brutal. But I think, right now, I'd choose the depression that comes with stepping off the treadmill of busyness rather than the meaningless filling-my-life-up-with-lists-and-plans.

Of course, I see it that way for a very simple reason...today is a good day.

Living at the Edge

I sat in the car, with my baby asleep in the backseat. I couldn't tell how long the engine had been off. I didn't have the energy to unbuckle my seatbelt. Instead, I sucked listlessly at the end of my Starbucks green tea frappe.

"You shouldn't be sitting here," I told myself.

"I don't have anything else to do."

True enough. I was sitting alone in an unfamiliar state with my hosts at work and my husband in the throes of his second Bar exam. With Piper sleeping in the back, there was nothing calling me to push past my lethargy.

My mind wandered over the events of the last few months, aimlessly pulling memories of other times I had been in this place - the desperate feeling that was too much to take, followed by the urge to just shut everything out, just go... to... sleep...

No more pain. No more. I can't do anymore.

Then, "Odd, that the conviction I've been feeling over the last few days is about God being good."

I hate that thought. That He is good. I have to love Him then. I can't love Him. Look at me. I can't even move.
__________________

In the last few months, I've been living at the edge of sanity. I know I am not insane, because I know where I am, and I know what is real. But what is real is so much...

I can feel myself shutting down, shutting out. I panic easily, but I can't cry.

I feel paralyzed.

But I am not paralyzed. I don't have the benefit of a hospital bed and nurses to wait on me and care for the things in my life that need to be taken care of because I can't do it myself.

I wouldn't wish it anyway.

Living like this, sometimes, I can only do the next thing. I don't have a choice about the act I put up for others - reality is all I have, mess or no mess.

I reach for hope - I know I need Him or I'll never get out of here. I'm beyond believing that depression itself is a sin. I've thought about getting counseling - but I can't bear the idea of someone picking me apart to give me a new "lease on life," or of talking to someone who really doesn't care about me beyond a quick fix.

There is no quick fix.

I've thought about support groups - but sitting around in a group of people with a "Hi, I'm Kelly, and I'm depressed" mentality freaks me out. Geez. It's not who I am.

I've thought about medication a hundred times - but I can't justify it. I don't have a peace about it. It doesn't address the root cause anyway.

I'm scared that the only answer is Him. My only hope is something that is not seen. It is not explainable or provable.
__________________

I think about faith as I stare blankly out the windshield of the car. Faith is the gift of God, not something I can manufacture or strengthen. It is His.

James says that faith without works is dead.

So... maybe my "work" is stepping along the edge of reason and insanity and doing the next thing because God is enabling me to believe that He is God. Because He wants me to believe that He is good.

Nothing glamorous.

I'm not angry anymore, I realize. I'm just tired. So tired.

A car pulls into the driveway behind me. I move, climbing out of the car as if I had just gotten back.

Rage

My first post here is going to be about a difficult subject for me: rage.

I have never considered myself an angry person, or a person who would ever struggle with anger issues. After years of struggling with depression and dark emotions, I'm not scared of very many emotions anymore. I've faced some pretty dark stuff. But I have to admit that I'm a bit scared to talk about anger, and especially rage.

Anger and rage are not socially acceptable emotions. There are very few situations in which people believe anger is justified. Angry people are looked at as if they have a problem. They're being reactionary. They're not "giving it over to God." They're "letting their emotions rule them."

All these things and more I've heard from the super spiritual crowd. So what do I do with the veritable well of rage that is rising up inside of me?

Recently, at a gathering of Christ followers, we were having a conversation about depression. My friend Brad pointed out that sometimes depression comes from anger turned inward against ourselves - because there's nothing else we can do with it. There's no socially acceptable thing to do with it. We don't feel like we have a right to be mad at the person/people/institution that let us down - weren't they trying their best? We don't feel like we have a right to be mad at God - after all, he's God, and do we think we can do better than him? So we take all that rage and suppress it, turning it against ourselves. We're the ones who are unlovable, we're the ones who failed, we're the ones who expect too much.

And then we wonder where the depression comes from.

When Brad was talking about turning anger inward, the tears came. He was actually talking to Kelly, but it applied directly to me.

You see, I'm really angry. There was a night recently when I was lying in bed crying, clenching my fists. I really wanted to break something. It was all I could do not to get up and start crashing furniture. I wanted something on the outside to be as broken as I felt on the inside.

It's like Brad said...I'm turning all this anger inward because I don't really feel like I have a right to turn it against God. I mean, I AM mad at God, but I don't know how to be. So I redirect it at myself. Sometimes I feel like a whiner because I know people with much worse health problems than me, and I feel lucky to not have to deal with some of what they are dealing with. But the truth is, I feel gypped. I feel cheated. I'm only 27 years old and I feel like my youth has been stripped from me. There are so many things I can't do, so many stories I can't live. I hope that I'll get better, I hope that this whole ill-health thing is temporary, I hope that one day I can appreciate and respect my body, but the fact is I don't know. I don't know that I will ever have the energy to be like the people I envy, the people who travel and work out and live their dreams. I hate what my life has become like. I hate that I watch TV and spend endless hours "killing time" in front of a TV or computer screen. But I also know that I don't have the energy to do much else. I hate what I see in the mirror when I look at my body (so I try to avoid it.) I envy people who are thinner and healthier and more energetic than me. Sometimes I even get mad at them. Then I get embarrassed that I'm mad at people who haven't done anything wrong and poof, once again I turn the anger against myself. I'm the one who has failed, I'm the one who didn't take care of myself, I'm the one who has gotten myself into this mess.

It's so much easier to be mad at myself than to admit the simmering rage I have against Father.

I get the whole fall-of-man-sin-entered-the-world-now-we-get-sick thing, from a theological standpoint. But seriously, what loving father would let their child get sick and stay sick if they could do something about it? And the truth is that God CAN do something about the fact that I'm sick, and he doesn't. Not that I deserve it any more than the other half dozen people I know who struggle with chronic illness. But why? Why can't he heal all of us?

Yet I've never asked him to heal me. Maybe it's a result of turning all this against myself, maybe it's the feeling that I don't deserve to be magically healed any more than anyone else, maybe it's that I view this as somehow my fault. But I haven't asked him for much. I've done the legwork myself. I've researched. I've read. I've asked questions. I've participated in discussion groups. I've worked with doctors, but for the most part I have been my own doctor. I am much better than I was a year ago, largely due to my own initiative and research. Why am I so scared to ask God for help? Am I afraid that he's going to condemn me to chronic illness for the rest of my life and the only way to "handle" this is to handle it by myself?

Like I've handled everything else in my life?

About Kelly

Over the last nine years or so, I have struggled with health-induced depression, relationship depression, and, most recently, post-partem depression. I received an MS diagnosis that changed to a Lyme diagnosis - an infection that affects everything in my body, including my pituitary gland, which governs my hormones. The physical depression has taken its toll on my heart. At the beginning, I noticed loneliness, and some fear, but in the last nine years, I was transformed from hopeful girl to cynical, reclusive, distrustful woman. Now, I stand hopeful again, walking a little, stumbling. I'm uncertain about the future, more sure of my God, and the rain still falls.

I am woman, wife, mother of one, daughter, beloved. I am undeniably God's. These things are true about me. I know this in my head. The person that I feel I am often apologizes for her existence, because she is failure, empty, not enough, and too much. She does not feel lovable, and she is often afraid.

Because I am live and human, I know there will be more struggle to come, but I'm finding healing, instead of standing frozen, waiting for the next hit. For my husband's sake, for my daughter's sake, for my own sake, I am hoping for light at the end of this tunnel.

I hope this blog will encourage you - whether you are walking through depression yourself and need to know it's all right to be there, or whether you are walking with someone who is dealing with it.

We offer you these stories of us from our hearts to yours, a journey in grace.






Please visit me at Restless Heart if you'd like to know more about me outside of this blog.

About Heidi

I'm a woman of many apparent contradictions. I have a wonderful life in many respects. I have a wonderful husband, wonderful family, wonderful friends, and a job that I love. I've been incredibly lucky.

I've also been incredibly wounded in my short time here (I'm 27) - and have struggled with depression off and on since I was a teenager. The causes have been both physical and circumstantial/emotional. In all cases the utter blackness that I found within myself has been frightening. Sometimes I have run from it. Sometimes I have walked into it. And sometimes, in the blackness, I have cursed God.

I struggle with chronic illness, and right now it is making me question God more than any of the other times of darkness that I have gone through. Rage is a constant companion of mine. I feel like I've been sidelined from the game of life. I hate what my illness has done to ravage my body. Sometimes, I hate the God who has let it.

Questions, doubt, and depression are not intellectual or theological questions for me. They're right here. Right now.

I hope that by opening up my wounds to share with you, I will be able to encourage you that you are not alone in whatever pain and darkness you are facing. I hope too that by writing I may find a way through this darkness to a God who loves me and ultimately has good for me even in this life.

A Prayer

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

~ Ephesians 3:14-21