Here comes the sun

How easily we forget the past. Five months into this season of depression, I'm finally experiencing some freedom from the oppression - by practicing skills I've known for 2 years now. I brush the dust off slowly as my therapist reminds me how to bring the sunshine back. Opposite action - throwing myself into the life God has set before me, children, messes and all. Accumulating positives - a scribbled list of gratitude in my Joy Journal. Mindfulness - ignoring my constant, self-refreshing mental to-do list and entering into the present moment completely.

Returning to these practices slants the sunlight back into our home. There are long periods of freedom from sadness and guilt throughout the day. The urge to simply leave, either temporarily or permanently, eases as life becomes less difficult. My eyes are no longer blind to the beauty that surrounds me - the dancing girl on the dandelion lawn infusing my day with yellow; the orioles glistening in the morning sun as they sing to heaven; the twin mama cats co-parenting the little brood of kittens that arrived on Monday. It soaks in, finally. All this joy!

A line from a favorite song floats in - "we went dancing in the minefields, sailing through the storms" - yes, that voyage sounds like our lives. For a season, perhaps we'll walk easy on a safe road. Perhaps the minefield is in the rearview mirror for now.

The children always feel it, the lifting of oppression. They pronounce to the sky above that I am healed! Getting better every day! I wonder if they remember that depression has repeated it's turbulant course through our lives multiple times now. Another thing I've felt guilt over: they are all too familiar with suffering, pain, anguish and torment. Is this because of my weakness and my failures? I have to lean hard into the truth that God sent these children, these specific four, to me to mother, weaknesses and failures and all. It's all been seen by Him and allowed by Him and only He knows what He is shaping these children for. As much as I would love to believe that their lives will be easy, is there such a thing? Is life ever truly easy? I know so many of the house of faith for whom life has been an aching bittersweet experience. I know no one who does not miss someone, long for somewhere or something. How can I expect that my children will be free from desires, from failures, from heartbreak?

They are marked for glory, four baby believers already on the hard path of faith. I pray their journeys are marked with the beauty and sunshine I've been blessed with. Rosy wrote to me this morning, "I had a lot of fun through my life and most of it was with you." I feel just the same - my family is the most delightful blessing I've ever been given.

May you dance freely with no fear of danger today...for He can take away the fear even when dangers still lie ahead.

...when I forget my name, remind me.

We bear the light of the Son of man,

so there's nothing left to fear.

So I'll walk with you through the shadowlands

until the shadows disappear,

Because He promised not to leave us,

and His promises are true.

So in the face of all this chaos,

baby, I can dance with you.

Let's go dancing in the minefields,

let's go sailin' in the storms.

this is harder than we dreamed

but I believe that's what the promise is for.

~Dancing in the Minefields, Andrew Peterson~

Linked to Heather:: Just Write

Encouraging compassion

We watch the disaster footage from Oklahoma, and my little bleeding-heart 6 year old went running for her piggy bank. I tried to convince her that our family donation through Samaritan's Purse was enough, mostly because I didn't know where to send $5 cash and a letter from a 6 year old, but she wasn't easily deterred. After a few tears and begging from her, I started to look for somewhere to send her letter and donation. I found a church on the ground helping those in need, and we sent off her little note with the instructions to give the whole envelope to a family with children if possible.

It's easy to dismiss or belittle our children's small gifts, the small bills and the quarters they save for months and then suddenly want to give away to someone in need. It's easier to click "Pay Now" on the internet than it is to deal with these seemingly petty donations that come from our children's treasure coffers. Does this rob them of their desire to help out? I think it can.

There is a jar on my oldest daughter's desk that holds over $70 in coins that have been collected by the children over the past 6 months. In swirly hand-colored mosaic print, the label reads, "4 are sponsered chidren", a 7 year old's attempt at "for our sponsored children". The kids want to send small gifts for birthdays and holidays to the 4 children we sponsor in Mexico through World Vision. At first, I encouraged them to put only 10% of their birthday and cleaning money into the jar. They dissented: we don't really need spending money, Mama, they said. "You already buy everything we need, and those children don't even have enough food!" It can be overwhelming as a parent, trying to decipher how to teach your children to be generous while also teaching them financial responsibility so that they don't become another mouth for givers to feed. There are times, though, when their childish logic makes better sense than mine, and I can't deny them the opportunity to give to others.

It is more blessed to give than receive, the Bible tells us. Having been on the receiving end of many delivered casseroles and helping hands to clean my home and tend my children when we've suffered through major illnesses like cancer and brain infections and heart failure, I understand this, deeply. I hate being the receiver. It has taken many years to learn to accept help gracefully. I wonder about the stoic Mexican mama pictured with one of our sponsored children. How does she feel when her child goes down to the school to eat two meals a day, meals that she couldn't provide? Is it difficult to sign your starving child up to receive aid from some more fortunate family half a world away? I imagine it is.

I admire the grace with which hurting people are able to receive our gifts. I admire my children's giving spirits. Sometimes it is a little more work to help them develop this character trait - compassion and empathy - but it will be worth it someday. So we let them take their hard-earned quarters to the children's Drop in the Bucket offering at church, we mail letters off to tornado victims, we go to Target to buy gifts for two 12 year olds and a 13 year old in Mexico.

The smiles on their faces tell the whole story: yes, it is a blessing to be the giver.

How about you? Do you help your children give of their time or money? What activities have worked best for your family, volunteering together, making donations, serving food? We are always on the look-out for new ideas!

There is a happy ending

{please consider pressing play below prior to reading}

The tree trunks are black as coal from the night rain, threading through the chartreuse of leaf buds. The heaviness of magic is in the air this spring, flowers springing up from the cold earth so recently blanketed in snow. Everything about this May feels weirdly foreign, irredescent with a touch of the unreal.

Perhaps this is what comes of accepting a reality you don't feel at home in. Ever since leaving church 2 years ago, reality has slanted toward pain. Two years have seen a definite decrease in the number of those we can joyfully live life with. Two years have included the most painful period of self-doubt of my life. Two years have brought me to the Throne with questions and contrition and brokenness like never before.

Sometimes, when we struggle with depression, we shy away from the painful parts of life. I don't like to let sad thoughts or memories in. I don't want to acknowledge the suffering that has cropped up here and there in my life story.

But where we would be without psalms? Laments? Dirges?

The music of life falls flat without the melancholy moments. There can be no crescendo to joy, to ecstacy, without the contrast of the deep, dark pits of sorrow. It is one of the things most difficult to understand about heaven: although we long for the day when there are finally no more tears, it is hard to imagine not getting bored in an eternity without the challenges and chaos of life here on earth.

What if? What if we can remember it all? What if we will spend heaven contrasting God's glory with all that is wicked, evil, wrong in this life? It's a new perspective: if our sorrows here on earth are the great interlude of pensif before the last everlasting song of triumph...if this is true, I can suffer longer and harder here on earth knowing a reprieve is coming.

I can stand the separation from my sisters and brothers of churches past. I can live through depression. I can handle the various never-ending tasks of motherhood. I can make the next meal, clean the next dish, with gratitude that passes all understanding because this life is temporary.

It is not the end. It is not even the middle. It is barely the beginning. And it will not last forever.

Surrogate mother

In a desperate middle-of-the-night battle with a feral tom cat, our Siamese, Pearl, lost all four of her Mother's Day kittens, less than a week old. She wandered around the porch listlessly, calling for them and searching every corner over and over again. Her belly swelled up hard and hot with milk for babies that were gone forever.

I had to break the news to the children. No matter how many kittens we have, each litter is precious. They spend hours huddled around the box that is birthing center and nursery, carefully holding kittens days old, whose limbs look oddly human in their flexibility. Little pink paws knead the children's skin, but without claws, they giggle when the kittens touch them.

They crumpled like wet tissue paper when I told them the kittens had been killed. It was almost more than I could bear, to hurt them with the truth so. But hurt we must when the circle of life closes the gap at the end.

And on goes the cycle. Two days later, Pearl was still listless and now running a fever from the sugary milk that was now serving as breeding ground for bacteria as it lay stagnant. Pearl's twin sister Shelly had been looking like she was in labor for weeks, her belly so full it was square and hard, as if she had swallowed a small box. Last night, she finally went into labor in earnest, and an hour later 6 kittens were cuddled up to her belly. One was born dead, as is often the case. I squirreled two away during her labor and brought them to Pearl.

Pearl sniffed the wet newborns and began to clean them up and care for them. A few minutes later, she settled down to nurse them. I imagine it may have been just so for humans not long ago...I've read about women throughout history offering their babes to the mourning mother who lost her own, so that by a few minutes breastfeeding, the physical pain brought on by the separation might be soothed. Pearl's face, which had been taught from pain and worry, relaxed as those two fresh kittens nursed long into the night.

We offer comfort from our abundance when someone else's arms are empty. As we suffer and search for meaning, we are building up supplies for the day when we walk with another down this familiar path of pain. We will have wisdom to offer them when we see them treading water through their trial.

If we diligently seek His face through our own pain, we will be able to paint that Holy face with the words offered to other struggling saints.