Diaries Of The Depressed

I was so angry.
It wasn't one specific person who upset me, it was everyone.
It wasn't one specific incidence, it was every incident.
It wasn't a conversation that made me mad, it was every conversation that made me mad.

I was in bad place. All over the map emotionally, as we say around here. I couldn't resolve inside the chambers of my heart where the down spiral had come from, it just quickly engulfed me and held me under. My go to pick-me-ups had zero affect in helping me over the hump, and the bed was the only safe place I could go where I wasn't hurting someone in my family with my words, my glares, my criticism, my very presence.

Easter. Fail.

I mean, for goodness sake, it was Good Friday.. I was to be more pious, more aware, and more broken over my sin that put the Son of God on the cross. Instead, I was acting out like a toddler; embracing my flesh and selfishness and beginning to hammer down my tent stakes. I was going to camp here. I was justified in camping here. I was tired, weary, worn, hurting, and angry. A recipe for entitlement and camping in the valley of the self absorbed.

By Sunday morning, the anger began to show itself in the way of endless tears. Everything made me cry. I cried because I did not buy a single shred of new Easter clothing for the kids. I cried because I was tired of dressing up for people under the banner of 'dressing up for Jesus'. I didn't spend a penny on a single Easter treat because I was tired of every single holiday being twisted into an extraordinary moment where I had to attempt to out-do other moms, and pour excess all over my children in the name of an ugly, giant, bunny rabbit. I cried because of mom-guilt, mom-anxiety, mom-comparison.

I cried because I missed Kansas, I missed Virginia, I missed the Oasis, I missed GPC, I missed Chipotle, I missed Target,  I missed my family, I missed my friends, and as the layers of anger were peeled back, underneath all the tent staking was this familiar pang; I missed my mom. Desperately.

Ugh, it had happened again. I had been taken a fool by the masquerading of grief, disguised so often in restless, pointless, anger.

Why had I been so surprised? Why was I once again found unprepared and lacking so desperately in the self awareness department? I thought I knew myself.

Grief.

This is grief my friends. The ebb and flow of the most unpredictable monster I've ever encountered.

Grief.

As "Up From The Grave" was being sung as a victory tune my heart began to flounder like a funeral dirge. Words like grave, tomb, death, each echoed more loudly than the other in the hallways of my mind.

DEATH
TRAMPLED
CRUSHED
DEATH
GRIEF

Then comes, "O death, where is your sting?

Truth?

I can tell you where the sting is! It's been taking up residence in my heart for the passed 17 months and it is alive and well and potent.

Grief.

Death does sting. It stings badly. It hurts.

"Because He Lives" oh please Lord, make it stop... I don't want to face tomorrow. I don't want to live. I want to lay in my bed and cry.

Grief.

It was merely passing through this weekend. It didn't stay, I didn't camp for long, the tears purged the anger and we regrouped to tackle Monday.

Monday, this sweetest freedom and life awaited me, and it came in the form of GRACE.

"When we have said all we can of the abounding of sin in us- grace still more abounds in Jesus.  We cannot be so evil as he is good.  His power is a good match for our weakness. His riches are a good match for our poverty.  His mercy is a good match for our misery. We are vile in ourselves- but we are complete in him.  In ourselves we have cause to be abased- but in him we may rejoice. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ!"
~John Newton

Grace.

Let those words wash over you. Read them over and over again. They are sweet, they are transforming.

Grace.

Grief's kryptonite is grace.

The permission to feel, to explore, to momentarily camp, to ignore, to pass, to hibernate, to cocoon, to be weak, to be ordinary, to lose, to be a no one, and to fail.

GRACE!

Amazing grace.
Extraordinary grace.

Grief's death grip is lost on me by saturating myself in Someone else's clothing of grace.
Oh, what I owe Him.
Oh, what I can never repay.

"Oh, to see my name, written in His wounds for through His suffering I AM FREE!"

GRACE!
~Sara