Song of My Heart's Devotion

what I know is true

(Note from Lyssa: I began this post four months ago; not sure why I never finished it. Probably the adrenal fatigue "brain fog" interfered. Thankfully, I don't feel quite that wretched physically any more. My body has made the progress I wish my mind would make.

But here it is now. And here am I, still clinging to what I know is true: my God is good. My God is faithfully working all things together for good.)

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So, it's been a rough couple of months. I feel "not good" about 75% of the time. On really bad days it's more like 90%, and what passes for a great day is more like 25% "not good." We talk in percentages because it's so much easier than saying, "Well, I had a bad night and woke up with the worst headache I've ever had, but pulled it together about ten a.m. Then after I ate lunch I felt good for about 15 minutes and then dizzy and lightheaded for three hours. I had an anxiety attack in the carpool lane after school, but by the time we got home I was fine again. I wanted to puke making dinner but it passed in about a half hour, until I had to take that pill that makes my blood feel like it's burning me. When is bedtime, again?"

I've spent a lot of time sleeping, a lot of time trying not to panic about the future, and a lot of time just wondering what in the world will bring this utterly annoying and exasperating time in my life to an end, so I can get on with things.

The truth? Things aren't going so hot. The longer this season drags on, the more I realize this may be something I have to deal with for the rest of my life. Yet, God is still good.

It's been hard to keep my focus on what I know is true, when anxiety-caused depression lies to me at every turn. I've never been more aware of the spiritual battle being fought behind the scenes. It's not the clashing of swords that fills my ears, but the whispered lies and twisted truths that attack me when I'm down. And as fast as I can beat one away, another takes its place.

 

Anxiety asks, what if it's like this forever?

Depression whispers, it WILL be like this forever.

What is the truth here? It may be I struggle with this humbling thorn in my flesh until Jesus comes. Who am I that I should be immune to trials and sorrow? No one gets through this life without scars and heartache. It could be this, it could be something else. Any weakness only serves as a setting for His grace to shine. "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." -- 2 Cor.12:9.

The truth is, I may not be ready to "glory" in this illness yet, but I can look for the good in it, and hope for someone else to be blessed by the way I choose to handle it.

 

Anxiety asks, my beautiful life is slipping away, what if it never comes back?

Depression whispers, your life is gone for good and it won't ever come back.

What is the truth here? I will never regain what I once held so tightly, and I honestly don't want to. It wasn't good for me and it so often didn't honor God. But there's a good life, a quieter one, yes, but one that brings glory to God in so many more ways than the glitzy Instagram existence I chased after.

The truth is, I wanted all the blessings without having to honor and obey the God from Whom they flowed. If that's what my life before illness consisted of, then it is better lost.

 

Anxiety says, I'm trying so hard and I just can't make these changes.

Depression whispers, quit trying so hard. Nothing will change.

What is the truth here? I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me. I must make the effort even when I don't see progress. I can never stop the struggle against sinful thoughts, against the terrible, ingrained pride that stops me from seeking help. And His all-sufficient grace will keep giving me the strength to continue even though the journey is long and the pathway is hard.

The truth is, I can't make these changes alone. It is not within my feeble powers to fight the good fight by myself and never has been. This illness just shone a light on that fact. But His strength shows up in all its perfection in my lowest, weakest moments.

 

Friend, will you pray for us? Pray for healing, yes, by all means. But pray that those of us who struggle with anxiety and depression will be covered in the day of war, as we fight a battle not of our choosing. Pray that we will be strengthened to respond with praise and trust and obedience instead of fear and discouragement and sin.

Pray for us to be spiritually and emotionally empowered to focus on what we know is true.

Our God is good. Our God is faithfully working all things together for good.

post-storm perspective

For some reason, my mom's blog reader service only updates her of new posts via email like once every two weeks (note to self: check her settings next time I visit). So, depending on when I write an article for this devotional blog, it can be up to a month before she reads it.

And naturally, like any good mom, she then sends me a long, loving email worrying about everything I said.

And then I have to go back and read what I wrote, because I don't even remember that far back.

We're in a pattern here, and it's starting to get comical.

The disconnect between the emotion I had in the moment (oh Mom, that was SO two weeks ago!) and my inability to even recall what the article was about just a short time later is funny, but it's also a good reminder of how BIG even small things seem when they're up close and scary. Of how quickly the overwhelmed feelings and strong emotions smash against the dam until it breaks, and then all the water flows out and the river is calm and smooth once again.

I'm sure it's annoying to my poor mom to realize her concern, advice, and just plain "me too's", while not exactly irrelevant at this late stage, just don't carry the same weight they might have if I'd read them in the same day or even the same week as my blog posts. And that's kind of a good thing, you know? Because sometimes it's a waste to respond to things in the moment when they just need a chance to gush out. And when calm perspective is restored once again, you check to make sure what you know is still true, the moorings are still safe, the rope is still secure.

The world is in chaos and our country in an uproar, aghast at what we have become, but God is still on the throne and His divine plan is unchanging. I Tim 6:15

My health is not good even after six full months of rest, and I'm still being lied to by anxiety and depression, but the truth of the Word stands eternal and steadfast. Psalm 119:89

I'm still worried about my precious, quirky kids and so anxious for their futures, but their Creator has not nor ever will lose sight of His beloved ones. John 10:28

As I struggle for identity outside my business efforts, I'm still feeling less-than and not-enough, but My Lord is sufficient for every need I have, from cradle to grave. II Cor 12:9

The water gushes over the top, around the sides and sometimes through cracks in my dam, but when it settles, I know my Redeemer lives, and on the earth again someday shall stand. Job 19:25

I do need friends and family to stand on the banks as the water crests and shout truth to me in that moment. But I also need friends and family to come up alongside me in the quietness afterward and remind me of Whose hands I was in the whole time I raged and stormed.

Reading my mother's thoughts sometimes, weeks after my emotional river has crested and fallen once again, I'm struck by how spot-on her advice is, how with nearly surgical precision she hones in straight to the heart of the matter. She's good, my mom. I can only hope to be half as tall as she stands in the Word, physically shorter than I am, but a spiritual giantess. Many more than just her daughter call her mentor and co-laborer. She almost never closes an email without a mention of how glad she is that we are sisters in the Lord as well as mother and daughter. It is a sweet reminder that our most precious treasure is not some family heirloom, not a recipe or a photo or even a passed-down story, but our shared inheritance as joint-heirs with Christ. 

She doesn't have all the answers--no human does--but as I read my mom's words on my screen tonight I can almost hear her saying it: "It certainly will be AMAZING to see how God works this all together for good, won't it?" And it brings tears to my eyes because no matter how calm I am at this point, there will never be a moment when I don't need reminding that my Father is, indeed weaving all this together for my good and His glory.

So Mom, when you get around to reading this one, in a month or so, I love you with all my heart. Thanks for the post-storm perspective. And I'll fix your email settings next time I visit, I promise.

the new/old me

The new me bakes. As in cookies and biscotti and coffee cake and all that.

I find that mildly hilarious. It's so different from the me-that-has-been all these years. Who had time to bake? When I did, forced to by some school function or feeling guilty because it was Christmas Eve and there was not a sweet treat in the house, I often burned tray after tray, trying to get eighty things done while each sheet baked. 

Not baking was a survival mechanism. If there is no pan of brownies, I can't eat them all when I realize it's two o'clock and all I've had to eat so far is a cup of coffee. When there is massive self-sabotage of any possibility for self-control like that, the best way to make sure those binges don't happen is not to have it in the house at all.

So pitifully out of balance.

So, the new me bakes. The kids are thrilled. I even signed up for a cooking class by mail. Mike doesn't know what's gotten into me.

I've been attending a program run through our church, called newfocus, as part of my efforts to get a hold of my life and stop some of the destructive, idolatrous behaviors that have stolen my peace and ruined my health. It's a little sobering, pardon the pun, to check yourself in to an addictions ministry every Friday night and know that the next two hours are going to be painful but cleansing. I still haven't made it through a whole meeting.

But it's coming, and the new me loves it. Loves not having to pretend everything's fine when it SO is not. Newfocus helps by stripping away all the religious trappings, traditions and pretense we think of when we think about "church," and just leaves God's words, straight from the Bible, explained in the simplest of terms by someone who gets it. Somebody else who knows the Dementor's kiss of depression, who struggles as I do to listen to the Voice of Truth and not the whispers of inadequacy and failure and hopelessness.

I can't make promises for tomorrow or the weekend because it all depends on how the night went. The morning can be good and the afternoon the anxiety hits so bad I barely manage to pick up the kids from school. Or the whole day can be peaceful and then the muscle aches hit about eight p.m. and I can't change positions without groaning in pain. But this un-knowing is not all bad. It makes me seize the day when I do feel good. It causes reevaluation of what is important and what can wait and what doesn't need to be done at all. It makes me appreciate little things.

One of newfocus' main principles deals with recovery, and how you know you're making progress. One of those steps is regaining pleasure in the simple things in life. A walk in the woods. The pattern of frost on the glass. The smiling baby in the shopping cart in the checkout lane. Cold fingers wrapped around a funny mug filled with hot cocoa. The way the scenery is distorted through old glass panes. A homemade meal, plain but well-cooked. The array of colors when you walk into the produce department. Stopping to read the historical marker I've driven past so many times. A favorite song on the radio.

Baking.

Reading. I am almost embarrassed to say it: I stopped reading for fun.

I knew if I went to the library, I'd "waste" hours and hours of time that I "should" be spending on my business. So I never went. I love to read, but I went months at a time without doing it. Famous in my childhood for the stacks of books I went through in a week, always a finalist in the summer reading contests. As an adult, my dusty Kindle was a source of mistaken pride in my dedication to my work.

So out of balance.

So, the new me reads. And watches shows. Yep, that "#1 thing successful people never do"--I watch TV occasionally. Gasp! 

I will say, the new me's hair sucks. I haven't been able to go to the salon since June, and it's pretty bad. I pretend I'm growing it out, but it's not true. I just can't sit for two hours in a chemical-laden, noisy room full of strangers and get my sleekly high-lighted professional bob done right now. It's also thinner, falling out due to see-sawing thyroid imbalances. So it straggles to brush my shoulders, and I part it a different way to disguise the color gaps, and that's all part of the new me, too.

I don't know where else the new me leads. We'll find out, I guess. I'm still discovering the OLD-old me, the person I was before my life got so crazily off-kilter. The person who used to enjoy playing the piano--she is still a stranger to me, buried under years of incredibly stressful church ministry I was neither qualified for nor willing to do. The piano keys are dustier than the Kindle ever was.

But the person who gardened, uneducatedly but enthusiastically, I caught a glimpse of her recently.

The girl that planted daffodil bulbs each fall, believing in the distant promise of an eventual spring, she reappeared this autumn.

Old-old, old, or new--the point here is not the girl I was, am now or will become. The point of it all is that Jesus loves her. That incredible mixed-bag of faults and failures, successes and silences, idols and good intentions--they're all me, and I'm all His.

I always have been.

I didn't notice when I quit baking. That book-that-turned-out-to-be-the-last, returned to the library did not spark a sad realization. The person who was too busy to stop at the park or who threw a tray of chicken nuggets in the oven as she dashed out the door was also too busy to think too hard about a life that doesn't even leave time for dinner. But Jesus knew. And he loved me anyway.

See, when the God of the universe loves you, He doesn't quit. There's no up-and-down with His love. It's steady, consistent, eternal (Jeremiah 31:3). He loves me when I'm a mess and He loves me when things are marvelous. Top of the heap, or scrambling to regain lost ground. He loves me even when I'm at such a low that His precious promises are naught but a blip on the radar of my despair.

He loves me even though it's taken me so long to learn this lesson. He loves me despite the fact that, lacking wisdom like a BOSS, epic-ally lacking wisdom to manage my own fallen-apart life, I only just now think of the verse in James that says He gives it freely, without reproaching me for lack of faith and past failure. (James 1:5).

The new me understands that love in a way I could not have unless I'd been the old me. Like the three foster children, pending adoption, who understand my brother and his wife's love for them in a totally different and deeper way than their biological children ever will.

It's a lesson I'll be learning over and over again my whole life long. He loves me. Old, new, in progress, stalled, stubborn, sinful--you name it.

Whatever else has changed, He has not. I am loved, and I always have been.

washed-out or worthy

Yesterday I got out for a short excursion with a dear friend. It was our first in a long time, because I don't go anywhere willingly these days. The panic is always right under the surface. My blood feels like it is burning me. Good stuff.

The plan had been to go out to lunch, but I have not been able to eat inside a restaurant for two months now. Not because of food problems, but because the restaurant itself feels like it's smothering me. My body dumps inappropriate amounts of cortisol and suddenly instead of a casual, yummy meal and relaxing conversation, I'm just as wired as if I knew Jeffrey Dahmer was sitting in the booth behind me.

I don't know how it is for every person with adrenal fatigue, but when you see me out and about, even if I look "normal," you can assume that I am:

• experiencing heart palpitations;
• struggling to control my breathing;
• running a slight fever;
• trembling internally and likely externally;
• exhausted, even on the off chance I did sleep the night before;
• calculating the distance and objects between me and the nearest exit;
• praying with all my might to just get back home without making a scene;
• this close to walking out/canceling

This is true whether the excursion is to get groceries or go to a health appointment. I'm tellin' ya, life is FUN right now!

So anyway, now you have a little idea of what a big deal it was that I was out with Penni yesterday. Penni is an amazing person. I'm not just saying that because she is my assistant and the only reason I'm keeping up with any of my business obligations at the moment. I'm saying that because Penni really is amazing, and I wish more people saw her for what she is.

Penni has fibromyalgia, which basically means she hurts everywhere, ALL the time. You would never know it, though, because she just doesn't talk about it. She's been in some bad places because of it, and because God never wastes anything, she has learned some mighty deep lessons from her illness. Yesterday she shared one with me.

She told me she learned she couldn't trust what her mind was telling her.

Her mind told her that her life was over, that she would never ever feel good again. It told her that her kids were going to be scarred by all the games and recitals their mom couldn't attend. It told her that her husband might wish he had married someone who didn't have all these issues. It told her that her ministry days were over. That she might as well give up.

She said that the Holy Spirit taught her that in those moments, she needed to speak to herself, not listen to herself.

She went on to explain: listening to your BODY is a good thing. But listening to your MIND? Not always so great.

The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is "deceitful above all things." We've been warned. It's going to lie to you regularly, pathologically. It's going to keep up a steady stream of absolute drivel, complete dreck that goes directly against the truths found in Scripture. The Word plainly reminds us that trusting in our own heart is foolishness (Proverbs 28:26). It simply cannot be depended on to consistently speak life and truth.

So what can be depended on? The Bible. It is:

• Trustworthy: Psalm 19:7
• Steadfast: Psalm 93:5
• Tested & Tried: Psalm 18:30
• Pure: Psalm 12:6
• Eternally Unchanging: Psalm 119:89

And when she quit listening to the untruths, and started speaking truth, Penni said--everything changed.

Oh, not the pain. That's still there. But everything else, the fear and the grief and the self-pity and the bitterness, was suddenly loss, compared to the excellency of Christ and the perfection of His plan.

Her mind had told her she was not enough, that she was a failure and she would never measure up. The truth of God's Word told her she was His beloved, accepted in Him, known since before conception, that her life was planned and pleasing to Him. That instead of being weak and washed-out, she was worthy and wanted.

I'm so glad Penni shared those thoughts with me. I know now that it was the reason we went out yesterday, despite how desperately I wanted to turn around and go home.

Sometimes, less listening and more speaking is the answer. But only if what's spoken is truth.

Eternal Father, Giver of Life, Mighty to Save! Your Word is life itself. Thank you for a friend that speaks truth at a crucial moment. How good it is to have the balm of Scripture to sooth in times of pain and distress. Grant wisdom to discern when our minds are spouting repetitions of the Deceiver's subtle lies, and strengthen us to combat the constant barrage with truth from your Word. Help us desire to hide Thy Word in our hearts, that we might not sin against Thee even in secret moments of great upheaval and bitter anxiety. Thank You for giving us the Bible, every word of it profitable for daily life and health. We pray all these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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ok. I can do that.

I love New Years. I really do. I look forward to it from about November onward. This year I started celebrating before Christmas, eager to put the past behind me and open up that new planner, the one with no scribbles and mistakes in it. I'm as bad as the retailer who is already onto the next holiday before the first one actually arrives.

I've "chosen" Micah 6:8 for the verse I will specially meditate upon during 2016. Do you pick a verse, a song, or phrase for the year?

I put the word "chosen" in quotations, because honestly, Micah 6:8 chose me. 2015 was not good. I did not handle the trials that came my way over the course of that year with any sort of grace. There was a lot of rather undignified kicking and screaming, to be truthful. I floundered; I ranted; I withdrew; I stopped writing (more on that in another post).

Micah 6:8 "He hath shown thee, oh man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

The truth of it hits me like a truck. I can stop. Stop struggling to find my place in the world. I can stop trying to make the pieces fit together. I can stop trying to carry everything I've piled upon myself and just do these three things.

I can breathe.

The verse does not read, "do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, and be a super-star businesswoman and leadership mentor."

It doesn't have a codicil stating I have to "do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, and manage a magnificently-run house with magazine-perfect children living oh-so-neatly in it."

There is no fine print, heaping additional duties and burdens on top of the three tasks: "do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, and astound everyone with your volunteer work and social activism."

Just this: Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

That's it.

I can do that.

In fact, it seems like a walk in the park compared to what I've added to my own plate over the years. Self-imposed stress that quite literally is killing me.

"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden." Oh yes, that's me, Lord. I raise my hand.

"I will give you rest." I don't believe it, Lord. The merry-go-round never stops. I know that now.

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." I can't take on another thing, Lord, I just can't.

"And ye shall find rest unto your souls." There's that "rest" again. Maybe....maybe He means it.

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

Thunk! That's the sound of my 2015 hitting the floor.

Here I was trying to gather my strength and pile 2016 on top of what I was already carrying. But how could I? My knees were already buckling, my arms and back breaking, my strength almost-- almost--gone. The pep talk to myself dies on my lips. Relief massages my shoulders like a tangible thing.

There's a better way to be. There's a way that doesn't involve constant struggling and incessant striving and always being behind and never ever feeling good enough. There's a way that's just plain and simple freedom, without strings. There's a way that says, "Bottom line. Here's what I require of you: do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. And I will be pleased."

Ok. I can do that.

In 2016, by God's grace alone, I will do justice. To me that means righting wrongs where I can, with eyes wide open to the way sin has perverted the plan of a holy God. It means compassionately loving those who still walk in darkness and resist His will with all their might. It means drowning myself in God's Word to absorb His perfect, timeless precepts. Dealing fairly and consistently with my children and my spouse. Proceeding with nothing less than complete and utter transparency and integrity in every area of my life.

By God's grace alone, I will love mercy. To me that means living in a state of forgiveness, heavenly-enabled beyond my human ability. Endless kindness and hospitality, to strangers, widows, orphans; endless charity towards to the fatherless and the homeless, as well as family and friends. Assigning pure motives when I want to assume the worst. To teach and admonish rather than remonstrate and punish. Cherishing the truth that nothing is too hard for God, not even granting enough grace to forgive the unforgivable.

By God's grace alone, I will walk humbly. That's the hardest one because it hits me right in the pride. To me it means submitting myself to His will, when my own plans look like more fun. Not picking back up the burdens He never placed on my shoulders to begin with. Running my business in the opposite manner from how all those "climb the ladder" books say I need to. Trusting my husband's loving leadership as the God-designed head of our family. Living transparently in front of my children, openly sharing my need for constant redirection back to the truth of the Word of God.

It's a tall order, actually. The three things, broken down, look like a much bigger list. But the thing is, although I will be working on this to-do list for a lifetime, it is a do-able list. Because His burden is truly light.

Thank you, Father, for the simple, graceful bulleted list You packed into one single verse in an ancient text. Your Word is life and health. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for breathing life into the written Word and causing it to leap up and shout at me way down the road in the year 2016. You both convict and comfort. And thank You, Jesus, for bringing me to a point where I was ready to listen, really listen, to what You said about rest for the soul. And for saying it twice, to make sure I got it.

Enable me to do Your will, oh God! For You know that I am dust. Amen

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Follow the peace

The Lord is just ministering to my heart these days in such an obvious way. That's good, because I'm blonde. I need things written large, preferably with a smoke-writing sky plane, but a billboard works in a pinch if traffic isn't too heavy. I need letters scratched in the sand at my feet.

Sometimes I want to say, "God, if You could just use small words and repeat Yourself a lot, I'm SURE I'll get it this time."

But occasionally He does, in tender grace, make His leading so plain that even Obvious Girl stops and says, "Whoa. That was totally a God thing."

A verse that was heavy on my mind all day yesterday turned out to be the kids' bedtime devotional verse last night.

A word fitly spoken by a Godly friend mirrored a song that was endlessly looping in my mind (some earworms are good).

Someone who had every right to rush me for her own benefit urged me to stop and pray first before I acted.

Even Lyssa eventually gets it... the Creator of the universe, my Savior, is trying to tell me something.

Oh.

Ok, Father.... I'm listening.

A wise friend once told me "follow the peace." Not "follow YOUR peace" as in an endless pursuit of one's own pleasure. But following a peace that passes human understanding. The kind of peace that keeps your heart and mind secure in Christ Jesus. The kind that causes you to know, deep down, that "this is the way; walk ye in it.

"And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." Isaiah 30:21

When you follow the peace, you just know.

Open your eyes, fellow Obvious Girl. When God is in a thing, He shines out in unexpected places and amazing ways. There's peace. A pretty undervalued quality in modern life.

And you realize it was so obvious before, by its absence.

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