A Post with No Pictures and a Few Links
Here we go again. Changing things. This blog has changed a zillion names. I’m pretty sure my middle name is "Indecisive". I have done a lot of second guessing of myself and my decisions in my life. It’s a terrible habit. I don’t recommend it. This is the name I have had rolling around in my head for about seven or eight years. The idea popped in my head when I was reading Ann Voskamp’s, One Thousand Gifts. You need to read it if you haven’t already.
When I started reading her book at the end of 2012, I was struggling being a mom to three kids who had been thru more in their short lives than I ever thought of in my 30-something years. I lost who I was or who I thought I was at the time. I forgot how to smile. - not kidding. I was overwhelmed, but I didn't realize it. Most mornings that first year, I couldn’t even get up to help get the older two kids ready for school.
The timeline is a bit fuzzy, but at some point, I wound up on an anti-depressant — which really didn’t help anything and finally after about a year and a half, my body rejected the medicine and Brent drove me to in the emergency room one Sunday morning in March 2014. I slept for two days after that morning. When I fully woke up on the Tuesday afterward, my mom was there helping with the kids. The ER doc put me on a new anti-depressant. That drug did nothing, except make things worse. I started having panic attacks. It seemed like my panic attacks always came during the night. Which is really not fun because everything is usually ten times worse in the middle of the night and nights always seem to last forever.
There was a time during all this that I went home to have a week of rest at my parent's house. I remember getting in their car when Brent met them half way - it was harder than I thought it would be to leave Brent and the kids. I was afraid. Afraid for leaving, afraid Brent wouldn’t be able to take care of them on his own (not because I doubted him, but mainly because I don’t think I could have at the time). I was afraid of what was happening to my mind and body, afraid of what was in our future, and afraid of what would happen when I got back and it was just us and the kids again. That’s a lot of fear.
The week I went home, I went to see a dear friend who owned a herb and vitamin shop. She was a Christian and spoke wisdom enough for you to know that her advise came from something she had lived thru herself. I was so mad at God during that time. I guess I was counting on her words to change my whole life. I thought she would solve why my body reacted that way to the prescription drugs, why was I such a failure at being a mom, and who knows what all else I expected her to solve. My poor friend. I put a lot of wrong expectations on her. I was so afraid she wouldn’t be there when I got to her store that I was crying, crying and actually said to God, “You’re supposed to be taking care of me.” I’ll pause a minute to let the shock sink in, because I actually said that. I can’t believe it either. I can't believe I was whisked off planet Earth immediately. The shame of the doubt and accusation I directed toward God must have burned into my soul, because I vividly remember exactly what road I driving down and where I was on the road. Who. Was. I?
Thankfully, the Lord is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, and does not treat us as our sins deserve. Thankfully, Jesus loves us at our darkest moments.
Because of His grace, my friend was working at her shop when I arrived. We chatted for awhile.
I have no idea what she told me, except we decided I needed to come off all medication cold turkey. God was taking care of me. He always had been. I was the one not taking care of me. I wasn’t taking care of my soul, my mind, my heart. I was Peter looking at the waves that were overpowering me.
I got back home to Mississippi. The first night was little strange. I'm sure the kids were questioning if mommy was a psycho! My body and brain adjusted to the cold turkey treatment really well. It had quit accepting the medication anyway. I suppose we found a new way of sorts, I mean, we're still here. HA!
Back to Ann Voskamp’s book. I had been working thru her book during all of this mess and her Joy Dare challenges to be grateful and find joy in your everyday, life. We can all find joy in our days, in the littlest things that won’t matter to anyone else but us. We are all given little gifts from God in our everyday life that He gives us to remind us of His love, blessings, and people He has placed in our lives.
I wanted to start a whole other blog and call it Choosing Manna to document the whole Joy Dare journey. Two blogs would have been too much and in recent years changing the name of this one again seemed ridiculous. It wasn’t until lately that I realized, I have been writing about choosing manna the whole time.
(You can find the posts I did by clicking the Labels column at the top of the page and choosing the words "Joy Dare" in the screen that pops up. These post are wompy and do not correctly document the struggles of our life. Rather they focus mostly on the good. I guess I was TRYING too hard.)
Manna literally means "what is it?". Manna was the bread from heaven, grace to the Israelites. Their daily bread to sustain them during their wilderness wanderings. A sign from God that He was taking care of His people, despite their complaints and accusations that God had brought them into the desert to die.
When we choose manna, we choose His grace. We choose to trust Him to be the keeper and sustainer of life.
This blog is a front row seat to the ups and downs of our hearts and lives. Hopefully, you see us choosing to accept God's grace in the "what is it" that God brings to us.
If you don’t mind the name change and my being so wishy-washy, then keep reading and I’ll keep writing that the same stuff, even if it’s few and far between. I am always happy to share with you and maybe you can share with me how you “choose manna” in your own life.
Kwaheri
When I started reading her book at the end of 2012, I was struggling being a mom to three kids who had been thru more in their short lives than I ever thought of in my 30-something years. I lost who I was or who I thought I was at the time. I forgot how to smile. - not kidding. I was overwhelmed, but I didn't realize it. Most mornings that first year, I couldn’t even get up to help get the older two kids ready for school.
The timeline is a bit fuzzy, but at some point, I wound up on an anti-depressant — which really didn’t help anything and finally after about a year and a half, my body rejected the medicine and Brent drove me to in the emergency room one Sunday morning in March 2014. I slept for two days after that morning. When I fully woke up on the Tuesday afterward, my mom was there helping with the kids. The ER doc put me on a new anti-depressant. That drug did nothing, except make things worse. I started having panic attacks. It seemed like my panic attacks always came during the night. Which is really not fun because everything is usually ten times worse in the middle of the night and nights always seem to last forever.
There was a time during all this that I went home to have a week of rest at my parent's house. I remember getting in their car when Brent met them half way - it was harder than I thought it would be to leave Brent and the kids. I was afraid. Afraid for leaving, afraid Brent wouldn’t be able to take care of them on his own (not because I doubted him, but mainly because I don’t think I could have at the time). I was afraid of what was happening to my mind and body, afraid of what was in our future, and afraid of what would happen when I got back and it was just us and the kids again. That’s a lot of fear.
The week I went home, I went to see a dear friend who owned a herb and vitamin shop. She was a Christian and spoke wisdom enough for you to know that her advise came from something she had lived thru herself. I was so mad at God during that time. I guess I was counting on her words to change my whole life. I thought she would solve why my body reacted that way to the prescription drugs, why was I such a failure at being a mom, and who knows what all else I expected her to solve. My poor friend. I put a lot of wrong expectations on her. I was so afraid she wouldn’t be there when I got to her store that I was crying, crying and actually said to God, “You’re supposed to be taking care of me.” I’ll pause a minute to let the shock sink in, because I actually said that. I can’t believe it either. I can't believe I was whisked off planet Earth immediately. The shame of the doubt and accusation I directed toward God must have burned into my soul, because I vividly remember exactly what road I driving down and where I was on the road. Who. Was. I?
Thankfully, the Lord is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, and does not treat us as our sins deserve. Thankfully, Jesus loves us at our darkest moments.
Because of His grace, my friend was working at her shop when I arrived. We chatted for awhile.
I have no idea what she told me, except we decided I needed to come off all medication cold turkey. God was taking care of me. He always had been. I was the one not taking care of me. I wasn’t taking care of my soul, my mind, my heart. I was Peter looking at the waves that were overpowering me.
I got back home to Mississippi. The first night was little strange. I'm sure the kids were questioning if mommy was a psycho! My body and brain adjusted to the cold turkey treatment really well. It had quit accepting the medication anyway. I suppose we found a new way of sorts, I mean, we're still here. HA!
Back to Ann Voskamp’s book. I had been working thru her book during all of this mess and her Joy Dare challenges to be grateful and find joy in your everyday, life. We can all find joy in our days, in the littlest things that won’t matter to anyone else but us. We are all given little gifts from God in our everyday life that He gives us to remind us of His love, blessings, and people He has placed in our lives.
I wanted to start a whole other blog and call it Choosing Manna to document the whole Joy Dare journey. Two blogs would have been too much and in recent years changing the name of this one again seemed ridiculous. It wasn’t until lately that I realized, I have been writing about choosing manna the whole time.
(You can find the posts I did by clicking the Labels column at the top of the page and choosing the words "Joy Dare" in the screen that pops up. These post are wompy and do not correctly document the struggles of our life. Rather they focus mostly on the good. I guess I was TRYING too hard.)
Manna literally means "what is it?". Manna was the bread from heaven, grace to the Israelites. Their daily bread to sustain them during their wilderness wanderings. A sign from God that He was taking care of His people, despite their complaints and accusations that God had brought them into the desert to die.
When we choose manna, we choose His grace. We choose to trust Him to be the keeper and sustainer of life.
This blog is a front row seat to the ups and downs of our hearts and lives. Hopefully, you see us choosing to accept God's grace in the "what is it" that God brings to us.
If you don’t mind the name change and my being so wishy-washy, then keep reading and I’ll keep writing that the same stuff, even if it’s few and far between. I am always happy to share with you and maybe you can share with me how you “choose manna” in your own life.
Kwaheri
Comments