Chapter 5: The Cold Hard Truth

Chapter 5: Cold Hard Truth

I feel like I am on this time out. Like God said, “Ok Turbo, let’s just sit you over here for awhile, away from all reality and other people, and let you calm down.” This was, of course, after I sat down on the top of this hill I keep climbing and said, “I WILL NOT MOVE UNTIL SOMETHING CHANGES! I REFUSE TO TAKE ANOTHER LAP!” (I wonder how I would have faired as an Israelite in the desert?)

This time out has been really good for me. I feel like it has given me permission to sit down and think about my life. To think about who I am, where I am going, and why we are all here. I never thought of it as a luxury before, but it really, truly is. It’s hard in life to take the time out of all our busyness and just contemplate things. I am gaining this incredible perspective of life and how meaningless it all is. There is some freedom in that, but there is something missing. With no meaning, there is no hope.

On that note, I received an e-mail from father saying he thinks I need medication. “It may be hereditary depression, due to a hormonal imbalance,” he says.

At first I laugh at this. I think, “He would assume that.” (He is a therapist.)

My defenses go up saying, “God told me all emotions are good. Maybe that advice was for this. It was advice for a piece of armor against this attack. Why does the world always want happiness in our lives and nothing else?”

Then my mind brings me to when I was going to this great alterative medicine doctor In Colorado who practiced applied kinesiology. When I was seeing him and regulating my hormones, when I was getting healthy, I had a stable mood. I remember feeling like I could accomplish anything, even long-term ideas. Maybe this is hormonal.

After a few days of considering this, I am in front of God and I just spill my beans. I tell Him exactly how I feel, because…well, I am basically naked in space and completely exposed anyhow, right?

 I tell Him, “Thank you for showing me that I have a problem. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet. I am glad that there may be hope for emotional stability in the future, but I also feel like the knowledge of that takes away from what I’ve been going through. There’s something exciting about being manic/depressant. Everything is dramatic. I don’t want this whole journey I’ve been on with you to be for not. I don’t want to live a Pottery Barn life that never makes a difference. I don’t want to be an extra in your story. I want to be the heroine. I want to be the bride! I want every inch of my life to be worth something. I don’t want to just take up space.

Yet, my heart is tired. It feels like it’s on its last string. I’m ready to settle a bit. I know that in my current hormonal state, I will never be able to be intentional about anything. Knowing that if I get better I’ll be able to accomplish some things encourages me to change. I just still want to be me. I don’t know why I feel like I can’t be me if I’m healthy. That’s kind of sad, now that I think about it.

I am hopeful. I think I could actually be more of me if I were stronger. I know you created me with an incredible strength. I crave that strength: the strength of Deborah, enough to lead Israel.

The last few years I have been so weak, but you have used it to mold my heart. I have been so humbled. I no longer judge or exclude people like I used to, because I now know all of us have breaking points; all of us are fallible; all of us have weaknesses. We are all on a journey and none of us have arrived. ‘We do the things we do not want to do, and the things we want to do we do not do.’ That Paul guy knew what he was talking about. Lord, lift me up from where I am. Be faithful to complete a good work in me. My soul depends on it.”