Fireproof

We’ve all heard it, it’s been in the news and all over social media. Me too. I wrote recently about beauty from ashes and confessed to how over the past year I struggled with feeling unworthy, not good enough and just wanting to feel something in the midst of pain. It was kind of a dark place to be, well at least for me it was a huge contrast to who I am by nature, which is pretty positive and bubbly.

I can’t begin to completely understand, but I got a glimpse of what it feels like to struggle with depression. What I can say and what I will continue to say is that isolation deepens the issue, but when we step out of our silence (which by the way takes a heap ton of courage) and step into vulnerability we open ourselves up for the potential to heal. And I’m not talking about plastering a smile on our faces after we acknowledge we are hurt or sad or unhappy and then moving on, but really stopping for a moment and being honest with ourselves, like really honest. Not the fake blaming of others or circumstances or situations we find ourselves in, but the root issue, the matters of the heart. And then deal, not running, not hiding, not distracting oneself, but digging deep. I was in this vicious cycle of sweeping issues under the rug. Sometimes I thought that was the only answer. And maybe that’s the real issue. We think that we always have to be happy. Maybe it’s ok to be unhappy sometimes. Maybe it takes that to see what we have in front of us, if only we would pause. I know how hard it is to pause in life. Recently a girl I follow on insta was forced to pause. Life forced her to pause. She’s one of those girls that has enough energy for a small army of people, but she’s also been very honest about her struggle with depression. In the highs she’s a force to be reckon with, but in her lows she digs deep to find her way out and leans in hard to her community in those times of struggle, I admire her for that and it really did help me to know that that was a solution. She modeled what to do in those moments and I was able to do just that. In my darkest hours I had two very close people that I could lean on. They would allow me to feel my emotions no matter how deep or dark they were and most of the time they just sat with me in the moment. They didn’t force me to be happy, they did remind me to count my blessings and to see what was right in front of me. They always pointed me to the way out of my funk when I was ready. They taught me to counter act my thought patterns and to retrain my brain what to do when I found myself going down the dark rabbit hole. 

Now I said the potential to heal because it matters in how we step out in vulnerability. We can step into the wrong situation where we feel understood, but truly we are just vindicating why we feel the way we feel and that doesn’t lead to true healing, but more of a bandaid solution or temporary solution for a long term problem. It’s wonderful to admit there’s a problem, truly that’s the first step. But I can NOT say that’s the only step to be taken. There’s more to it. We know those people that recognize the problem, but don’t do anything about taking steps towards the solution. Or sometimes they take drastic steps and like I mentioned that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, it just lands you in another mess. Because sometimes what feels right in the moment isn’t the solution to the problem. I’ve been there I had done that. That’s the very reason why I didn’t chase after things or people or food this time around. It wasn’t an easy choice and it wasn’t the most obvious one, because I had every reason to choose the things that felt right.

I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective lately. It’s so easy for me to focus on the poop and miss the field of flowers I’m standing in. The poop is necessary, honestly we wouldn’t have food if it weren’t for poop. To grow fertile grass and to cultivate plants you need manure. There’s no way around it. HAHA!! But instead of focusing on the poop we can see the growth that it brings. The beauty that springs forth from the manure. I also got thinking about the kids. There have been moments where I think I’m stuck in the poop, the chaos, the struggle, but what’s the kids perspective…THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!! They see the flowers. They see it as fun. They see it as their childhood. It’s kind of hard to argue with that. I’ve really come to realize that my experience of one situation can be completely different from someone else in the same exact situation. I tend to see things in a positive light. But in the same exact situation someone else can experience utter misery. It just depends on what your focus is.

This past month has been a bit of a rollercoaster. I have struggled through the desire to be chosen. I don’t know about you, but it’s like that feeling back in elementary school when you had to split up into two teams and you just sat there praying you didn’t get picked last. It’s like that, but this is real life. It’s hard to admit that that is exactly what I struggle with the most right now. Because I know I’m chosen, I know I’m worthy, I know I’m enough, but when that isn’t exactly portrayed in real time, real life situations, it’s hard, it hurts. For awhile there I had this thought process that it was ALL God’s fault. I held him accountable for every wrong in my life. Trust was broken, I felt like I could never trust Him again. I’ve learned that trust is easy to broken and hard to rebuild. But He is faithful non the less. It’s so easy to be mad at someone that disappoints you. It’s easy to want to hold them accountable for their failure. It’s easy to be mad at them because you can’t trust them. I finally understand that logic, but then there’s grace. I was chattin’ with a friend about how hard we can be on ourselves and that sometimes we struggle to extend grace, and maybe that is so because we can’t extend it to ourselves first. What I missed before was that no matter what happens in my life (taking into account for free will) God’s there. He doesn’t just all of a sudden stop being God because you lose faith in Him or stop believing in Him. And when bad things happen He’s right there kneeling down to sit with you. So reality is we are never alone there is always someone there saying, me too. Because He feels all our hurts, He feels our betrayal, He feels our heartbreaks. I only wish I knew this sooner. That truly is my one and only regret, but that doesn’t stop me from living in the truth now. That’s one thing regret has taught me, you can’t stay stuck in the past. You learn from it and you decide what actions you’ll take moving forward. And the truth is going through these moments has only made me fireproof. I have stood in the fire and come out alive. And I don’t equate the fire to the decisions made, but what I had to lose to gain this perspective and that was all of the junk hidden deep in my heart. And what I have learned in the process of finding out who I really am. This, this is all concrete I’m standing on now. I know the truth and I know what I’m made of. So even if I’m not chosen, that doesn’t define me anymore. That doesn’t break me like it did before. It’s a hurt I can move on and not be shaken, but made stronger. But admitting it hurt from the beginning is what has helped me to move forward into healing.