dusk and darkness

There are some things that are very dark. No one knows...maybe one. Maybe two. Only the people that were there and me. Only the people that get it that I talk to. Only people that understand. I don't want to go there. This kind of talk makes people worry. But don't worry. I used to write my journal like this. So that if anyone read it they wouldn't get it but I could still get things out. I don't know what to do about these things. They were supposed to go away. Time is supposed to bring settling to these thoughts surrounding. Not closure cause you can't go back and explain or figure out, but I rationalized situations and figured them the best I could. Now, things hit me out of nowhere. Is it out of these circumstances or a disease. Or am I just human and have to deal with darkness.
I have questions and when I figure them out maybe I will share. I might already know the answers but I don't want those answers. It's not cut and dry....I'll get back to you on this one.

pockets of sunshine

I wanted to relay that life is going pretty good.  A post of my friend is egging me on more. I often focus on the negative and it isn't good. It is good to think on things true, right, pure, lovely, admirable. And that is helpful. Look for the lesson. Look for the hope. Look back on the answered prayer. I am seeing alot of friends being put through the wringer right now and in it I feel human and hopeful. We are uplifting each other...spurring each other on. It helps to know you aren't alone. I am definitely overdoing it but I feel life is on an upswing no matter how many bad moments there are in a day or week. I am soon going to right a timeline of the good things that have happened in my life on the advice of Michelle (I hate always saying my therapist). I can remember significant bad memories all the way through my life back to six...or starting at six. I want to focus on the hopes fulfilled, the places God was working....like I said I feel like I am becoming who I want by tragedy rather than by striving for that. I am wiser and have life experience. I am not willing myself to be someone. I am being carved into that person. It brings to life the verses I have meditated on so often. Even when I have chosen the bad choice God puts a good spin on it. Now you know. Now you understand. Move on. Hm. Think on that one.

blank stares

I just want to sleep now. I just want to stay home and hibernate and have peace for a week. But I can't. My kids get cabin fever. Then they make me the opposite of what I want to be. I just want to stand in a hot shower and cry or stare at the wall until the water runs cold. Or drive..... I hate that I get days of ambition, just to wear myself out and be reminded that I am sick. I hate that it isn't my choice. Life is about choice so why do I get stuck with this. I am looking inward and I know that it goes farther than my tragedy. This blog is becoming more than that. It is my thoughts of life and faith as well as tragedy. I know that I have had an anxiety disorder before and even before. My miscarriage just pushed me over the edge. I will still be thankful that out of sufferings comes good. I am thankful for the thoughts of my friends and I am glad to encourage and be encouraged. But I am mad that I didn't have a choice. I know there is more to come....more to be excited for. But I still remember asking God to not let me want to come home. I still have to search the bad places that I chose so that I felt like I deserved my pain. I still have bad days is what I am trying to say. when you're sick you don't just get better. Sickness has to run it's course....

I think I might be....

I am having a hugely revelational and good day. I am on a high (a little manic) but it is seriously hopeful around here in my soul today. First off I am doing a study with my mom's group on Esther, or Hadassah (I love that name), by Beth Moore and I am loving it. Watching it and reading the devotionals, I am seeing myself and a whole bunch of my friends of whom I know their stories, and it is inspiring. Secondly, I think that I have come over the first mountain in my therapy. My therapist Michelle, who I have respect for and who doesn't talk down to me, has said that she is looking for the thread in my story. I am seeing it big time.
Now these two things collided in me this morning as I was driving, music blaring, snow glimmering. I had a realization that I am, all of a sudden, the woman who I had asked God that I could be when I was young. What the heck! I am almost balanced. I am almost confident in who I am. I am almost able to be strong in my beliefs and not hypocritical or judgemental. I am seeing where I have been and what that means to who I am. I am so grateful that I have stood by the fact that suffering brings perseverance, perseverance character, and character, hope. I am moved to tears on the inside. I wish I could see a sneak peek of where I'll be in another ten years....or even next year. I am excited for that.
Now I am not saying that I am a Proverbs woman. Well, maybe my version of one but |I am still struggling to be where I want. Besides, she probably had maidservants or sister wives helping her. I am not bragging. I am just amazed that I could be more than what I am. That I am getting somewhere. That I have had faith that I am where I am supposed to be and that God has plans for good and a future in my whole family. But now I am seeing the real tangible outcomes.....the answers to prayers....

My friends are my family.

I am so grateful for my friends, from when I was young and ongoing. I have always had a need for just a few deep, close friends that I cherish and would count as family. I have had that in all my stages in life, and again now, I have found some close, great women to share my life with. I am not the type to have guy friends. I just like my girl talk. I love to be uplifted, and encouraged, to vent, and to rejoice with them. I have carried a place in my heart for all of my friends from a child to an adult of (almost) thirty. And when I see those people it is like we didn't just meet up again, but have always been close. Hence, why they are like family to me. And thank you to technology (which I don't really like) for keeping me involved with my girls. We now share stories of children and family, of loss, of growth, of views decided and redecided. I love you.....I would name all of you but that would take awhile;) ..... you already know who you are anyways. <3

Don't grow any bigger.

Tomorrow my baby turns one. He is my third. My second boy. I so want a fourth babe. I am not ready for this to be the end. I struggle over the decision every day. I am so exhausted and think I almost lost it after Keiran and I have pretty horrible pregnancies (not as bad as some but not any fun). I don't want to be an impatient exhausted mom. It isn't fair to my kids.
The next problem is birth control. I cannot take birth control pills because they make me sick...I might as well be pregnant. But not just that. I am against them. I get it., I have taken them but I have rethought my stance on birth control. For one, I believe that they are the thing that caused my miscarriages....the gynecologist even mentioned it so casually. That they would make my uterus thin and hard for a baby to grow. And it is no coincidence that I miscarried after taking birth control before both of my lost babies. The other kids I had not taken it with and they were fine. It was like the miscarriages reset my body. Next, I was hoping to get an IUD. I would love to have five years, or just three, with no worry about getting pregnant. My doctor told me I could still get pregnant but the contraceptive would make it unable for the baby to implant. Pardon me. Are we retarded. This upsets me. And I would never want to mock God. "God, let me not lose my baby....let it grow healthy and strong"......then when I don't feel like having a baby for a time, I'll throw the rest away. The thought makes me sick. The doctors look down on me when I tell them my method of birth control that is not so controlling but so be it. I would rather conceive than be so deceived about the value of life.
In this lies my dilemma. I am scared that I will get too sick, in all ways, if I have another. I ponder fulfilling my dream of a big family. I pray that I will get better soon enough to decide.

One step forward. Two steps back. One step forward. Anxiety attack.

I am so sick at the moment. Not with the flu but with anxiety. I have had so many moments in the last few days where I have felt my normal. I saw light at the end of the tunnel. I was so hopeful that I started to dream that maybe there is a possiblity that in time I could have the fourth child that I have wanted. I took on the world. Now I am so sick. I feel like I wish I could throw up to relieve some of the pressure. Anxiety for me is like someone sitting on your chest...You want to push forward but at the same time you don't want to move in case it hits you down. You can still breathe but not deeply. You can scream...but you can't move. I have felt the encouragement to ignore the heaviness and move. Now I feel manic. Unable to breathe. I am going to go sit in the dark and pray for peace. Tomorrow I am going to get up slowly.

contentment

I had a good day. I had fun with my Aiden. We made Christmas crafts for hours. I made a good dinner that all members of the family ate without complaining. These are the things that make me look back at my day and feel contented. I still deal with the anxiety beneath the hum of the day but I feel like I accomplished something....because I did.

I knew this was coming.

I think I am coming off of this really bad high. I have learnt the lessons I needed to learn. I have posed the questions I have wanted to settle. The anxiety returns. The sadness returns. Except now there is one more tradgedy on the list. All is still not right in the world and I still can't be the one to fix things. I can't make everything peaceful. There is still tradgedy. I am still blindsided by horribleness. I have still lost the dreams of the way it was supposed to go. I have still lost two children. And now I have lost a friend. I no longer want to be helpful. I just want to sleep. I don't want to be vulnerable anymore. I just want all things to be settled, and peaceful, and hopeful. I just want to take my lessons and run.

swirly head

I have so much to get out but am stuck at the moment. Unable to organize my thoughts. Too much is going on all at once but I am not overwhelmed. I am just having times of mourning and times of processing, and times of remembering, and times of eye opening. I am dealing with this mourning, and then a friend commits suicide, and in the middle of it all I have been reading a book called Love Languages, by Garry Chapman. It has been so weird for me because all the things are intertwined right now. Every time I talk with my therapist, I then have a week of awakenment and all the details are dealing with my proccessing thoughts. I started to read this book as a way of better understanding my husband but it has also shown me things of my mother...and a little of my kids as well. It was like I saw my whole life and I fully understood why things were the way they were and are. Now this is no miracle book but I believe that God has brought me to a turning point. I can feel understood in understanding the way people react lovingly. I can see why certain things affect me deeply because they are the opposite of  the way I see love....and why certain things are so important. I see love where I felt nothing, or even hate and rejection. It is a relief really. It takes away some frustration.
If you don't want to pick this book up, I'll elaborate a little. It deals with the fact that people have one or two tendencies towards five specific love languages. These being; words of affirmation, quality time, touch, giving of gifts, and acts of service. If you think of the way you show love you will probably know yours. If you think of the way your significant other shows love, or the thing that they complain about the most even, you can probably guess theirs....I'll leave it at that. I  little bit lighter post but I am in transition and have no ranting in me. At least for the moment.

Romans 5:3-5

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
I have always loved these scriptures. And they always ring true in every situation. I feel more hope now after our friend's death than I did before. At first I felt shock and fear, because I had just had the conversations about being a good enough mother. I was not living up to my own expectations. I was praying that I would never get to the point where I thought I wasn't enough. Hm...I guess I am not enough, only God is...but that is another conversation. In this beautiful, but sick mother's death I am finding life. Weird. Death brings forth life. I saw what a wonderful mother she was. She did everything for her children and more. Protected, loved, taught. I am sure she was sick to the point that she didn't feel she was enough. At least these are the thoughts of reasoning about the whole situation. She was though. She was so much. I see my own mothering clearly now. I am always working for the good of my kids. I am worrying that they are getting enough vegetables but even if they don't, the point is, I care. I dress them well, I make sure they are warm enough, cool enough when they have a fever, teeth are brushed at least once a day, if not twice. Not only that but I do more...to make sure that they never doubt that they are loved. I make each of them their own scrapbook with pictures of each month for the first year. In addition they have a baby book with their birth stories about how they came into the world and were wanted. I make each of them a homemade quilt with things that they like such as trains, or butterflies that they can hold onto and that can keep them warm. I pray with them before bed and always thank God for them out loud so that they can hear, and then ask for health and protection- that they would grow strong, and healthy, beautiful, and that they would always know God. I hope all things for them. I love them. And I am a good mother. That prayer has been answered. It might sound silly to some but when you are fighting with the feelings of depression and anxiety, thoughts are not always so clear. But truth is truth.