thoughts....

i had a friend call me and tell me she was worried about me because i hadn't posted in weeks...and i hadn't talked to her in a month....she knows me all too well. she knows that when i have hard days, i shut off and shut down....i seclude myself...i don't answer calls or return them...i don't email or post and i have the hardest time connecting with others....friends, family...even my sweet husband and loving mom whom i am both close to even get my "mental shutdown" zoned-out behaviors...i am lucky enough to have supportive people in my life that know i get this way and love me through it....i got on new medicine a few days before sydney's service...it left me utterly depressed and hopeless for two weeks and i quickly had it changed because i noticed my behavior was starting to worry even myself, much less others around me....the new meds have been better. kinda numb, but feeling like i can function more and not so consumed by my anxiety like the last month...and the depression that was sinking in has crept back out with the help of the new meds as well...i don't imagine i will always need these medications but i know from my 10 years of experience with depression that some people need the "help" for a season and now having liam, it was more important than ever to take good care of myself and my mind, so that i may be able to take good care of him.....when i was 20 i was alone, now i have a family to take care of. i can't afford to be selfish nor would i want to be...

the doctor's appointment we have coming this friday is weighing on my mind more and more and i am so afraid of what we will hear...what our options may or may not be...not sure if that has contributed to my thoughts or not, but i am just keeping to myself and haven't been up to talking much..it doesn't help that i have had a little pressure from some to "get it together" and let sydney rest and move forward...that has hurt and made me second guess my thoughts and actions, yet i know i am doing the best i can...but that first doubt has caused me to keep to myself as well....my nurse friend told me this grief thing gets harder after 6 months usually because everyone around you kinda expects you to be "better" now and is ready for you to move on and get over it or get on with it...so all that overwhelming support and understanding that was there when the pain was acute is now getting a little worn or expired....so you feel more alone than ever....and it sucks. it just does. experts tell you it will take at least 2-6 years to get past this kind of grief, much less the 6 months we have under our belt....so, with that pressure comes a wall you put up...a guard...a fortress to protect your heart and mind...you start keeping things to yourself because you don't want to "bother" others with your "ordeal" or "incident"...you just keep it like a secret, like a painful little secret you will carry for the rest of your life.

all of this causes my mind to shut down. i sit down at the computer and try to type a post and my mind goes blank, i sit down to call one of my many sweet friends that have called me in the past month and i cannot make myself go through with it, i remember that there are so many things going on with so many people i love (good, bad and trying things) and i need to reach out to them and talk to them or send them a card or an email..i want to love them through their ordeals and be there for them and a day or two will pass before i can even remember that i wanted to do that, isn't that awful?....my mind is just not what i am used to it being. i am usually really good at remembering birthdays and appointments and keeping up with all my to-do lists...but the past 6 months my mind is like it's on auto-pilot and i cannot keep up with the foggy thoughts and splintering thought bubbles that go from one thing to another...i can only HOPE that my sweet dear friends and family will know and remember my heart and forgive my mind for not keeping up with it...i pray that they will continue to give me patience, day to day and continue to understand this battle i am in right now, and that some days i just don't win....that i don't feel like myself and i have to navigate back to that place i remember how to be....but i also need His help to do so, because alone, if tried alone, i always fail and fall into a guilt ridden place where i feel as if i have let so many down....and it becomes a cycle where i get even more discouraged...

i don't really watch tv anymore like i did a while back...it can't keep my attention much anymore... i can keep distracted with the computer and internet still but tv is harder for me to focus on....i remember the week after sydney died, the normal shows i used to love looking forward to watching, had just lost their alluring quality to me...it was all meaningless. none of it, on that screen, mattered to me at all. unless i need to waste my brain ( which i can do and still do from time to time) and i don't want to think about things, then i will turn on the food network or home design channel...or sometimes a dumb sappy lifetime movie...

one of my favorite shows on lifetime is army wives...it is a really good show. i am not a military wife and surely after watching this show i know i never could be. watching ian tour on the road for weeks on end away from home, even just doing his music, was hard enough, much less sending my man off to battle....i would never be cut out for that...many are called to that role as a military wife and i admire them greatly for what they go through and endure but i can just say that is not my calling and i am glad and that's ok. i have enjoyed following the story line with the show and the last two episodes leading up to the season premiere left me thinking...

on the show, there was a terrorist threat on the base and everyone was afraid and scared of the unknown. one of the wives, who does a radio show on base, was talking about it to her listeners and was doing her best to quiet them peacefully with encouragement and support...i wish i could remember the exact lines of dialogue but i can't...

she talked about how terrorism will win out if we let them change the way we LIVE, the choices we make and the way we live our day to day life if led by fear, will mean they have won...that we have let them get the best of us, take our freedom and make us prisoners in our own lives that we lead....i agreed and was inspired with that episode and it made me think about it and how i live day to day...i was driving across town the next day and i thought, almost out loud, but definitely with an ah-ha moment up top, that satan is the ultimate terrorist. he is my terrorist that i allow to constantly change the way i live, to influence the choices i make out of fear or insecurity and how i chose to look at life, sometimes so darkly and pessimistically....i allow him constantly to terrorize my life to the point of becoming paralyzed with fear of EVERYTHING, even when i have the Ultimate Warrior and Protector on my side, i still allow this darkness to penetrate the walls of my heart and my soul...not sure why? i know i am human, i am by nature bent towards sin and wanting to think i have the answers instead of him, i know i don't always feed my soul with daily truths, but at the core where the insecurity lives, i don't know why i don't trust Him more....not sure if i don't believe that my Protector has my back or if he Loves me enough or if i deserve it...not sure the whys or what-if's at this moment? but i know this cycle and i know i allow this terror to reign over me more than Him at times and especially now...

so i am driving and i am thinking about this terrorist's control over me, wow- how have i allowed him to take such a reign of my heart and mind like that? how is that possible for him to commandeer my thoughts if Christ already has victory in my life? how can i live my life for Christ if my bent or my instincts are constantly to trust my fears and doubts more than Him?

i am terrorized. by so many things.

losing ian. losing liam. liam losing me. losing my family. losing my parents and my brother. a drive to the store can leave me plagued somedays with thoughts of car accidents or kidnappings if i don't watch liam every second. if i don't choose to go somewhere with ian and liam i am terrified the first couple minutes left alone at home that i made the wrong choice and they might get hurt and i might lose them and i should have gone with them...i am always wondering if i should leave my house because some days i really just feel safer where i have control (or pseudo semi-control) of everything around me..can any other mom relate? can any other grief-filled mom like me relate and help me not feel so alone?....after losing our daughter and having to hold her and say goodbye to her, having to leave her alone at that hospital...-well, it released all my inner fears that the worst CAN happen....and if that can happen to us, which it did....then what else is to come? because trusting my Lord didn't keep any of those things from coming....they still rolled into our lives like a big ugly storm and i foolishly thought we were prepared but we weren't...are we ever ready for that kind of storm? i thought we were prepared for anything because we trusted our Lord to watch over us and be there for us always. i can see now that while we trusted Him to be there for us in taking care of our baby in the first 8 months of her life, it felt like He didn't take care of us when He let her die...even though He "took care" of us, even in her death..in the end, it was not how we would have liked it to be. it was not the outcome we were praying for.... i do know He did take care of us in His own way..even in her death, he was taking care of us and sustaining us and flooding us with love and support from all around the country. He was there for us in the midst of it all but that doesn't keep me from getting upset at the trusting Him to take care of her the way we wanted which would have meant her being in my arms now...

being terrorized by the sin of this fear has crept along slowly most of my life but after we lost sydney it made me even more terrified to keep trusting a God that i thought was "keeping me safe" and "watching my back" when i saw Him allow what happened to happen. i had trusted Him with so many things and had changed my life almost 10 years ago for the better and was eagerly trying to follow Him at the time we lost her..i was getting to a really good place of a deeper walk, a better understanding of what it looked like to follow Him and obey and submit.... what good is trust if the person you trust in keeps letting you down? i know, i know how selfish that sounds in context with talking about the sovereign God..well, before you start in on me with the spiritual high road stuff let me share with you my irony....if i have chosen, even subconsciously, to trust my fears more...which means trusting satan's lies more than Truth, than why i am still doing that when that ALWAYS, always lets me down as well? if i am going to have a hard time trusting anything right now, why am i choosing fear over Truth when Truth is backed up by His grace and fear is covered with satan's lies? why do i do this to myself over and over again...it is the biggest struggle of my life, to not have this fear overcome my knowledge of Truth...what is True and Noble and Pure and Right and Admirable and Lovely....why can't these win out over all the doubt...

i don't want to continue this cycle...i don't want this wall of fear to keep me from a deeper knowledge of God that will help me understand His love for me even more...i want to live outloud, with reckless abandon..to live the fullest of life for Christ and the abundant life he chose for me...i want to say that i fought the good fight and that the fight didn't get me...

i want to find my way back to knowing Joy and Peace...i am finding it in the little things...my son's smile or laugh...my husband's singing in the car or dancing in the kitchen, the beautiful sunsets here and the mountains all around, the table filled with food and candlelight, surrounded by loving friends as our kids cover each other in popsicle juice...

i am trying. but i need to try harder. i need to pick up my cross, this cross daily. because each day starts anew and it's hard. sometimes harder than the day before, sometimes better. i long to love my Lord like i love my family..with a deep passion and unsurpassing trust in His love and care for me..i want that. i long to trust His heart for me like this dear sweet friend wrote in her post here and to trust Him alone with it all. she amazes me with her strength. i am just afraid. because once i started getting closer to this place with Him, he took our daughter away. and i am afraid of trusting Him again so deeply, that He will keep taking things that i love from me. i have to remember that they are His to take and not mine to hoard with my grimy little selfish fingers here on earth. i am blessed to have what i have in this lifetime. i am grateful and blessed for the Life He has breathed into me, the Grace He spilled for me and i pray for my heart to trust those things of beauty...hoping that any small glimmers of hope and peace i find in those things will outshine any dark shadows of fear and doubt that lay silent beneath my heart...i pray that fear will no longer have it's tight grip on me, that i will get to a place where i am no longer it's prisoner...oh, how i long for that day....