A Capsule of Trust

 Disclaimer: This may sound like I'm insensitive to mental health, disability or just people who deal with things everyday.  I want you to let you know your pain and suffering is valid too!I do care. This is just  my personal perspective and not the same as everyone's view or experiences

What is your tangible act of trust in this season of your life, D? 

My brain went to a million things and all the right & good Christian things to say.  I answered her simply with the weirdest answer that I never thought I would say, but I did! My act of trust in the past few weeks is taking my pills at the directed time. It adds some sort of schedule to the day and if you've known where I've been ---this IS something to celebrate. Just writing that carries with it some weighty things I've prayed through around healing, not having enough faith.  I knew it would mean risking my own mental health by trying myself to go off my medication even with my Dr.'s and Pharmacists knowing. I told 'C' that taking my pills seem to be the grid right now that life is formed around and I'd surrender it to be a simple act of trust. The last time I talked with her I called on a hospital phone and had been admitted for a few days because of my anxiety, depression and feeling no purpose to living. She's been a faithful, peaceful Spiritual Friend over the last 10 years. I am grateful.  She prayed, we hung up the phone and I got up from the chair and went back to my hospital room. I stayed a few more days and was put back on my regular meds plus a few more. They are in blister packs which seem to be helping me level out a bit more mentally! I'm able to read, cook, help put up the garden vegetables and have more focused times of exercise and prayer.  I'll now see a neurologist in October and hope to be helped further.   My Cerebral Palsy is not the only thing I deal with in my body now and so it also feels the weakness and slow movement of medication side effects. I find I have more in common with people who are in my parents age bracket than mine---and that also makes me smile with embarrassment as I try to keep the "forever young" feel to who I am as a thirty something year old. Aging is beautiful--it is sacred and death too, but today in my bathing suit and shorts listening to a lawn mower I remember to still find the fun somehow because where there is pain--joy can also be in it's purest form. (And who says you can't wear your new bathing suit around the house and pretend you can swim in the lake on a humid summer day in NS ;)

Friends, I have been using a lot of energy around knowing how to write or get this out. Blogging and writing is my outlet along with singing and there's been weeks where I felt I couldn't even do that. I even did some facebook/instagram stories around it all today and then took them down. Why? Two Reasons: 1) I need help learning social media again apparently and 2)  It's  been a really really hard season of life and I know others struggle too! So here I am living in the real and offering hope I pray instead of compounding hurt. I am living the "confessions" of a dream road that had an end. I had non-convulsive seizures last September and the emotional strain and physical strain has led to me living back in Nova Scotia asking questions around continuing care, therapy and care homes etc.  I don't want this, God knows it. I also woke up to the reality that science and medicine in my world are conduits by which God gives humans wisdom, stabilized brains and holistic health all the way around, Yep, I had shame around taking medications, shame around leaving West End Abbey and not reaching the dream of pastoring and shepherding there. I keep telling myself they "sent" me out, as a missionary or something, but the truth was that it was my physical symptoms that had me leave ministry there.  I lost my opportunity prematurely as a Care Coordinator at Hope Centre Ministries. It all was a lot to handle on my own. It was a lot for any of my community and supports to handle and so I made a decision to move back to heal amidst the Covid restrictions. I left the Prairies, communities, homes, friends, ministries that held pieces of who I am---pieces of becoming who I am ---of becoming like Jesus.  Today though I am a whole person loved deeply by God because I have learned that wholeness doesn't always look like healing or getting all your desires and needs met. Healing can be in seeing our weakness, vulnerabilities, saying "no" and asking for help. Healing is not a linear experience and is to be shared in friendship, family and faith ultimately for me with the God-in-flesh Jesus. The One who has reminded me over and over again that He is with me, in me, through me.

This blog post is my cup of tea or coffee in God with you, it is my lit candle, my stone of remembrance, my laugh and cry moment, this season's benediction, my end of a dream. Or maybe it is what it is--no fancy or jelly-filled donuts anymore. Change though is that the ebbs and flows. I moved back to the Maritimes March 7th and my books and belongings got delivered a few weeks ago to sit in my parents garage. I'm grieving, facing what is true-- I need recovery & rest. I also am letting go of the shame, seeing my true self in all her sin, mess and beauty and wondering as I wander which on many days feels like I'm not 'dancing' anymore just going in circles or taking one step at a time.

YET I am practicing gratitude. . .

I am grateful for hospitals, mental health nurses, health care aides and Dr.'s

I am grateful for pastors/leaders who have 'carried' me into their prayers and sanctuaries to plea for God's mercy

I am grateful for moments of the bravery of trusting my parents and family and my friend on the phone to tell me like it is

I am grateful that I live in a country where health care and medicine are available and accessible. (those who know me well know that I've even advocated as best as I can for things to be easier for those who come after me--so I will breathe and receive praying for more steps and opportunity for others to go beyond me

I am grateful for WEA it's in my heart and story. The lessons I learned there are of such value. Be carried and cared for, my friends!

So change and goodbye...

yeah it happened and had to again!

It's hard, the Enemy seeks to kill and destroy or even try to keep me in a pit of guilt and regrets when I have felt so fragile. 

I am human and am not the only one in the world who is a mental health survivor or a disabled woman

I am asking for the grace to open my hands and carry on, leaning on my Beloved--there's more for me to partner in here, there and everywhere because that is the beauty of this hour in time. 

I thank God upon every remembrance of you

See you soon.