...but joy comes with the morning.

I have a doctored photo on my desktop of two trees standing side-by-side. Each half of each tree, and the area surrounding it, is consumed by a different natural season. The tree of spring has beautiful white buds, and the landscape is flooded with beautiful, morning sunshine. The summer tree is solid and its leaves are a vibrant green. Autumn's tree is covered with vibrant, red leaves, and the grass surrounding it has turned nearly to straw, while the winter tree is coated in a frosty white. I love this photo. It helps me remember that there are, in fact, seasons. They are temporary. They will pass-- the simple, the difficult, the challenging, the good.

Today I am feeling very, very down. There isn't any reason for it. One friend told me that it is PHS (post holiday syndrome). However, being prone to bouts of depression, I know that it is truly just one of my life-cycles.

I can't remember what I've posted about depression in the past (and frankly, I'm too lazy right now to go and look). I remember a time when I was essentially told that depression was demonic, and that those who take medicine for depression are merely trading one set of demons for another. For those of you who read this and aren't Bible believers, you may be scoffing, but I know the spirit world to be alive and well. My argument is not with the reality of demons. However, being told that emotional issues absolutely are demonic, even while the one afflicted is striving to give their all to Jesus, leaves a deep scar. And what's more, there are many reasons that depression can come upon a Christian.

I came across a lecture by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who is my favorite preacher/teacher outside of Jesus and those who wrote the scriptures, called "The Minister's Fainting Fits" in which he describes his own battles with depression. Spurgeon was one of the most eloquent preachers that has ever lived, and has had more works published than most any other man because they resonate deeply and profoundly with people. He preached Christ crucified and of the necessity of depending wholly on Jesus for security. His writings and speeches were meaty, and reading them nourishes my soul. He also battled severely with depression. Within the above mentioned lecture, Spurgeon stated, "Even under the economy of redemption it is most clear that we are to endure infirmities, otherwise there were no need of the promised Spirit to help us in them." So very obvious, but so comforting to read.

He also went on to speak of other reasons why depression comes specifically upon ministers: not many others understand his zeal for serving the Lord, many hours spent without physical exercise pouring over a lesson, the sorrow at seeing men reject Jesus. And even more than that, depression can come at "the hour of great success", before such an achievement, during a "long stretch of unbroken labour," when someone close to him has let him down, or in the midst of troubles. At other times, it can seem completely causeless, God allowing it for reasons unknown.

However, amid all of this in which he spoke from experience, he went on to say:

"The lesson of wisdom is, be not dismayed by soul-trouble. Count it no strange thing, but a part of ordinary ministerial experience. Should the power of depression be more than ordinary, think not that all is over with your usefulness. Cast not away your confidence, for it hath great recopense of reward... Live by the day--ay, by the hour. Put no trust in frames and feelings... Serve God with all your might while the candle is burning, and then when it goes out for a season, you will have the less to regret... When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full, except in the Lord... Continue, with double earnestness to serve your Lord when no visible result is before you. Any simpleton can follow the narrow path in the light: faith's rare wisdom enables us to march on in the dark with infallible accuracy, since she places her hand in that of her Great Guide..."

I might be struggling today, but there will be another season coming.




Spurgeon, C. H. "The Minister's Fainting Fits." Lectures To My Students. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954. N. pag. Print.

School: the good, the busy, the wild monkeys.

First, let me say that I have found my job incredibly fulfilling, while incredibly exhausting, these past 2+ weeks. I LOVE these kids! I never knew that I could enjoy being around middle-schoolers for this amount of time. Not gonna lie-- sometimes some (or all!) of them are incredibly obnoxious. Take yesterday at lunch, for example. I turned to one of the other teachers and asked if someone might have spiked their milk-- they were like wild monkeys! Oh, I enjoy the 10 (or so) minutes of the lunch period before they have actually FINISHED eating their lunch...

My SPED (special ed) kids are amazing. Only one is giving me gruff right now, and we're working on that one. They're so amazing, and I get to help them be successful in school. Have I used the word "amazing" enough yet?  Sorry.

Now, on to the other "school"-- COLLEGE.  (Menacing music here.)

Actually, I'm completely loving it. I don't have any time to breathe of course, but that's to be expected, right?

This week, the last for this quarter and by extension these classes, I'm getting to look at some of the things that divide us as Christians. There are lots of words tossed around-- some with positive connotations, some with negative. Actually, my textbook does a pretty great job of bringing out the positives and negatives in every set of beliefs. Some of the sub-categories looked at this week include: Catholic, Fundamental, Evangelical, Feminist, Conservative, and Liberal. I am really loving these sections because in the areas that I don't always side with, I get to learn more about the originations of these eras. That helps with compassion. And, in the areas that I have fallen to already, I get to dig in a bit deeper to be challenged or affirmed. I love all of this meat.

The chapter that's a bit tougher for me to chew and swallow is: "Eschatology: Doctrine of Last Things". We're talking end-of-the-world stuff here, people.  Pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib?  A-millenialist, Pre-millenialist, Post-millenialist? Actual descriptions of the literalness of hell? Oy. Really, I don't want to gloss over these subjects. But it's finals week. How can I tackle something like this during FINALS WEEK??

I will have a bit of glorious breathing time next week. SUPER excited about that. I get to read something just for fun!  However, I DO have to admit that I love looking at my text books and thinking-- WHOA-- I read all of that in two months?!?  Self-discipline is a great thing.

Getting paid to annoy your children

I haven't crashed and burned. Not yet. But I feel as though I can see the horizon looming a little too closely above the dashboard of my plane.

This was only day three of my new job. I actually don't mind the job at all-- it's a decent fit. I didn't say AMAZING fit, but it's a decent fit. I think that's a fair assessment. I can do the job very very well. I'm a special-ed para in a school that I very much appreciate. I help students focus and make sure that they have the tools that the school has deemed necessary for them to complete their tasks. A majority of the students that I work with I absolutely adore-- they're not quite as high-functioning, and they're quite sweet-tempered. I smile as I see them coming down the hall.

But the rest...

There's one boy that I work with who is obviously very VERY smart, but because of his disabilities feels overwhelmed very quickly and needs someone there to ensure that he's putting in an effort, understanding what's asked of him, and that the teacher is meeting him halfway when it comes to the work assigned to him. However, he hates having me there. He really doesn't want to be reminded and prodded. So basically-- I annoy this kid for two hours a day. I get PAID to annoy this child. OK, there's more to it than that. It's quite possible that once he and I establish a relationship, he'll understand that I'm there to help him succeed. (Oh, I HOPE that's possible.) That's the dream.

Then there're my favorite boys, but they make me want to yell at them. They're "cool kids" with learning disabilities. Something in their IEP says that they need help with behavior modification. Not only do I get paid to annoy them, but they spend more of their time watching ME to make sure that I'm not seeing them screw-off than they spend listening to the teacher. I said to one of them today, "BOY, if you spent HALF the time watching your teacher that you've spent watching to make sure that I'm not BUSTING you in something, you would ROCK this class!" These boys are so FUN when they're not in the classroom setting. They're witty, and have obviously learned how to convince most adults to just give them the answers instead of having to find it themselves 'cuz they don't know how. I want so badly to sit these boys down and challenge them on what it means to be in the transition to becoming MEN instead of BOYS-- 'cuz that's where, as 8th graders, they are in life. But alas, that is not my job. So I'll continue to annoy them, and pray for them from afar.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... My daughters attend this school, and I love the school-- I really do!-- but I'm still not sure if it's the right fit for them. My older daughter is on the autistic spectrum and has a great deal of difficulty with social interactions. I definitely want to challenge her in that area, but is being in a public school environment the best way to do that?  My younger daughter is very very smart, and WANTS to be challenged. But can the school find that fine line between challenging her and stressing her out??  UGH!  I hate this stuff. For real-- I don't use the word "hate" very often, but there you go. I said to my husband tonight, "So, instead of getting stressed out by taking care of my kids at home [by home-schooling them], I'm getting stressed out by taking care of OTHER people's children at school?" Yes, that's rather tongue-in-cheek, but still...

Father, what would you have me do? What is best for my children? You know them best, and I desperately need to know what is best for them and for me. I didn't want to add "and for me", because I'd sacrifice myself for them, but I'm learning about balance.

Oh yeah-- and I'm going to school full time. I absolutely love it. But will I be able to keep this pace? Here's hoping...

The Elephant Eating ME

OY. Human. I hate to admit it. Only two arms, and only having the ability to be in one place at one time.

School started a few weeks ago, and I'm running for my life! I really really really love it, but it has taken my life to a whole new level of busy. I'm losing my desire to run away from home, though--that's a good thing, right??

My two classes right now are "Old Testament Survey" and "The Church and its Doctrines". I don't have a favorite. I love them both equally. "Doctrines" has a weekly exam which I don't especially enjoy, but it also has weekly discussions that I LOVE. In our discussions, the professor will post a series of questions based on our chapter readings for the week, and we post our opinions and insights. Once we have posted, we are also required to read our classmates' posts and comment on at least four of them. I love it!! Sometimes we're just affirming and saying, "I really liked when you said...", but sometimes we get into challenging each other's positions, and it is great fun. :)

My other class, "OT Survey" doesn't have those weekly, pesky exams, but it has papers to turn in. I have thus far loved writing these papers. I've only turned in three, but I received two "A"s, and an "A+". That helps affirm that I've been working hard, and my time is spent accomplishing something. Yay!

Last week my pastor and I were texting back and forth-- not uncommon as I'm a worship leader and also a Bible Nerd, so I ask him about/update him on stuff all the time-- and I mentioned to him that I was pretty sure I had just met my arch-nemesis: Crazy Day. "Crazy Day?" Yep-- I was running from the moment I had convinced myself to get out of bed until when I dropped back into it at night. He reminded me of the way you eat an elephant: "One bite at a time." 

I loved it.

However, by the following evening, I was ready to text him again. I was pretty sure at that point that the elephant was eating me. I can't EVER remember being that tired while I've still been getting a full night's sleep.

Yesterday, I received some wonderful/terrifying news:  I got a job offer. Within a couple of weeks I'm going (Lord willing), to start work in the school that my children attend as a paraprofessional. I'm incredibly excited!!  But DANG-- if my life is hectic now... Well, I believe "Uff-Da!" is the appropraite Scandanavian utterance here.

Life is beautiful... at least, I'm pretty sure.

All right world, time to out myself: I suffer from anxiety. Lots. I was diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder about 2 years ago because I started experiencing heart palpitations which are brought on by stress. When I was a youngun', my anxiety issues exhibited themselves in stomach pains. Now it's the heart. I've had a bunch of tests done, and we've determined that the ol' ticker is just fine. While that's good news, it's also a bit frustrating because it means all of these ridiculous palpitations (and the over-all chest tightness that accompanies it) is "just" form stress.

Tonight I was experiencing some of these wonderful symptoms and trying to shop for groceries in a busy supermarket when my BFF called my cell phone. Talking to her was a wonderful distraction from trying to choose which waffles to get my girls for breakfast in the morning, btw. In the course of the phone call I mentioned to her that I'm going through the anxiety stuff for no real reason, and she reminded me that sometimes something EXCITING can also cause anxiety. I knew this, but still--

Grr.

So, today I had my blissfully beautiful second day of school. It's intense, not gonna lie. Lots and LOTS of reading, but I'm reading about things that I'm really excited about and have already gotten some education on in the past. That helps. Eventually I'll have to write a paper about something that I don't really care about, and school'll probably lose a bit of its luster. But for now, I'm loving it.

My "to make it my own" moment for today is reminding myself that having unknown reasons for anxiety is OK. I'm going to keep bringing it to Jesus and trying to learn how to leave this with Him. I'm realizing while I type this that I should maybe even be thankful for the physical symptoms of the anxiety. Lots of people have the same issues but without the physical symptoms, so they aren't reminded that something is very very wrong. When I physically feel like this, it can be a physical reminder that I'm broken and I continually need a Savior. I can live with that.

Student

Starting this week, I become an official student. I use the word "official", because although I make it my aim to study and learn various subjects as often as I can, I will now get to use that effort to eventually, Lord willing, obtain a college degree.

Tuesday marks my first day as a student of Moody Bible Institute through their distance learning program (that's online school, for those who don't know the lingo). Four years of hard work will earn me a Bachelor of Science degree in Biblical Studies.  Do I know what I plan to "do" with such a degree once I have it? Not so much. But I'm hungry. Really, REALLY hungry. The Bible is so deep that I can never come to the bottom of it. Others far smarter than I have studied this book for their lives and never tired. It is living and active-- I'm continually amazed by the different layers and lessons that I learn from digging into the same texts again and again. I see new sides of myself, and more importantly, I learn more of God. His goodness. His mercy. His awesome justice. As I dig further into His Word, it becomes more a part of me, and I know that, in turn, as I apply it to myself, I am becoming more like Jesus.

To anyone in the wide world who reads this-- please pray for me. I am absolutely NERDY excited to launch into learning. I want to know Him more.