A Steady Heart

My kids have been sick, my husband has been sick, and I have been sick AGAIN!!!  I haven't cared what amount of sugar goes into my body.  I feel yucky and I will eat whatever sounds good.  But, nothing sounds good, especially not sugar. 

I'm still partaking of honey.  It's helping.  I am drinking kefir.  It helps too. 

On the depression front, I am grateful that I decided to do something about my depression when I did.  Being trapped in my house for over two weeks and having no choice but to meet needs in really nasty ways is not easy.  BUT, it would have been a living HELL if I wasn't taking care of my brain. 

When I am depressed I am very easily overwhelmed and I get an urgent "trapped" feeling if I can't get away from stressors.  This in turn makes me defensive and irritable, which then makes me angry, and if left to continue to spiral it would lead to rage and a small breakdown.  This breakdown isn't healthy or holy.

Instead of being a huge source of breakdown, the sickness in my family helped me to love my son more kindly.  My son's sickness made me sad for him instead of angry with him.  I was able to serve with little complaint instead of grumbling helplessly against the pressure of cabin fever and vomit clean up.  These are the things my heart wishes to do and that I am unable to do when I am in depression.

For a long time I thought it was just my sinful weakness that made me crazy in circumstances like this.  I didn't love God enough, love my family enough...and so forth.  It kept me in a state of constant condemnation, scratching and clawing my way through life, trying to do the kindnesses I wanted to do, but couldn't.  On some level, it will always be a struggle (which is why I can only plead the justification of Jesus).  What I have learned in this last year is that depression is a skewing filter that isn't in my heart (necessarily) but in my blood chemistry.  Some of the struggles that I had named as "sin" disappear when I am medicated. 

Was it hard to suck it up and stay in a dark, illness ridden house while the warm sun was shining outside?  Yes.  Did it irritate me to be woken from a dead sleep by the sounds of my child retching?  Naturally.  Did I get discouraged with myself when I had to depend on my husband to run the house while I suffered with stomach flu?  Indeed I did. 

I still struggle.  It is still a choice to make... the choice to love instead of be selfish.  But, it is far simpler to make those choices without the crushing weight of my depression.  I'm quicker to see the need in my family as a means to love them rather than a burden when my eyes are not clouded by the lens of my illness.  It's easier to be clay in the Hands of God without my brain working double time to second guess Him.