moving on – Just another Christian woman…

As I write I’m almost submerged under a duvet – tissues on one side, paracetamol on the other. So it’s hard to get into the mood of writing about the above title. Problem is, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I haven’t written here for almost a month. Although I’ve been busy with other writing, it’s been hard to write here cos, I don’t make stuff up here.

This blog has always been about the way things are – no fiction allowed. My last two posts are about sadness and it’s all I felt I could write. Didn’t want to write more of that, so… I didn’t write anything. For the last two weeks I’ve had an ‘ear worm’. You know when you hear a song and it won’t go away. Well my ear worm is ‘This Life’ by MercyMe. I had a random old playlist on my iphone and the song came on. Hadn’t heard it in ages – even though it’s one of my faves.

There’s a few words in the song that struck me as I sang along.

“Hold your heads up high
This is our moment to rise
We were meant to shine
Not just survive”

We were meant to shine, not just survive. It occurred to me that for a good few weeks I’ve been ‘surviving’. Not being dramatic or anything, but a lot of days have been… “ok just do what you can do today. What NEEDS to be done today? Who needs to be paid today? Just get through today and you’ll be fine.”

There must be a balance between what it says in Matthew 6 “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” – and doing more than just surviving.

I’m not quite sure what it is, but maybe even saying it out loud is the first step to finding out 🙂

Meanwhile, it’s a fab song – give it a listen.

I’m using journals from a time when I was having counselling, as research for a book I’m writing about… a girl having counselling.

Still a long road ahead, but I've come a long way — Still a long road ahead,
but I’ve come a long way

As I’ve gone through them I’ve been disappointed with myself, because I’m still struggling with a lot of the same stuff. The journals were only for me, my counsellor didn’t insist on reading them, but she believed anything I wrote down was significant and should be discussed. So no one has read these journals.

I’m going to share an entry here but first I want to give you some background… In 2002 I had lost all hope of having children, I lost my mother in 2005 and in 2007 I thought I was losing my mind with grief and sadness. I ended up on anti-depressants and out of work for a few months.

The ‘promise’ I refer to in the journal entry, came just before I hit rock bottom in 07. I read 1 Peter 5:10 “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” I typed it out and stuck it on my pc monitor in work and looked at it every day.

2 years later and some counselling, I wrote this – still on the meds at the time…

April 2009 – “I know God has restored me as He promised. He gave that word of promise to me from 1 Peter. He is making me strong and helping me to deal with life.. Who’d have thought that life would turn out like this…?”

Yes I am still struggling with a lot of those issues in the journal entries. But that little gem from 2009 reminds me how fragile I was. How close to the edge I came.
And how far I have come.

If you feel like you’ve stalled take a good look back.
Maybe you’ve come a lot further than you think 🙂

The chorus of one of my favourite songs says this…

Lord lead us through the wilderness,
We trust that you’ll provide.
Be our cloud by day and our fire by night,
and when we reach the other side
we’ll look back,
and all we’ll see
is your goodness.
(Stuart Garrett – guitarist with Delirious?)