Here's To Looking Up Again

I was just crying. 

Crying because I'm pregnant. Crying because I'm hormonal. Crying because I feel like a failure. 

I honestly just don't feel like I can do this... All of this... This whole life thing. The being a mom thing, the being a wife thing, the being a good church girl thing, the being productive and successful and respectable thing... I just can't do the things right now. And I feel like a major failure because of that. 

Like I have spent the past three weeks doing virtually nothing. Ok, not nothing. But I have definitely let myself go in the productivity department... and the getting dressed department... and the leaving the house at least once department... Yeah. All those departments are closed until further notice. 

And so I'm sitting here feeling like a failure. Because my own body is in revolt against me. My own hormones are telling me that life isn't worth living and that my dreams aren't worth pursuing... Or maybe that's satan... Or both. 

I'm just at a low spot right now honestly... I'm tired because I'm pregnant. I'm tired because I'm sick. I'm tired because I'm slightly depressed and it's cold outside and I always feel like the world is a cold dark place when it's cold and dark outside...

Do I sound pathetic enough yet? 

I'm just being real... I'm on the low end of the Ferris Wheel tonight... Not that I don't expect it to go sliding right back up to the top any day now, but here I am hanging at the bottom wondering if this is as low as it gets. 

I've been on this emotional roller coaster my whole life... Always soaring up and then plummeting down, only to swing back up again only to dive back down... This is the cycle I live in. My emotional health is already a teetering ladder as it is and then you add pregnancy hormones and body changes and exhaustion and a toddler and it's basically a recipe for disaster as far as my sanity goes. 

But yesterday God reminded me to take care of myself... Because it's times like these, when I'm feeling low and down and out, that I least want to take care of my body and soul. And it's also times like these that it's the most crucial that I do actually take the time to take care of myself. 

So here I am... blogging my heart out like a snotty, wet tissue on display... Because when I feel like I'm losing myself, I need to remember to return to what I was doing before it all hit the fan... And I was caring for my heart and writing out what was real and true and authentic and honest before, so I have to do that again now... when I least want to and feel the most vulnerable and gross about myself and my heart. 

Do you ever feel this way? I get it... It's hard... Life can really take us and slam us around like a floppy, wet towel sometimes... And if life's really not that bad then our emotions and thoughts can still lead us to places we never wanted to go. 

We have to remember to hold onto hope and never let go. 

I would know... Depression (or Hopelessness as I'm come to call it in my own life) is always not too far behind me... waiting to drag me down. And it's driven me to God more times than one... and to utter dependence on Him for every ounce of Hope left in me... And I've found that Hope is like oxygen... I can't live without it. And so I can't live without the God of Hope. I can't live without His story of Hope that has taken all the mess of this world and wound it into a Love Story fit for a King. 

His Hope is never ending. His Hope is fully aware of all the pain and struggle and mess of this life and it still holds on till the end. His Hope leads to freedom and joy like I've never experienced before. 

And I think it's time to practice Hope again. To practice Thanksgiving and Worship and Intimacy again... I need to return to the only source of Hope that I have ever found and His name is Jesus. 

His name is Immanuel... God With Us. God suffering and struggling and bleeding right next to us... Bleeding FOR us!!! God who gives us His beauty for our ashes... His truth for our lies... His hope for our hopelessness... 

As long as I stay standing on this Rock I know I won't be shaken. And neither will you. Neither will any of His Beloved Ones...

We just have to remember to hold onto Hope. Even when our minds and bodies and souls play tricks on us and leave us wandering around in confusion and chaos.. Even when the world around us is crumbling and the enemy is raging... his time is almost up and soon we'll be home with our Beloved King Jesus... 

Until then, here's to Hope! Here's to Faith! Here's to New Beginnings every hour of every day of every year! 

Here's to looking up again.