What I'm Learning

For some unknown reason God keeps putting children into my life.  First it was Pablito in Guatemala, then a job as a Children's Ministries Coordinator and doing life with a beautiful family with three young children.  Now it's working with third through fifth graders in a school setting when I had specifically stated I preferred high school age.  Turns out it never matters what I want.  God is gonna do what God is gonna do, and somewhere in all this it's a lesson.  More often than not it seems like it's a lesson in trusting Him.  I constantly try to move ahead, do things on my own, without giving thought to trusting Him.  I need Jesus.  Can't do this without Him.  And I need community too.  Even though my life is a little lonely right now, He gives me community, caring people who want to be there and walk with me through the hard stuff and the good stuff.  It's a blessing.  So even though those naughty third graders get to me sometimes, I can learn from them, and be Jesus to them.

Living with illness.

I feel like a special needs child, unable to be left alone and constantly needing care and attention.  I'm not trying to say anything negative against children with special needs. They legitimately need care and attention, but also have a lot to offer the world if we stop and notice them.  I guess that accurately defines how I feel.  I legitimately need attention and have a hard time being by myself (usually), but I have a lot to offer if the world would stop and notice and look beyond the wounds and the surface.  There are a lot of differences between me and a special needs child and it probably isn't right to even compare myself to one, but one difference is that frequently their needs are noticeable.  On the flip side, my panic attacks and depression and PTSD are not noticeable at first glance or if you don't know me.  It's not something you talk about or share, but the symptoms and needs are no less life altering and life-interrupting than someone with a physical illness.  Living at home has been a blessing, but it has also been extremely difficult at times, both for me and my parents.  They want to help me, but don't know how.  I don't want to want their help, but I know I need it and I know they support me.  Our society has taught us that asking for help is a bad thing, that we always need to be independent.  But as I've walked a difficult journey, the one thing that keeps me going is a supportive community of people around me, whether it's my parents, my friends, pastors, mentors, etc.  We can't do this on our own.  We all need help and support and need to come to a place where we fall at the foot of the cross and say we can't do this on our own.  I've learned a lot in the past month about how much God loves me, is with me, and is waiting for me.  Living with a seemingly invisible illness is challenging in more ways than one, but I want to continue to work on finding my way back to Him and know this suffering was for a reason.

Communication at home.

Home can evoke a variety of emotions for different people. For me, it generally holds positive feelings and a knowing that I am safe there. However, having moved "home," aka back in with my parents, it is not easy. Not easy for me, but not easy for them either.  A definite loss of independence, along with feelings that I'm constantly being watched or what I'm doing isn't good enough, or should be doing more. That was the issue today. Mom freaked because she feels like she does everything around the house and no one helps her, etc.  What I wish more than anything is that we could all communicate better.  Mom could communicate her expectations clearly and concisely, and communicate when she is not happy about something. Dad could just communicate his feelings better in general. And I could improve my communication as well, though I don't think I need to disclose my every move or conversation.  Bottom line, communication is of utmost importance if the three of us are going to maintain sanity.  Let's hope we do.

Trusting isn't that easy

It's interesting that last July was when I started this blog, calling it the Trust Fall. But a lot happens in a year, and trusting isn't that easy.  When life seemingly fell apart this winter/spring, God was nowhere to be found.  I hate that saying that "if it feels like God is far away, guess who moved."  I've been wrestling with the picture of God that I had, what my expectations were of Him, because I can't understand why He allows so much suffering.  A God who has felt absent in recent sufferings is not a God I can trust, nor deal with.  And I don't think that either of us "moved," per say, I just think that I have had to change my perspective.  I'm slowly getting to that place, and finding a different picture of God.  I think that as I continue to blog (and try to stay on top of it this time!), I will begin telling my story.  More and more I'm hearing God telling me that we all have a story and it's meant to be shared. There are many parts of the story we can't control, but we can control our own part in our stories.
So, I'm not doing any trust falls at this point, but I think I'm getting to the place where I can think about trusting Him.  My pastor keeps telling me that I have to just walk through it, this struggle, in order to come out stronger and healthier on the other side. I would rather have a step by step plan of how to fix these problems so I can be healthier, but apparently it doesn't work like that.