The Rain Keeps Falling

Posted in Music by

My friend Erik told me I HAD to check out this song.

Oh. my. goodness.

I wept and wept. Somehow this songwriter I had never met had put this season of my life into beautiful words. And then composed it into a simple and lovely melody.

Some of my greatest comfort comes in feeling understood. I feel that as I listen to this song.

The full lyrics are below. There are so many that catch my breath.

“I’m stuck in this tomb, and you won’t move the stone.”

“I’m dying to live, but I’m learning to wait.”

The whole last stanza melts me. Yes. yes. “Help me be brave tonight. Jesus, please help me out of this cave tonight.” Yes, Jesus, please.

Grab a chair, put on your headphones, and listen to a kindred soul. I pray your heart is captured too.

The Rain Keeps Falling by Andrew Peterson

I tried to be brave but I hid in the dark
I sat in that cave and I prayed for a spark
To light up all the pain that remained in my heart
And the rain kept falling

Down on the roof of the church where I cried
I could hear all the laughter and love and I tried
To get up and get out but a part of me died
And the rain kept falling down

Well I’m scared if I open myself to be known
I’ll be seen and despised and be left all alone
So I’m stuck in this tomb and you won’t move the stone
And the rain keeps falling

Somewhere the sun is a light in the sky
But I’m dying in North Carolina and I
Can’t believe there’s and end to this season of night
And the rain keeps falling down
Falling down
Falling down

There’s a woman at home and she’s praying for a light
My children are there and they love me in spite
Of the shadow I know that they see in my eyes
And the rain keeps falling

I’m so tired of this game, of these songs, of the rote
I’m already ashamed of the line I just wrote
But it’s true and it feels like I can’t sing a note
And the rain keeps falling down
Falling down
Falling down

Peace, be still
Peace, be still

My daughter and I put the seeds in the dirt
And every day now we’ve been watching the earth
For a sign that this death will give way to a birth
And the rain keeps falling

Down on the soil where the sorrow is laid
And the secret of life is igniting the grave
And I’m dying to live but I’m learning to wait
And the rain is falling

Peace, be still
Peace, be still

(Peace, be still)
I just want to be new again
(Peace, be still)
I just want to be closer to You again
(Peace, be still)
Lord, I can’t find the song
I’m so tired and I’m always so wrong
(Peace, be still)
Help me be brave tonight
Jesus, please help me out of this cave tonight
(Peace, be still)
I’ve been calling and calling
This rain just keeps falling
(Peace, be still)
I’ve been calling and calling
But this rain just keeps falling and falling
(Peace, be still)
Is it You
Is it You
(Peace, be still)
Is it true
Is it You
(Peace, peace)

Running the Maze

Posted in Depression, Musings by

I returned to work two weeks ago, and I’ve lost all rhythm.

My sabbatical afforded me the freedom of no schedule. I put in my day the things I wanted. The things I hoped would help me walk forward in darkness.

Then I jumped on a moving train.

My hope-speaking counselor kindly pointed out today I’ve stepped back into my numbing clothes. Convenient how busy-ness covers my hurt. My anger. My disappointment.

It was a hard truth to hear. The past six weeks have felt like climbing a wet, slippery mountain. It has taken all my energy to keep moving toward the summit. I do not want to slide down. I do not want to have to struggle up again. The work feels too much.

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I feel broken, and I’m not sure it’s in the best way. I feel so inadequate, so ill-prepared to go where I’m pretty sure hope resides. I know that sounds absurd. Tenacious used to describe me almost better than any word. There is so little energy left in me to keep pressing into the deep now.

The hope-speaking counselor suggested I stop running. He likened it to being in a maze, frantically searching for the way out. What would be more helpful would be just to sit down and be where I am. Why do I fear that so very much?

The maze feels as if it’s closing in again. I need space. I need arms to hold me up and a face to witness my tears. My courage is so very thin.

This is the place where I sit. The words that tumble into this space in the cyberworld are where I where I practice just being where I am.

I have less and less an idea of what the summit will be like, but I do believe hope lives there. I wish I had a nice ribbon to wrap around the now to make it easier to walk, and perhaps easier to read, but there is no ribbon right now. There is just mess. You are bearing witness to it all. Thank you. Thank you for sitting with me.

Scary Close

Posted in Books by

Have you read this book? You have to read it. It is life-changing good.

Scary Close

Several years ago Donald Miller was all the rage. I refused to jump on the bandwagon and didn’t read a word. Not fair, I know. I’m working on it.

Anyway, I read a lot during my sabbatical. This was hands down the best book I picked up. It’s one of the best books I’ve picked up all year. After I read it (in two days), Cody started in. He’s recommended it to everyone he knows too. We’re starting a fan club.

Why did I love it so much? It is gut-level honest. Miller puts into words the fears, the hang-ups, the longings we all know in our deepest places and yet so often choose to hide. Freedom resides in his honesty. I want it.

He speaks of intimacy. Soul-bearing, this-is-who-I-am intimacy. He speaks of health and its satisfaction. It made me want to work hard for the healing of my own wounds.

“Control is about fear. Intimacy is about risk.” pg. 106.

I love control. I hate risk. Ouch.

“Deception in any form kills intimacy.” pg. 103

Even the deception of editing who I really am.

“If our identity gets broken, it affects our ability to connect. And I wonder if we’re not all a lot better for each other than we previously thought. I know we’re not perfect, but I wonder how many people are withholding the love they could provide because they secretly believe they have fatal flaws.” pg. 129

Oh friends, I need you. I need you with all your flaws, just as I need to be needed with mine.

“It’s a hard thing to be human. It’s a very hard thing.” pg. 113.

Amen. And Amen.

“It costs personal fear to be authentic but the reward is integrity, and by that I mean a soul fully integrated, no difference between his act and his actual person.” pg. 65

I need some Scary Close friends. I need people who see me exactly as I am and love me. I need the space to practice being human.

Buy this book. Buy two copies, so you can give one away. I believe God dwells in intimacy. I believe that is where our hearts learn to long for the glory for which we were created. I also believe that is how God chooses to breathe healing. My heart grew a little braver as I read Miller’s journey. I hope the same for you.

Sabbatical Learning

Posted in Depression, Musings, Random by

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Depression does not define me, but it will always be intertwined in my story.

Excruciating feelings and places of trauma I thought would kill me have not. I can be resilient, even when I’m convinced otherwise.

I long to know my feelings are of consequence, and yet, I don’t treat them as if they are.

A safe place breathes a freedom that is addicting. The desire for it is unquenchable.

Hope can be carried for another. Hope was held tightly for me, and I am overwhelmed with that gift.

I need people, desperately.

Help well-intended has suffocated. The Holy Spirit in me can be trusted.

Without knowing it and despite feeling otherwise, my voice was silenced. I feel the effort of climbing the mountain to free it again.

My crazy is not beyond the reach of grace.

God does see me. Just because He tarries to speak comfort does not mean He is not deeply moved by my grief.

There are times when tears can feel so, so good.

And sometimes, I have to open my eyes and realize I’m ok.

Chains of Shoulds

Posted in Depression, Musings by

Chains

I took a stand against shoulds long ago. Or at least I thought I did. I have seen one follower of Jesus after another drown under what they “should” do. Shoulds do not fan freedom. They suck life.

This week, I heard my hope-speaking counselor say something he’s been saying all along. Only this time, my ears could hear. Some of the weight I carry, some of what makes it so much work to get out of bed and tackle the demands of my crazy life, I put there.

The shoulds I hate so much lay on me as a suffocating blanket I can not get out from under. I’m struggling for air, struggling for light.

They crept in as thieves in the night. I did not see them.

They are trying to do the right thing, trying to avoid hurt and dysfunction. Pursuing intimacy in my marriage and protecting my kiddos from the arrows of my own wounds. The pursuit of emotional health has ensnared me. The voices of good I hear paralyze me. There are a million very good shoulds I can not live under.

I need freedom. The hope-speaking counselor is good at giving me permission. I’m just not good at feeling it.

I do not want to mess this up. Not because I don’t want to mess up but because I desperately want the good that is suppose to come from it.

I am losing me in the process.

I have to learn how to give up the shoulds. They are dreadful because in and of themselves, they are good and profitable. My pile, however, is so big and so heavy, it has distorted my sight. It has distorted my gait and my very soul.

This is the space where I need grace in its greatest measure.

The honest truth is that the shoulds bear bitterness in me. I can’t offer them freely. They are a pretending.

What a hard and ugly place.

I cling to this little flash of hope that comes alive, as the hope-speaking counselor challenges me to actually own what I feel instead of try to feel my picture of right. There is freedom in that place. There is light and lightness.

Let grace come. Let it wash over me and breathe hope.

Four Days

Posted in Depression, Musings, Upside Down Kingdom by

The silence I have felt from God in the midst of darkness is one of my hard places. I see His hand protecting me. I see Him bringing freedom, restoring and redeeming. But I don’t feel him.

I don’t feel His comfort, and I don’t feel His peace.

I have known a time when God was so present I could almost touch him. I could feel His arms around me and my heart knew His delight as surely as I knew the sun would rise. Why, when I need His presence most, when I ask and pray and cry and scream for His comfort, do I feel nothing but deadening silence?

This week, the littlest and I were talking about Lazarus. He knew the story vaguely, and I told it to him again.

Mary and Martha and Lazarus were really good friends with Jesus. He loved hanging out with them, and the Bible says Jesus loved them deeply. Well one time, Lazarus got sick. Mary and Martha knew Jesus could make him better and sent a message to Jesus begging Him to come to where they lived and heal Lazarus. Jesus got the message, but he didn’t come. He waited. A couple of days later, He went to where Lazarus lived, but Lazarus had died. . .”

Grief

I told him about how Jesus cried when He saw how sad Lazarus’ sisters and friends were. And of course, I told him how Jesus had called Lazarus out of his tomb. That was the part he wanted to hear. Isn’t that the part that redeems the story? Isn’t that where we cheer and think about Jesus’ as the hero?

There is much that pricked me as I remembered this story. But circled with a red pen and highlighted in yellow were the words, “He waited.” Mary and Martha were in agony. They knew things were bad, and they feared the outcome. They had begged Jesus to come, but He waited. In fact, John says Lazarus had been dead for four days before He came. For four days, Mary and Martha longed for Jesus presence and heard only silence.

In those four days, they did not know (nor could they have perceived) Jesus was going to raise their brother. They had only their grief.

Could my darkness be like those four days?

Twice in John 11, it says Jesus was deeply moved when He saw those around Lazarus grieving. His spirit was so moved, He wept.

When I weep, it is not pretty. It is ugly, loud and gut-wrenching. It physically hurts. When the Jews saw Jesus respond with such emotion, they could only say, “See how he loved him!”

Jesus loved Lazarus. And He loved Mary and Martha. He knew the pain they would walk thru, but he still decided to wait.

This is the clearest picture of hope I have had in two years. Just because Jesus waits to make His presence felt to me doesn’t mean He does not care deeply about my heart. As I recounted the story to my littlest, a picture grew of the Father weeping at my pain. I saw Him shaking, as tears poured from His eyes, as His heart hurt with mine.

We are the lucky ones in the story of Lazarus. We get to read the end before we have to wait. We see Jesus call Lazarus out and command his grave clothes removed.

Mary and Martha, the disciples, and the multitudes overcome in grief had to walk through every minute of their hearts breaking. They didn’t get to skip to the end.

But Jesus did come. And He wept.

“Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

A Different Hope

Posted in Depression, Musings by

My ears didn’t hear hope from my hope-speaking counselor today. I heard hard. And the hard felt stone cold against my fragile heart. He spoke that the more health I experienced, the more my discontent would grow.

I’m not going to lie. It sucked.

I so much want a hope I can hold onto. I want to touch it and feel it and see its colors. I want to smile as it breathes life back into weary, weary bones. I want comfort.

I want relief.

Sunrise

The hope-speaking counselor won’t give it to me. Instead, he sends me further into the raw places that take my breath away. I am trying my best to hold those places together. But he is relentless. I am crumbling.

The madness is that as I crumble, I feel the stirring of life. I feel it.

He calls to the deepest places of what I want. Not to what is easy or comfortable or even right. Though I have a feeling those will be waiting at the end.

He calls to what stirs my heart. I have silenced it for so long. He speaks that it matters, and everything in me fights his words. The more I feel, the greater my discontent.

This is the opposite of relief. There is no comfort. It does not feel good or restful or happy.

Anger bubbles as I type the words I know to be true: my hope-speaking counselor is speaking hope. I fight just to stay in the fight. I do not want what he is saying. I do not want that reality.

And yet I do.

Owning Pain

Posted in Musings, Random by

My hope-speaking counselor was at it again this week. Pushing, stripping, freeing.

He does not speak counselor talk. He speaks grace, and he curses. I like him.

Handinwheat

For years, I have been told I didn’t feel enough. And that embracing my feelings was the way to health. Oddly, I didn’t think I wasn’t feeling before. I felt deeply. Often feelings swelled to the very top of me and had only paper to spill onto. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t feel enough. So how was I not doing it right? One word broke my spiral of self-defeat.

Inconsequential.

“It sounds like you think your feelings are inconsequential,” said my hope-speaking counselor.

Well, yeah. That’s what I’ve been learning for forty-one thirty-four years. Feel deeply, I hear. But who is there to care about what I’m feeling? Too much life has been sucked from me trying to convince people to care about what makes me most me.

Like the time I called across an ocean weeping so hard I could barely speak. “You need to find someone else,” said the friend who had promised to walk through the ugly with me.

Like the time trauma paralyzed me, and I begged for relief. “Why does it bother you so much when you were complicit?” was the response.

Like the time I begged God to comfort me in the darkness and I heard only silence.

Those feelings labeled health. . . my heart yells at me that they are inconsequential. The line becomes so fuzzy it vanishes. Survival takes over for hope.

The hope-speaking counselor asks about places that hurt. I share with honest words. And then he calls my bluff.

“You have a qualifier every time you share what you’re feeling.” The spotlight on my heart glows bright. I feel its heat bearing down.

He is right. I am completely exposed. I do feel deeply, and then I convince myself it’s inconsequential. I preach to myself what those wounds only hinted.

My qualifiers pass the buck. But my pain is my pain. People hurt me. My fear is real. It grips me to the point I can hardly breathe. I get angry, and I want to curse. Ok, so I do curse.

My hope-speaking counselor tells me I can feel, and it won’t kill me. I think he is crazy. When I felt deeply before, the hopelessness overwhelmed me. The pit sucked me in.

Or did it?

It’s odd the freedom that filled my heart when he invited me to feel without qualifiers. Maybe freedom lies not on the side of passing the buck. Maybe my attempts to survive are what is killing me.

Nothing and Everything

Posted in Depression, Musings by

The words come at a stop light.

I push them away, refusing to entertain them. . . willing myself to choose different words to dwell on. . . hoping for a split second they will vanish as quickly as they came. I don’t believe the words in my mind, but they yell so loudly. So very loudly.

I lose the battle, and the words flood me. They wash over my mind, and I am ashamed. How can a follower of Jesus have such dark thoughts?

Rain

I do not understand. Where has hope gone? When was the exact moment it evaporated? Did it slowly float away, as if a leak in a balloon or was it sucked out by the vacuum of trauma and fear? Did I know the moment it faded away? If feels as if going to get my winter coat and not being able to find it. I thought it was safely stored away, but in need, it is gone.

I put my foot to the gas and find my way into the Aldi parking lot. My body racks in sobs. Soon my cheeks are stripped of color and my shirt shows the collection of tears. I hurt. My chest squeezes in agony. It is not a specific pain but more an absence that has grabbed me. I feel nothing and everything. It is unbearable.

In the sound of my tears, my phone lights. Words from a new friend ask about my battle with the gremlins. It stops my sobs and makes me breathe. I share my darkness with her. She knows it. She has felt my crazy before and knows the struggle to make a mind obey a will.

My picture is not pretty today. It often isn’t. But it is a picture I want. I have to remember I want it day after day. Often hour by hour and minute by minute.

The fight is wearing me down. My hope-believing counselor spoke resilience over me this week. He spoke so surely of something I couldn’t feel. He spoke of a different narrative with an ending yet to be written.

Words spoke despair this week. Can I also receive the strength?

A haunting

Posted in Depression, Happies, Music by

During my sabbatical, I am trying to reignite parts of my heart that once burned strong. One of those places is music. It used to absolutely capture me. As my heart has felt unmovable, however, it has lost its appeal. I want to catch that place once again.

For those of you in cyberland who have done the Birkman, you’ll remember the section where it lists your interests and how those interests might fit into a career. I scored a 99 on music. It’s more than a like, more than a passing fancy. It is a need. And for over a year, I have let that need fall silent.

In the past few weeks, I have been hunting down worship songs that stir something in me. Here is a song that has haunted me:

The music captures me. But it’s the lyrics that haunt me.

You are good, good, oh

You are good, good, oh

You’re never gonna let, never gonna let me down.

You’re never gonna let, never gonna let me down.”

With all of my heart, I want this to be the cry of my soul. I want to believe God is never going to let me down.

The problem is that what is so sure in my head is having an impossible journey the 10 inches to my heart. My heart feels so very let down. I stepped out in faith and plummeted into a pit. I don’t feel God’s hands holding me. I don’t feel anything.

I have listened to this song over and over and over again. I have blasted it in my minivan every time I make the drive to counseling. I will do it again today. I let my body feel the pulsing rhythm, hoping that on the 102nd time, the walls on my heart might begin to crumble.

I am praying it haunts me until I can believe it with arms lifted high.

P.S. If you don’t mind, I would love to hear your favorites too–your music would be a sweet gift to my weary heart.