Own Your Story

Three years have passed since I first penned the following words. Three years. I don’t live in this dark space as much as often anymore, but I still do the work to keep the darkness at bay. Every day.

Someone reading this needs to hear these honest words. I know I’m not alone. I know depression threatens the life force of so many in our culture—another weapon of Satan’s to deaden our souls. Yet when cast at the feet of Jesus, He has used it as a tool to soften and sharpen me at the same time. In Jesus’ hands, my struggles with depression have grown me, matured me, and drawn me closer to Him. He is my True Savior in every way.

So read these words with grace and compassion for those you may know who also struggle. For those who battle silently, maybe even yourself…...

 

 “I live inside a cage my mind has built. I’m not sure when the cage started to form. I could point to early signs of anxiety in middle school, so one could blame hormones and puberty. I could point to an OCD like ambition in school, a need for perfectionism that I’m sure docked years off my life as I lived utterly stressed until I graduated Summa Cum Laude from college. Those words look nice on a diploma now, but they carry no weight, no meaning--just a reminder that I lost sight of life going on around me earlier than some.

I got married soon after and discovered I was equally good at analyzing myself and my husband as I was my schoolteachers and assignments. Living life became a subject to analyze and respond accordingly in order to pass. No wonder when the unexpected adult disappointments in life began to pile up, I was emotionally unprepared to fail. And failure took its toll.

I failed. Often. Over and over again. I became keenly aware and scarred by every failure.

If someone reading this hears one thing in this message, hear me say I desperately want to be rid of the negative, fatalistic, dream-killing attitude I have toward life sometimes. I WANT to be my biggest cheerleader because I’m everyone else’s. I desperately desire for my feelings to match the good actions and choices I choose to make in life. I’ve prayed for relief, for healing from this mind curse. I’ve begged God to increase my faith, so that doubt and second guessing and paranoia wouldn’t cloud my judgement. That my energy wouldn’t be sucked away from inward mind battles--battles spent capturing every thought, all the time, 24/7.

And so far, God has only answered all my prayers with a therapist, some anti-depressants, and now a psychiatrist referral. How did this happen? Why is this happening? Is this who I’ve always been? I don’t think so. In my mind’s eye, I may have been stressed for most of my life, but I was happy. I think I was. Was I? Depression makes you doubt everything about yourself. It skews reality, casting long dark shadows over the brightest memories, and promising nothing but rain clouds on the horizon.

And so, I take the meds, and I make and keep the appointments, but I grieve for the person I use to be so many years ago. I grieve the loss and dampening of her drive and spirit. I grieve because she had a great life and good years surrounded by good people. I grieve because I’ve prayed for her to be returned to me, and my answer is therapists, drugs, and a psychiatrist.

And I’m angry. Angry that this is the answer to my prayers. Angry that the mind God gave me is being given this weight to carry, this thorn in the flesh. We all have our “thing” I’m told, and I’m seething mad that mine is depression. 

So, I guess I’ve hopped around all over the stages of grief over this topic for many, many years now. The only stage I’ve never landed in is acceptance. How do I accept that my children will grow up with a depressed mother? How do I accept that my husband may never have the bride of his youth again? He deserves so much better. How do I accept that this disease of the mind will bleed into and taint every relationship I choose to make from here on out in my life? How do I not crawl into a hole and give up? How do I ever regain my energy for life when it’s being spent daily on managing my mind? How do I accept this new reality?

I don’t know.

My favorite devotion, Streams in the Desert, says, “Unbelief continually asks, ‘How can this be possible?’ It is always full of ‘how’s’, yet faith needs only one great answer to even ten thousand ‘how’s’. That answer is--GOD!” 

God. Jesus. The Bible.

Such simple answers to all the difficult questions. I used to be ok with these answers. I used to trust them unwaveringly. The core of me still does, but life has taken its toll. Unexplainable, unfathomable tragedies have left their doubts embedded deep in my faith. Oh, me of little faith. “Lord, increase my faith and help me to believe again with the fervor of my youth.” All these realities I confess and lay before the feet of my Jesus. I pray these prayers and hope and look for signs of healing.

Acceptance looks like, maybe, that I’m not supposed to be healed. I will be helped, never alone, never forsaken, never devalued in the sight of my King, but never healed. Oh, me of little faith? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not this time. I think acceptance looks like being able to admit I have chronic depression and not just resign myself to a life of managing it but choose to commit myself to a life of managing it. Instead of being depression’s hapless victim, I must trust that my God is bigger, claim His victory over my life, and walk like I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus my Lord (Romans 8:31-39), gaze shifted high and fixed on the eyes of my Jesus who loves me with an undying, unchangeable, relentless love. He will not fail me though I will fail Him.

My mind may churn and spin, but Jesus is not chaos. He is a Strong Refuge, an Anchor, a Rock, and He is mighty to save (Zephaniah 3:17). He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. (Psalm 23)

My outlook on life may weigh heavy with what is bleak, but Jesus is Light in the darkness (John 1:4-5). He is Hope (1 Peter 1:3-6). His yoke is easy and burden light compared to going it alone without Him (Matthew 11:28-30). When I walk through the valleys of deaths in all forms in this life, His rod and staff comfort and guide me.

My body grows weak from this physical fight, but my Jesus is Strong. He is the embodiment of all Strength. He will give me the gift of Himself to help me bear up under that which is too much for me to bear alone. He will give me the wings of the eagle to soar (Isaiah 40:31).

All these truths I know, but do not feel. That doesn’t make them lies.

Acceptance looks like choosing joy instead of feeling joy. When I figure out what that looks like practically, I’ll let you know.

Acceptance looks like me owning this part of my story and being willing to share it, instead of hiding in the shame of the stigma.

Accepting this new reality is scary and hard, and maybe I won’t. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be better. Yet acceptance knows that is a lie. There is no “better” when it comes to depression, there is managed. The question isn’t, ‘Do I feel better today?’, the question now becomes, ‘Am I managing well today?’ 

Accepting this new reality means not getting offended when people close to me ask if I’ve been taking my medication. Accountability and support are vital for anyone who is sick.

Acceptance looks like owning this as part of my story, but not letting it define who I am in Christ.”

 

…… And this is the path I have traveled. Will travel. For three years, I have taken a pill every morning when I put on my deodorant. For three years I’ve check in with a therapist at minimum once a month. I exercise regularly. I watch what I eat. I know my triggers and the signs of an impending crash. I can ask for solitude, and I schedule self-care and sabbath.

But most importantly of all—of all the work, of all the treatments—I spend time with my Jesus. Every day in some way. He is crucial to my mental health. He is the foundation making all the other treatments effective. They are all necessary, but He is essential. Without Him at the foundation of it all, the treatments fail in my own strength. They are not enough because without the source of His power in my life, I am not enough. Anyone trying to convince themselves otherwise is sadly mistaken and foolishly misled.

Today, I don't feel healed from depression, but I am at peace with how the Lord has chosen to help me. He may choose to heal me completely one day because He can, but if He doesn't, His grace is sufficient for today (2 Corinthians 12:9). I'm not angry anymore about popping a pill every day. I'm not ashamed either. Acceptance is still a work in progress. Finding joy and feeling it still a journey, but one I don't walk alone. Never alone (Matthew 28:20).

We are a world surrounded by embattled hearts and minds. Tread lightly. Recognize the rock of judgement heavy in your hand before you throw it. And maybe more importantly for some, remember to give yourself the grace you give to others so well.

How will you tap into the Source of acceptance and ownership of your thorns in the flesh? Your hard things? Today, how will you show grace toward someone who’s trying to reach their point of acceptance and ownership? How can you be Jesus or give Jesus to someone today, even if that someone is yourself?

 

Christmas Letter 2018

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                                         December 1^st, 2018

This year literally started with one of the best days ever—watching the Georgia Bulldogs win at the Rose Bowl. It was a perfect day, seeing the Rose Bowl Parade beforehand, enjoying our children (8 and 10) cheer at their first Bulldogs game, watching a magnificent sunset that God orchestrated over the stadium. For this Georgia family who loves our California home, it was the best of all worlds. Today, 11 months later, as I sit here pondering how I will share a glimpse of what came next, I can’t help but be grateful that is how this year started. God’s gifts are good gifts that sustain even in the hardest days, and for that I am grateful.

Both kids have thrived and grown in hard and good ways this year. Savannah (11) is still our family muse. Her creativity, love of music, and all things fun keeps our family in constant motion. She has impressed me this year with her natural ability and boldness to communicate her opinions and share her ideas. She tackles whatever challenge that is set before her with determination and zeal, and she doesn’t get discouraged nor give up easily. This has been evident in her piano playing, her school work, learning to surf, tumbling classes, passion for baking, and even in her friendships. All these characteristics are admirable, but on some days can be exhausting to parent, so your prayers are felt and appreciated 😉She is a joy and a marvel and a challenge, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. God uses her to draw others to Him with her natural magnetism and ability to lead. May this always be true.

Weston (9)’s personality as a young man of character has also started to bloom this year. Watching him grow as a sportsman on the soccer field has been a gift. I’ve seen my son hit lows then rally to turn them into highs. Whether in soccer, piano, art, engineering with Legos, or working toward straight A’s in school, excellence is his goal.  While he often hits the mark, it’s been in the moments of disappointment this year that I’ve seen the most growth. While I’m terribly proud of all his accomplishments, I may be prouder of how he’s been working to accept and move past the inevitable hardships that have come his way. He also never lets the hard things make him hard. His heart is as soft and sensitive and loving as ever. I know this is because He loves Jesus first. May this always be true.

Joey, as always, continues to be the even keel rock in our family. From what I can tell, he is well-respected in his area of work with Chick-fil-A, and he has continued to accept the responsibilities they give him with integrity, passion, and strength. He loves what he does, the operators he serves, and the people he works with and for. As a father, he is adored. I couldn’t ask for a better role model for our children. His unique ability to communicate with our family is invaluable because he teaches all three of us how to be better communicators, which in turn, enables us to grow in healthy ways. As a husband, well, there’s not enough space in this letter for me to list what he has meant to me and been for me this year. He has pressed into a hard season in my life and patiently, lovingly worked his way into my heart. He is truly my best friend and biggest cheerleader and safe place. Grateful and blessed to follow his lead because he leads well.

As for me, my words for this year didn’t come to me until a month ago. Acknowledge and Accept. This is the path God has walked me down. I’ve spent the past five years grieving in some format or another, on some level or another, and this year I realized that I’ve been striving on some level to fix the grief in my life, to make it stop, go away, feel better. I’ve wrestled with God and myself and stayed so much in my head that my head finally exploded. Cleaning up the explosion has looked like meds and therapy and doctor appointments and exercise and eating right and communion with Jesus and getting vulnerable with His people. It’s looked like doing a lot of sitting and talking to God out loud in my car, talking to my therapist, and talking to my husband, letting them all inside the really ugly spaces of my heart. Acknowledging and accepting that this is my path, and this is my journey, and this is part of my story that God is writing has been my path to freedom and experiencing joy again.

Acknowledging and accepting that I can feel deeply, that it’s ok to feel deeply, and not have to hold myself responsible for doing anything with those feelings except just feel them. Acknowledge those feelings. Accept those feelings, express them as needed to those whom God leads me, and then let them go and sit in the knowledge that God made me this way, and it is for His good purposes that I feel; therefore, it is His responsibility to show me what to do with those feelings, not mine.

There is freedom and joy in letting go and letting God take over. This take over for me has occurred in the quiet, in the still, in the lonely, in the depths of the dark and deep recesses of my heart and mind where God has found me and been with me and held my hand as I acknowledged and accepted the path of hard truth He is walking me down, hand in hand. Not once have I felt judged or less than in His eyes or Joey’s. My God and my man have been nothing but gentle to me.

Which is why today I can sit here grateful for the journey I am on. I’m still right in the middle of it. Meds and therapy and all, but I can say that I accept my struggle with anxiety and depression as part of God’s story for me. I can look back on this year and be grateful for the small conversations it has allowed me to have that ministered to someone else walking the same path. I can be grateful I’m not fighting myself anymore because there is peace in acceptance. I am grateful for the gift of compassionate tears that God has given me the ability to shed. I like to think that every tear I’ve shed for someone else is one that person maybe didn’t have to shed themselves. I’m grateful to feel deeply. It’s not something about myself I need to fix or change; it’s something about myself I need to acknowledge, accept, and allow God to shape for His glory.

What is it you need to acknowledge, accept, and allow God to be present in with you this Christmas season? Isn’t that the message of Christmas? Emmanuel, God with us. How are you allowing God to be with you? The birth of Jesus was His greatest gift to us all—His very Presence incarnate, on earth, to be held and touched and felt and enjoyed and loved. Even in the hard places of this life, how are you accepting the presence of God into your world? He is a True Gentleman. He stands patiently at the door and knocks, never forceful, always gently persuasive, always there. What door will you open in this next year to let Him in? All He wants to do is be with you because He created the path that you are on. He planned the journey. Can you acknowledge and accept His control of the way He created?

I did a crazy, meaningful thing to me this year. I tattooed a piece of artwork on my left shoulder that represents my journey toward joy in the Lord. So, I will leave you with the four Scriptures on the compass of my tattoo. May they encourage you to find and seek Jesus in this season and the year to follow.

“You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Psalms 16:11

“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Job 33:4

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” Psalms 19:1

“He continued, “Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don’t have anything: This day is holy to God. Do not grieve. The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

Wishing you and your family a day of joy amid blessing or hardship to enjoy the good things the Lord has given!

Merry Christmas,

Joey, Jennifer, Savannah & Weston Durham

P.S.-Mad props to my husband who helped design the Christmas card this year. I’m sure you’ll appreciate his personal touch 😉Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Durhams!!!!!!

Family photo credit goes to Katie Morrow. Thank you for making it fun.

katiemorrowphotography.com

What It Looks Like to Process

It's been two days since his passing.

At this point, three years ago, in a similar situation, I was in a better place. I wrote words that I think I need to read again in about another week or so. If you're not angry still today, I'd recommend clicking on that link instead of reading this post.

Because after 48 hours of crying and inwardly seething, I woke up this morning still angry. Because this time, this death isn't necessarily closer to my heart (because it's equally close to my heart), but it is closer to my day to day life. My friend won't stop being my friend and part of my life because she lost her son.

But after venting with my mother this morning on the phone, she gently called a spade a spade. "Jennifer, is 48 hours enough pain? Do you need another 24? Aren't you glad God gives us that choice? that He doesn't demand us go to Him? Be obedient. Go sit down with God and let the healing begin." She said this in the most gently, most loving way possible. She wasn't giving advice or answers, she was meeting me right in the hard moment where I was treading water. She threw me a life preserver.

So, I went and sat down with God. I journal often. That's how God and I talk. I actually keep a journal written directly to my children, and I don't share excerpts from it often, but if my thought process can help anyone else drowning right now, then Jesus take the glory....

......

I'm so angry. I'm so angry for my friend. (I then proceed to list a long list of offenses on her behalf that she probably doesn't need to read right now.) 

I'm also selfishly, wrongly angry for myself. (I then list a long list of personal things that God and I need to hash out. Yes, I admit to the selfishness of this.) 

I'm angry at God--for all of this. I'm angry and silently, inwardly seething between clenched teeth, shaking metaphorical fists at God, borderline blasphemous in my thoughts and emotions, knowing the whole time that He sees and knows my heart, so I might as well be saying it all out loud. So here I am writing, because that's how I say all the things I think. I'm angry because I know all (ok, lots of) the truths of the Bible. I know God has His reasons. I know God is good. I know God was with my friend's son and is with him now and will continue to be with his family.

And therein is where the rubber meats the road and the inner war rages because I know God wants me to be right here, obediently coming to Him with my heart and my thoughts and all my feelings, but I. Don't. Want. To.

I want to sit in a corner and refuse to let Him touch me. I'm the strong-willed child or rebellious teen who thinks depriving God of my obedience will somehow hurt Him like He's hurt me. But there's no truth in that statement.

My anger, my desire to make God hurt, the idea that I can even hurt God--those are all wrong, sinful (borderline ridiculous) thoughts. It's ok to feel them, to have them, but eventually you have to call them what they are or you risk living in the middle of a lie to yourself. And as with all sin, I'm only choosing to hurt myself.

The idea that God allowed my friend's son to die to hurt me or even her, specifically, on purpose, is also absurd. I hope. To be brutally honest, I do believe that God does not intend to cause us pain, but I am also aware that because of a sinful and broken world full of pain, when God makes decisions for our lives, sometimes the only natural outcome will be pain.

Am I saying God killed her son? No. Not necessarily, but I do believe it didn't just happen without His knowledge. So that leaves me in a very uncomfortable gray space, and the answer in gray space always comes down to two paths--faith in God or disbelief in God.

God is not crystal clear to us. I don't think I ever want Him to be because then wouldn't He cease to be God? If I understood everything the way He does, wouldn't I be His equal, and therefore also bear the responsibility of the world and all its issues on my shoulders also? I definitely don't want that.

So if I'm okay with God being bigger and greater and mightier and more mysterious than me (which is good, because He is) then by default, I have to come to terms with not understanding how and why He chooses to work inside my life and the lives of those around me.

I have to choose faith or disbelief.

And when I choose faith, this rebellious child must also choose obedience. They kinda walk hand in hand. I must take the hand of my heavenly Father offering me His embrace and Presence and Comfort. I have to stop licking my own wounds and allow Jesus to be the Surgeon, the Painkiller, and the Bandage to my soul--all in one.

And I'm tired of crying and weeping. And part of me still doesn't want to collapse in His arms, giving Him the satisfaction of loving me, but then the truth is He's going to love me anyways, and really, loving Him is what fuels my life at this point, so without throwing an entire lifetime of experiences and relationship proofs out the window by choosing disbelief, I find I have to choose Jesus. Despite my rebellious anger, He is what my heart longs for. He is peace; therefore, He is where I will find my peace.

"Lord, forgive me for raging against You, for silently cursing how You choose to act in my life and the lives of others. Forgive me, Father, for wanting to hurt You, when all you desire is for me to draw near to You so You can minister to me. Father, forgive me for my anger, but thank you You allow me the choice to feel it and express it. Thank you that You are a Safe Harbor of understanding and grace and comfort. 

Lord, may Your Presence be tangible to my friend's family right now. And if they want to punch You too, I'm grateful You wrestle with us Lord. I'm also grateful You always win, but the freedom to process through to that conclusion as You wrestle with us is a gift. I love that you're never a spectator in our lives. I love you, Lord. Love on my friends for me."

.......

And there it is. In writing, a journey from anger to acceptance. I'm no fool. Small parts of me, I think, will still feel angry in moments. This is a heart-work in process, an on-going process. I have no idea where my friend is on this journey right now, and I do not expect everyone who reads this to process in the same way or in the same amount of time. This is only the beginning. Everything changes as each day passes. And Lord knows I'm going to stand by her side and cry and rage and sit silently for as many days, weeks, months, years as it takes. 

But her journey is not mine, and I would be foolish to overlap our two in any way. Hers is much more difficult.

In this moment, right now, I feel calm and tired and at peace for the first time in 48 hours. Her son is still gone. There are still tears to be shed. Life will be altered and forever changed in a new trajectory now, but maybe now, I can focus on truly loving her with God's love and stop imposing my self-righteous love on her. "Lord help, me."