An Unusual Celebration

Today will be my first “wrap-around” journal.  I went to therapy for the first time exactly one year ago today, went home and wrote my first journal.

I have been celebrating my year of therapy all week.  I bought myself a present.  I bought my therapist a present.  My daughter thinks I’ve finally taken the final step into lunacy.  “Mom, most people don’t celebrate things like that!”

But I beg to differ.  I am proud of my accomplishments.  It’s been a hard year, full of emotionally trying experiences, and I have survived.

Actually, I’ve done more than just survive.  I’ve grown and changed.  I’m more open with those close to me.  Proper medication has been found.  My spiritual life has grown and widened.  I’ve met new people that I never would have otherwise.  I got talked off my roof.  I’m alive.  I haven’t burnt or cut myself in over a month now (almost two!).  I want to live.  I want to help other people who struggle like me.  I can get out of bed even when I don’t feel so hot.  I can smile and laugh.  Things in my life are starting to make sense.  I can go out and do things without getting overcome with anxiety.  I don’t even need to take anxiety medication all the time anymore!  I am still working with my self-image, still have to remind myself that I’m a daughter of the King, but at least I don’t hate myself anymore.

When I first started therapy, I didn’t think that I would still be going every week after a year, but I don’t see that as a failure.  I am working every day to improve myself, but more importantly, I have learned that the majority of the healing comes from resting in the arms of my Father.  I can’t fix me; neither can my therapist or my husband or some self-help checklist. 

“I look up to the mountains—

Does my help come from there?

My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth!”

Psalm 121:1&2

And that “help” isn’t just a helping hand.  When God helps, he takes over, takes the burden—as much as I’m willing to give over to Him.  When my load is heaviest, I am trying too hard.

 It seems paradoxical that the less I try, the better I get.  But that’s the thing about my Father.  When I was most ugly, he loved me.  He lives and loves contrary to what the world says we should do.  “This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.”  1 Cor. 1:25.  “Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge!  How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!”  Romans 11:33. 

So I give God the glory for what He has done in my life, for who I am and what I am becoming.  “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.  Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!  So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.  For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”  2 Cor. 4:17, 18