Life Lately

"Emily is brave."

"Emily is so strong."

"Wow, look at how Emily is handling everything that's been thrown her way."

I hear this a lot and it definitely makes me feel good. What I actually want people to see is what God is doing through me. I want people to say "wow, if God can do that for her, He can do that for me."

That's what this whole blog is about. It may be therapeutic for me to write but God is truly working in me and it's so moving that it has to be shared.

I want people to see how God answers our prayers. Somehow, some way even in those dark, dark moments the way I've been able to have clarity and perspective is not from my own doing. He's giving me the right mind and the right lens to see this through. He's giving me the endurance to keep pushing forward and looking for the joy that life has to offer. But I'll be real with you, I have to fight for that.

Why me?

Why my babies?

What could I have done better?

What's wrong with me?

What is wrong with people?

I've failed them.

The second I take my eyes off Him, I can drown myself in these thoughts.

Those thoughts are dark, they make me cry just typing them because the feelings are still right there at the surface but He pulls me out, every time. Maybe he does it through a friend's voice, maybe he brings a thought to my head and gives me the inner fight, or maybe He lets me just feel them so I can begin to process the complexity of the trauma.

Either way, He always pulls me out.

Do you really think 7 months out I personally have the strength to see that this isn't the worst thing that could ever happen to me or my kids? Heck no. Only through Him can I have that perspective.

He's helped me accept that I can't protect my kids from their own testimony. All I've wanted to do through all of this is protect them. Protect their little hearts from when they have to miss the other parent, protect them from having to learn the truth one day, protect them from not being able to understand why they don't get mommy and daddy together at the same time. The list goes on and on. But I can't protect them from it, I just have to know that God is preparing me to be whoever and whatever I need to be for them. I have to trust that just like God is going to turn all this bad into good for me, He will do the same for them.

I don't know if all the really dark moments are behind me, if I had to guess, probably not.

I'll be real with you again, I've started to wean myself off the anxiety medicine that I got on when all this started. I've never dealt with anxiety so I think this was all situational but there's definitely a fear that I won't handle all the triggers as well or that I'll fall back into those panic attack moments. But this healing process is truly just something I face a day at a time so I guess we'll see.

I was hesitant to share this little detail with the stigma around anxiety and mental health but this is my real life. Another point of this blog was to be relatable to others going through hard seasons too and I never want to pretend that I've just got this all figured out.

It's been awhile since I've written and I'm not really sure why. I guess I've had some distractions, some good and probably some bad but sometimes I just need to check in with myself and make sure I'm keeping my priorities in line and this blog makes me do that. It helps me slow down and really self-reflect on where I'm at and where I'm headed through this healing process. So this may have been a bit of a ramble but that's just kinda my life lately.