Posted on by She Who Rises

Doubting the Doubt

It’s raining. And it’s pouring. But despite all of that, I’m rushing from the cube farm where I work to my car in a panic. I feel a migraine coming on and, with it, an intense and unyielding fear. The tense muscles in my shoulders and lower back echo the ugly thoughts bouncing off the walls in my head.

“You’re not good enough. You’re in over your head. You’re gonna fumble this and expose the imposter at your core. Quit now while you still can.”

As you know, the devil be devilin’ – waging a battle in my mind that paralyzes me, at least, for a time. 

As does my inner critic who often berates and beats me down, while trying to protect me from further pain. It’s a tough room.

Yet, being well aware of all this, I’m still shook over here.

I am completely overwhelmed by fear that I will fail at this important project, despite God’s promises to help and my years of experience with God as evidence.

I am afraid that I’m too broken for God to use me for something great. I’m afraid that God is powerful. But not powerful enough to keep the promise using me. Anyone else, sure. But me? Not at all.

I am filled with fear and all of this doubt sprouts from that highly charged place.

I’ve been struggling with these thoughts from day 1 and they have only grown more intense. But then yesterday, the Holy Spirit reminded me that fear isn’t real. And then like hitting a switch, I remembered that fear acronym. Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

As this realization began to sink in, I realized that fear is a mirage – an illusion, like the appearance of water in the glaring sunlight. It’s not anything to trust or build a foundation on.

It’s a trick of the enemy because there is no fear in love. And I know that I am deeply loved by my creator.

It brought me back to something I’d heard countless times, but never really understood. In my prayers, the phrase “doubt the doubt” kept appearing in my mind. I’d heard joyce meyer say it years ago and hadnt really thought about it much since then. Despite hearing it over and over for a year or more in my prayers, I never quite understood it. Until now.

Remembering that fear is a mirage, a 4D IMAX level illusion, IS doubting the doubt. It’s questioning its authenticity, validity, and its motives. It’s saying, “Nah, I don’t believe you. You’re not real.” And in doing so, slapping the enemy in the face and making him kick rocks.

So, I doubt that doubt… until the next time.

Posted on by She Who Rises

God is GOOD

I AM GOOD

You don’t have to understand it for it to be true.

My thoughts are higher than yours. As are my ways. Trust me,  you won’t get it. But I am still good. In fact, I am the very definition.

I AM GOOD.

I’m the only one who truly is. Others try to act like they are good, but they can’t pull it off. How could they? They really aren’t even sure what it is to be good. Why?

Because they’re not me. I’m the one who decides.

I AM GOOD.


I am the standard – my ways, my thoughts. And who but me and the closest ones to me – my spirit and my son – could know that so well? 

Good is what I bring forth in the earth. The creatures made to my exacting standards. The systems within you and around you that always strive toward balance – the original symphony.

What is not good is what so often happens once what I’ve created is in the hands of people. But I AM STILL GOOD.

I take what you’ve ravished and destroyed, and breathe life into it until it becomes a new thing – a good thing, again.

With my refreshment, it brings to the world the good that I imagined it would. And it spreads near and far. It does all that I intend.

And because I am good, I’ll do the same with you. 💜

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From Doubt to Faith

Doubt is a place.

When I think about doubt, I imagine a physical space, an actual place. It’s desolate, gray and windswept with bare trees and flying dust instead of firm, rich soil – a place completely devoid of life. This place is where I end up whenever my trust Issues show up in my relationship with God.

Despite knowing that God is good and having plenty of evidence to back it up, I still question God’s faithfulness – whether God will show up in my most desperate moments. I even second guess the seal of approval that I inherited from Jesus. My anxiety sometimes overruns my faith, and when I look up, I’m in that gloomy, desolate place. In doubt, the creativity, clarity, wisdom and peace that I need to navigate life seems impossible to access.

My last post was a retelling of a recent dream. In it, I stood on a modern version of the biblical Noah’s ark. I was being whisked away from a place of danger and loss. Yet, anxious about all that I’d left behind, especially who and what they might think, I had lept into the water, intending to return to that forsaken place.

In jumping, I had rejected the safety of the Ark and the promise of something better wherever it was headed. And it wasn’t until I found myself carried away from the ship that continued onward without me that I realized how bad an idea that had been.

Though I busily treaded water to stay afloat, the hazy gloom of doubt within me – the doubt that had caused me to jump – made it impossible to know what to do next. I was stuck and alone. But then, the most amazing thing happened.

Jesus, who I hadn’t even realized was there, dove in after me.

Just like the shepherd searching for the single sheep who had wandered away from the flock of 99 others.

I didn’t even have to ask…

He found me, barely held together. Yet, after the considerable effort of reaching me, I was surprised to see that his demeanor didn’t show even a speck of frustration or anger. 

In fact, all I saw in his eyes was concern and clear-eyed understanding. My only response had been love, gratitude, and … wonder. Then, I woke up.

Well over a month later, it still blows my mind. I mean, what kind of love is this?

It’s teaching me that God’s love for me is thorough and unbreakable. This God knows me intimately, and none of what I do is a surprise or a burden that God is unwilling to bear with me or help me navigate. It’s helping me to see that there’s no scenario where God won’t show up, even in doubt. And it’s recharging my faith.

What about you?

How has God shown up in your doubt? 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises

In it with me

A cloudy gray sky hovers above my head. I’m so high up that I wonder whether I can grab a piece. Its clouds conceal everything above and most of what surrounds me.

Its particular shade of gray is only slightly lighter than the gunmetal coloring the expanse beneath my feet. I’m on a ship – a giant machine sprawling around me. But it’s not just any ship.

It’s an ark, like Noah’s, with no discernable openings, yet here I am perched on its surface. The ship cuts through the choppy and frothy mix of gray and white waters below. The water, like the sky above and the ship in between, seems endless.

Though everything about this scene denotes solitude, I am not alone. There are others on a different quadrant of the ships surface, laughing and lounging in swimwear despite the gloom around them – living as if the sun is on full display.

They may as well be a million miles away from me or in another world even. But they don’t capture my attention for long. My mind is occupied by thoughts of those I left behind. People, places, things, and especially, what others may be thinking.

So, I jump.

Crashing into the choppy water, I sink just a little, the force of my weight pressing me down, then bouncing me back up to the surface. Once my head reaches the surface, I am immediately overwhelmed. I didn’t have a plan B. I didn’t think about what I’d do next. And so I have little choice but to let the water carry me wherever it chose.

I flow backward towards structures that I can only see now, at this level, on the water.  I hear a distant splash as I nearly float past the corner of a giant brick wall to my side. I grab it and hold on for dear life. Behind it, I can see what looks like a flooded city, empty and silent. I turn to look toward the sea, at the rear of the Ark moving swiftly away, and I see something headed my way. I freeze in place, anticipating the worst.

As it gets closer, I can see that it is a person, a person swimming. Then, I see that it is someone I recognize. It’s someone that I know. And at once, I feel wonder, relief, and to my surprise, love – genuine and heartfelt. Tears overrun my eyes and fall into the churning waters around me as he swims close.

It’s Jesus. He came in after me.

He swims to the wall where I am anchored in place with a look of concern and understanding on his face. He knows me. He knows why I jumped. And he knows that I have no idea what I am doing. Yet, he’s here anyway, in it with me. 💜

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Doing the Work

So, nerd out with me for a minute… I’m so excited that the Braxton’s are back on tv. Having always wanted sisters, I enjoy being a fly on the wall to watch their sisterhood antics. I was catching up on their newest season and – no spoilers – saw them navigating a grief counseling session intended to help them navigate the loss of Tracy, a sister who died from cancer roughly two years ago.

Before the session, Trina explained that she had tried grief counseling after her ex-husband, Gabe’s, death a few years ago. But she realized that she just wasn’t ready for it and hadn’t returned to therapy since. During the ladies’ session, she tearfully expressed her sense of being overwhelmed by her feelings and memories surrounding Tracy’s death.

It brought to mind a convo I’d had just the day before with my EMDR therapist. As we were wrapping up the session, she commended my efforts to continue to do the work therapy requires. Both she and my regular therapist say this to me every now and then, and though I always appreciate it, I am usually surprised.

Most times, I end up asking why they even felt the need to say it because why wouldn’t I continue with therapy? Why wouldn’t I work on all this trauma and break these generational curses? That’s the goal.

In my mind, there is no other option, even though it isn’t always financially or emotionally convenient. Why? Because I’m desperate for healing.

The healing that I’m looking for is a necessity, like air. I need and want to heal so badly that I don’t feel like I can afford to stop until I see it come to pass.

Now I know that healing is a process, not necessarily a destination. But I’ve already experienced some and, baby, I must have more, as much as is available to me.

But in my therapists explanation, she noted that not everyone does. She reminded me that it’s hard work to face the beliefs, fears, and experiences that have harmed us or hold us back. And that it takes work to push through all of that and actually change. That’s when I remembered the tears, unanswered questions, shredded emotions, and the rebuilding I’ve done along the way.

In talking about his journey to find a therapist in his book, Faith & Therapy, gospel singer Anthony Evans describes when the first therapist he consulted had been more interested in trying to connect with Anthony’s influential family than helping him navigate his anxiety. It was a big disappointment, and because he expected a repeat performance with any other therapist, it turned him off toward therapy altogether – though not for long. Because, as Anthony says, “…pain has a way of changing your mind.”

When I think of the years I’ve dedicated to working on myself in therapy and the struggle to push through, the healing I’m so desperate for hasn’t always been what motivated me forward. Most often, it was the pain of life pushing me from behind.

Sometimes, it was a new traumatic experience or, at other times, a trigger – an emotional echo of an older painful experience. Sometimes, it’s dealing with the same old problem too many times or a failure or loss in an important area of life. In any case, it was pain, plain and simple, and the desperate need to get out from under it that kept me showing up to appointments, finding the money, and digging into the uncomfortable corners of my own psyche. It was the search for relief – a real, healthy, and lasting relief – that made me get serious about doing the work. And it’s been worth it.

There’s been significant healing in my life – not in every area, not yet. But I’ve become a different, more whole person bit by bit, and I’m so grateful. Some of the things that used to torment me don’t have the same power anymore. I have a clearer and more compassionate view of myself and others than I did before. And I’ve found that there are things that I like about myself now that I couldn’t see or even imagine before.

I’ve actually begun to look forward to experiencing the version of me that God intended me to be all along. The journey has been hard. And while I don’t expect to arrive at a finish line any time soon, I am certain that the healing is worth the work. 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises

Ordering My Steps

Technically, I hadn’t left my bed for days. For four days, the occasional bathroom visit was the most active I got, and I barely did that. I ate sporadically, fell in and out of sleep, talked to God & tripped into a few holes on insta. It’s the same old story. A multi-day migraine, fuzzy-headedness, and ear-ringing triggered another depressive episode. But what’s pulling me out of it is something new.

Five hours after NPR posted SWV’s tiny desk concert to YouTube, I am randomly scrolling on YT, having forgotten why I came here in the first place (insert brain injury eye roll here). But once I see it, I immediately click the thumbnail. It doesn’t get saved to my watch later like usual, never to be seen again.

There’s an unexpected thing happening here. Something like joy is beginning to bubble up from somewhere deep within me. I watch Coko, Taj, Leelee, and Co. do their thing. I sing along, raise my hand, and bop around from my bed, in the dent I’ve made there over the last four days. But there’s a new energy rushing in.

As they sing their classic jams from my high-school days, without even trying, they begin to lift me from my lonely, sunken place. I start making plans for the future, making a mental note to check out tickets for their tour once they drop. Without any real effort on my part, I’m coming out of another depressive episode. And I’m grateful.

How did I get here? I might have an idea. Was it SWV? Was it the nostalgia of my high school days? Is this the formula for busting through depression? I doubt it. As much as I love SWV and the renewed interest in artists from my era, I don’t see this combination working every time depression rears its raggedy head.

What’s more likely is that the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of my Savior who lives within me – guided me to what would help in this specific moment. Just like those times when the Holy Spirit, knowing what I don’t and can’t possibly know, led me to the things, people and places, big and small, that would work out for me.

Just like with the jobs (plural) I got that I almost didn’t apply to or the dope outfits I found at deep discounts, despite dragging myself to the mall, outlet, or other place. Or better yet, the move I made to be closer to family, never suspecting the health issues that would arise and turn my life upside down.

There have been so many times when I ended up in the right place at the right time and knew that I couldn’t take the credit. Why would this be any different?

Depression is BIG trash. Period. End of story. No one would ever choose this. But I am so grateful that I have the Holy Spirit with me, in me, ordering my steps – leading me to what I need, before I even know I need it. That’s the real formula. 💜

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Just Be

What would it be like to “just be”?

As in, live “as is”, no changes, as today’s version – the exact same you that exists this second. What would it be like to be completely yourself without striving and straining toward some goal, some other version of you? Imagine it for just a moment. What’s there? What isn’t?

Is it enjoying a social situation freely without the pressure to make a friend, make a deal, be seen, or even unseen?

Is it exhaling and releasing your belly or the folds of your back to unravel, without a care, across the area below?

Is it placing a block on the past – a transparent wall that separates you from a joy, mistake, or trauma where your brain thinks you should live instead?

What would it be like to just be and embrace what is, whatever it is, right now?

Radical (self) acceptance. Would it be so bad?

Imagine that. A moment where everything that’s happened, everything you’ve witnessed, and where you are now has been totally and completely accepted… by the most important person, you. No bones to eat clean. No details to pick apart. Just be-ing.

I’m realizing that there’s so much more to see when I am present here and ok with what is. When I’m not obsessing over what I could’ve said vs what I did say or whether that thing will work out the way I hope or worrying about what new thing aging has assigned to me, there’s calm, silence, rest, and sometimes, if I’m honest, sleep.

Lately, this is where Jesus has been leading me. To “just be” is a whole new world for me… one who is either waist-deep in the past, picking apart the present, or running light-years into the future. To “just be” is radical.

So far, I like that worry doesn’t seem to live here. But I can’t say for certain what does. I’ve only just started to look around.

What about you? What do you see?

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Suicide has nothing to do with strength

Dr. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey is no more. By all accounts, an excellent person and dedicated professional, she committed suicide following a series of demoralizing, bullying, and not so subtle attacks in her workplace at the hands of her boss. Attacks, punctuated by the absence of protection and support from her employer, that left her deeply depressed, anxious, and ultimately, officially terminated from her job.

It might blow you away that a person could end their life over anything regarding work. It might come across as weak or even unbelievable, but suicide has nothing to do with strength.

Dr. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey

Suicide isn’t about fortitude but instead despair and hopelessness in aggregate form. It’s feeling irreparably broken and alone and seeing no other way out. It’s being exhausted by the lack of safe places to rest and just be. It’s being desperate for an immediate end to a long and excruciating period of suffering.

In her thoughtful and deeply personal devotional, Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression, Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman describes some of the hopeless thoughts that can cloud the minds of those of us with depressive conditions, thoughts like:

I’ll never feel better again,
I’m a burden to everyone around me, including those I love most,
I’m incapable of making a positive contribution to the world,
I’ve tried everything – every medication, therapist, insurance agency – and none of it has helped,
This pain is so intense that only death can alleviate it,
God must hate me to make me this sad, morose, numb and/or bad, and the usual thorn in my own side,
God must be disappointed in me for not having my act together

These are thoughts that I’ve often struggled with myself. For me, they fuel a panic that can grow into an urgent need for escape, by any means necessary. That urgent need for escape creates the focus necessary to make plans to die.

Planning is a telltale sign of a pending suicide attempt. Putting one’s affairs in order, whether it’s finding new homes for once treasured items or being intentional about saying “goodbye” to loved ones, displays loud and clear a person’s seriousness about ending their life.

We know that Dr. Candia-Bailey planned. She sent an email to her attacker/boss prohibiting him from talking to her family once the deed was done. She was suffering in deep emotional pain, but she was serious and resolute about her next steps. That isn’t weakness.

We may never know Dr. Candia-Bailey’s thoughts as she committed this final act. I don’t know what she believed in or how she lived her life. I can only wonder if she was looking forward to rest, peace in some place far from here, a place like heaven.

I’m not one of those people who get into debates about what is and isn’t a sin, or whether some are worse than others or who will or won’t make it into heaven. In general, I think those debates are a distraction from what really matters, which is relationship – the main thing Jesus died for us to have.

Any idea that God is angry with us, judges, or abandons us in these desperate moments just doesn’t match the Jesus I know. When it comes to something as world-changing as suicide, what I have experienced with Jesus when my thoughts have slid down this path wasn’t any of those things. It’s always been compassion.

Not surprise. Not disapproval. Not judgment. Just compassion and a gentle re-orientation away from my suffering, a feat that seemed impossible only a moment before, and a sense that there is more for me that lies beyond this pain, beyond this intense suffering. A sense that joy and purpose will return… eventually.

The compassion that I have found in my most bleak moments conveys a sense that God is pained by my suffering too. Monica put it this way,

“I believe that God is with us, feels with us, and is moved by our suffering – even when, especially when, we cannot feel God’s presence. I’m not sure the right word is “sin,” but perhaps all of this breaks God’s heart too.”

Dr. Candia-Bailey is gone. She won’t have the chance to witness what could have been beyond her torment, her excruciating pain. No-one will. It isn’t a crime, but it is a tragedy… for all of us. If nothing else, I hope she’s found peace and the rest she sought.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, you don’t have to face them alone. Call or text 988 (or check out these resources) to get connected to confidential, non-judgmental support now. 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises

Beautifully Human

Here at the start of the year, I found myself teetering on the edge of a (yet another) depressive episode. In the last few days of 2023, I found joy in a quiet Christmas, a beautifully reimagined The Color Purple, and a simple NYE. But as the new year began, heavy rain and the threat of snow did whatever it does to my brain that shuts life down.

It set off the migraines, drowsiness, and fatigue that keeps me stuck in a dark room, huddled under the covers, barely coming out to eat or even bathe – much like a depressive episode. And with the addition of some unwelcome medical news and the ending of some important relationships, my personal cache of hope began to slip through my fingers.

This odyssey with my health followed me into the new year, along with a very real and recent job loss. Last year, my deeply analytical brain couldn’t muster the cognitive strength to do my job. I couldn’t even fake it. As 2024 approached, I tried not to think too much about how I would manage, much less overcome all of this, until I was firmly in the new year.

At this point, I am convinced that God has gotten me every job that I’ve ever had. In each scenario, there were too few options and resources to see it any differently. And through prayer, I had been reassured that the God that did that for me so many times before would do it again when the time came. So, again, I tried not to dwell on it… until the new year.

But when 2024 came, I felt overwhelmed that I didn’t have a single idea of how I would navigate any of this. To be honest, I’m still crawling my way out of those feelings. And you know what else? It’s frustrating as hell.

It’s frustrating to believe in a very real and personal God, yet still struggle with doubt and fear that makes me want to control everything. I used to believe that all I needed was to be reassured that God had it, had me, and all my worries would melt away. But more and more, I’m seeing that faith doesn’t exactly work that way all the time, or at least not mine.

I’m seeing that faith still takes work, no matter what reassuring words the Holy Spirit whispers into my heart in the quiet hours of the night. I’m learning that I may still have to hold on to the word even when I can’t see it happening for me, even when there’s no evidence that it ever will.

Sometimes, building this muscle of faith sucks. But I’m also seeing that it’s okay to acknowledge that it does sometimes suck.

So often, I want to push myself to shake it off or beat myself up when I find myself dwelling on the hard and uncertain stuff. I get angry. I get sad. I become unforgiving of self. But emotions are just signals to be investigated, right? And, make no mistake, they are God-given.

If I’m made in the image of God, in mind, body and spirit, and the God of the Bible gets angry, is grieved, or has any other emotion, then so can I. I have yet to see Jesus, the Father, or Holy Spirit try to repress how they feel in the Bible.

There’s no mention of Jesus beating himself up for being frustrated with the disciples’ lack of faith or after running the money changers out of the temple. I’ve never heard of Daddy God pretending not to regret that he had made people during all the antics of Noah’s time on earth. Nor have I known the Holy Spirit to pretend not to be grieved when I’ve gone my own way or made a mess of a gift I’ve been given.

They feel their feelings… they just don’t stay there. And made in their image, I can allow myself to do the same.

I can love God and still be frustrated that building and exercising faith can be hard, frustrating, and not at all fun. It’s okay, I can feel those feelings even as I keep walking forward with God. After all, it’s how I’m made.

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Faithing It

A few days ago, a friend sent me a meme that read:

“Does anyone else wish that Jesus would walk into your kitchen,  sit down with a cup of coffee, look at you and say, “OK, here is what we’re gonna do.”

My response? A GIF of Janet Jackson eating orange slices and saying, “It’s true though”. Because, really, who can’t relate to that feeling?

In a real way, the Bible gives us keys to living with wisdom and how to stay in step with God. But it doesn’t exactly provide a solution to every specific issue or challenge that we face. Thankfully, we have the Holy Spirit to help with that. 

But what the Bible is real clear about is the necessity of faith. Faith is the confident expectation of good. It’s believing that God keeps God’s promises. It’s based on trust, and both are like muscles. They need to be worked and stretched constantly in-order to be strong.

But pause… Who wouldn’t want God to break it all down?

Who would pass on God laying out the details of our future and how to move each step of the way IN ADVANCE? Not me. And, most likely, not you either.

Right now, I’m in a situation that worries me. This brain injury and everything that has come with it has me reevaluating what my future could look like, especially when it comes to how I will support myself. And it’s becoming clear that my current employment situation is no longer a good fit for a variety of reasons.

I’m holding on to my hope that it will all work out well for me. But, I’m not sure how any of the challenges along the way will shake out or exactly how to move.

If I’m being honest, it’s been scary, and a lot of the time, I feel pretty alone, though I know better. So, a one-on-one strategy meeting with an in-person Jesus would be welcome. But I know that’s not likely to happen.

In all honesty, I wish I didn’t need faith. Sometimes it feels like trusting God takes too much effort.

But then I remember my past experiences and the faith that I needed to get through them. I’ve dealt with things that were scary at the time that wouldn’t even make me break a sweat now.  And that realization reminds me that the strength that I have now is a direct result of the faith and trust I had to cultivate during those times.

Would I have the faith muscle that I have today, if I ever had that kitchen table strategy meeting with Jesus? Probably not.

I can now see that, without the scary, faith building experiences of my past, I wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of my current situation at all.

Or, more accurately, trust that God is helping me carry it and is guiding me through to the other side of this problem one step at a time.