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A hard lesson

Have you ever had to learn a lesson the hard way?

Maybe, as a child, you couldn’t contain your fascination at the flames dancing atop the stove, that is, until you got burned. I bet those flames lost their appeal real fast.

At the start, the thing, whatever it is, doesn’t seem dangerous, maybe even manageable. But eventually, we learn that what we see could only be the tip of the iceberg, and it usually is. There’s often a whole mountain beneath the surface. Unfortunately, the experience that comes with this discovery usually involves some broken bones, aka consequences.

In my journey with Jesus, I have sensed a guiding force that kind of taps me on the shoulder when I get too near dangerous terrain. It often signals me to “wait” or directs me to change course. Sometimes, it’s a gut instinct, other times it’s a still small voice that I don’t really hear with my ears, but sense somewhere within me. For years, I didn’t pay attention to either.

I thought I was wise enough to thoroughly assess every situation and make my own decisions. Most of the time, I thought those nudges were my fears trying to keep me from living. Just as often, I discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

By ignoring my gut and what I now recognize as the Holy Spirit’s leading, I was headed straight into a disaster, something that could ruin my life.


Case in point, the day of this car accident, I knew that I needed to stay home. I had felt the nudge to get more rest. I had worked until the wee hours of the morning. But I still felt pressure to make it in, albeit around mid-day. I was extremely tired, too tired to be driving, especially in snowy and icy conditions. But I did it anyway.

In the end, I totaled my car and got a concussion. Thankfully, I was the only person impacted, and my insurance covered everything. God absolutely took care of me. Medical bills were covered, rental car paid for and eventually, even got a new (to me) car paid for in (mostly) cash. I was struggling through some intense migraines but was told it was temporary. I had reason to hope. I was enduring the consequences of my own stupid actions while witnessing God’s faithfulness all at the same time.

Now, almost 5 years later, I’m still struggling with debilitating migraines, and some serious cognitive issues that I wasn’t even aware of until a few months ago, but now seem plain as day when I look back over the years. It’s been tough… I can’t lie. Some days, I feel like I’m drowning.

I have often blamed myself. I mean, it is entirely my fault. But blaming doesn’t fix it. I beat myself up, too, but that doesn’t help either. I hold all my questions and complaints from God until I collapse, unable to stand up under it all. I think, “Why would God want to hear any of that anyway?” Though, I’m sure God already knows.

I can’t begin to know why God allowed things to go this way. And I have no idea what I might gain by this prolonged suffering from a God that makes all things work together for my good. But I have noticed something worth mentioning.

He hasn’t left.

That guiding presence, the admonition to wait, that still small voice hasn’t evaporated from my days. It’s still leading – sometimes to bed early, away from overexertion, to time with him – in his Word, to the right doctors and specialists. I didn’t expect it, but I’m learning a hard lesson about God’s faithfulness. I’m learning that it’s constant, even in the face of my own failure.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Just keep going…

The last few weeks have been a lot. I’ve been under some stress that just kept building and building until, before I knew it, I was well into a depressive episode. For some reason, they usually take me by surprise.

I was having migraines every day, almost all day, for two weeks, not eating, doing the bare minimum at home and work, and withdrawing from everyone in my life before I recognized what had happened. I thought I was treading water. But in reality, the water was 100 feet above my head.

Have you ever had an experience where everything just seems to fall apart all at once?

Remember that workplace trauma I told you about? A really difficult relationship with a colleague and a reluctance to address it by leadership triggered the hell out of me. The details were different, but it felt all too familiar. And the more they dragged it out, month after month, the less safe I felt. It felt like I was being attacked, rejected, and abandoned all over again.

And I thought, “how could I be going through all of this again? Is it me? What am I doing wrong here?” And then, once I remembered that I’m not responsible for the way other people behave, including when I ask for help, I just felt alone, yet in the same place, again.

But I couldn’t just go forward like it didn’t matter. Something in my spirit wouldn’t let me. So, I set a boundary. I told leadership that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, interact with this person until they addressed the issue. Eventually, they at least had a conversation. But the sense that it wasn’t enough wouldn’t allow the burden to lift.

Around the same time, the new relationship I had developed with a tenderhearted man was beginning to shake. We were unequally yoked  – two people who wanted to be together, but were walking at two entirely different paces and not always in the same direction faith-wise. I had known from the very the beginning that this was a possibility, a certainty really, but I went forward anyway. And as the relationship crumbled around us, the painful rejection I felt was compounded by my own lack of wisdom in the first place.

A week or two later, I would find myself in the middle of another break-up. It was the end of my time with my out-of-state EMDR therapist, a person whose work with me had been truly transformational. There was no blow up, no drama, the rules just wouldn’t allow it anymore.  So, though we knew the end was coming, it didn’t make saying goodbye any easier. Up to that point I had been filled with dread, but it turned to grief when everything was said and done.  

And finally, a dinner with an old colleague and his wife that I had hoped would have been an enjoyable experience, ended up being the exact opposite. Instead of laughing and cracking jokes with the man who regularly checked-in with me, I found myself constantly dodging questions about why I wasn’t married or had a boyfriend from his wife. And in the wake of my recent breakup, I wasn’t ready for any of it. The dinner had only been an hour and a half, but when we parted, I felt like I had spent hours being judged and had come up short.

It was A LOT to endure all at once. I thought I was maintaining  – treading water. But the pain of each scenario pushed me further and further below the water’s surface. And when I finally opened my eyes and looked around, I saw that I was in a familiar place. I was failing at life  – again  – and that made it worse.  More tired than anything else, I just wanted to give up on everything, including life itself.

Before I decided to follow Jesus, I thought that being a believer would take those negative feelings away forever. I thought I would never experience pain, make mistakes, or feel alone ever again. But in the years since, I’ve learned that isn’t true. I wish I could say that I pushed my way through the despair that I felt or that Jesus suddenly washed it all away. But neither would be true.

What I did was cry a lot, get angry with myself and God, repent and do it all over again. But there’s one thing that made the difference.  When I accepted Jesus, I also accepted his spirit, the Holy Spirit, and invited them into my heart and my life. The Holy Spirit leads us in ways that we can’t always see at the time. Moment by moment the Holy Spirit directs us to the things that will comfort and restore us, even as we struggle.

It can start with something as simple as a glass of water. That bit of hydration can give us the clarity to take a shower, then lotion our bodies, have a little food, or take a nap.  Bit by bit, he leads us to just keep going, one thing, one step at a time. And slowly, over time, you notice the despair lifting.  It’s not a “suddenly” kind of thing, at least, it hasn’t been for me.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Just Stay … please?

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…

You are not alone.


You are seen.


You belong.


You are needed.


You are no accident.


You were made with intention, regardless of what’s happened since.


You have a purpose, despite all the pain.


So, stick around a little while longer to see what it will be.


Decide to stick around for one more day.

Just one – one day at a time.

Every day.

And I promise you will get there, love.

Because, for real, you really are loved.

If you need a virtual ear, hit me up @ creatorskind@gmail.com 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises

Seeing the big picture

Have you ever found yourself faced with a challenge that is so big and so overwhelming that you can’t tell whether you’re winning or losing?

Maybe you get sick or hurt and need to undergo a medical procedure. Thankfully, you have insurance, so you’re not responsible for most of the cost to address it. So, you use some savings, take out a loan or save your pennies to pay your deductible and co-pays.

You go to the doctor and work out a plan to fix the problem. You take test after test and exam after exam. You find yourself naked in the company of so many specialists that you wonder whether you should adjust your body count.

All of this takes a while, but eventually, you find yourself checking in at the hospital. And then, you wait. Before you know it, it’s over. You’re at home and recovering. Crisis over.

But now, as you make your way back to life as normal, something unexpected happens. You find new bills in your mailbox. Bills for this test, that exam, this specialist, and those medications. New bills arrive even as you pay the latest ones. You’re in a whirlwind, overloaded with bills for something that you thought was over and done with; something you thought was covered. And in confusion and frustration, you wonder, “Am I wasting my time? Will this ever stop?”

This is how the random flashbacks and intrusive thoughts of PTSD feel to me. No matter how much progress I think I’ve made, those two symptoms remind me that it’s not over. It’s a problem that refuses to go away, and certainly, not without a fight.

My way of fighting is to go to therapy, get enough sleep, stay on top of my medicine, workout, do things I enjoy, have alone time and time with people I love, eat well, journal and talk to God. These are the practices that have made a difference for me. But those moments when I am catapulted back into the original moment of pain feel like a setback. A big one. Beyond confusing and exhausting, it ticks me off.

It makes me angry at the people who caused the trauma. Angry at the person or situation that now reminds me of that trauma. Angry at the world for being so jacked up. Angry with myself for not being past this already. And, if I’m honest, a little angry at God too. Why? “Because I’m doing my part, aren’t I? Where is God?”

My anger temporarily blinds me to God’s many fingerprints that cover my story. Fingerprints that show up in the supports I have that are helping me heal, like therapy and friendships. But this blinding anger is a feeling that arises from some hidden bitter place in my heart, though I know better. My back and forth with PTSD makes me feel like I’m failing. And that makes me angry.

I have a friend that I appreciate and admire so very much. She’s a single mom and is working hard to raise her child to be a responsible and independent person with good character. Day in and day out, she invests every resource she has into this simple, but challenging goal. Yet, understandably, she sometimes gets overwhelmed and frustrated when the same mistakes and setbacks continue to happen again and again. Sometimes, she feels like she’s in this all alone. Sometimes, she feels like she’s failing.

One day, we were talking about a recent episode that brought those negative feelings back to the surface. And I saw something in her situation that I now see is true for me too. There’s a saying that describes it well. It says, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” In other words, she’s in the weeds.

When I look at her child, I see a person who is smart, funny, kind, considerate and well-rounded. In him, I see the totality of her efforts in a singularly beautiful form. I see it all blending and working together in even the simplest things. But I am on the outside, watching her strategic parenting from afar. And she’s too close to the details, too close to every decision, to see the effects they have on the big picture. She doesn’t see that she’s winning.

I realize that it’s true for me and PTSD too. Where I am now with PTSD is not where I was 4 years ago or even last year. Though the uninvited symptoms still show their ugly faces, in the big picture, they have less of a hold on me now than before.

Today, there are fewer episodes with intrusive thoughts. Fewer random flashbacks. Less insomnia. Little to no nightmares. Less anxiety. Less crying myself to sleep. Less stress. Less hopelessness. Less need to be hypervigilant. More confidence. More peace.

In the big picture, where I am now is progress, even if it doesn’t always look like it in the moment. And as difficult as this fight has been, it is exactly because it has been so hard that nothing could ever make me believe that I did any of that fighting on my own. When I take a step back and look at the big picture, I see that I’m winning too, with God’s help.

What about you? What problem has you unable to see the forest for the trees?

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