what's going on??

I am going through a weird time at the moment.

God is doing some stuff, but I am really unsure how to quantify or express what is going on.
I am not asking anyone here to tell me or explain, but I just want to record some things, in a bid to try and make sense of them a little more.

I love my life: I love my God, I love my husband and I love my kids. I love my church, I love my friends, I love God's creation, and - dare I say it?? - I love myself...

And yet, I am really struggling.

Why?

There is too much going on. Although, is it really too much?

Oh boy, where do I start?!

I have been trying to come off my antidepressants... I started taking them shortly after Ben was born, as I was having a really tough time. I was in a dark dark cloud the whole time, and, frankly, life just didn't feel worth living! But I now recognise that this depression had been hanging over me for way longer than I was aware at the time, and God subsequently allowed me to have some sessions with a wonderful therapist. Although she wasn't a Christian, my sense of God healing me and peeling back layer after layer through those sessions was incredibly powerful every time I went, and I can say for sure that He dealt with a LOT of stuff and took away a lot of my pain: stuff and pain that went back years and years.

Today I am in a place of incredible freedom and joy, and can really testify to God's power at work in my life so far. Yet this is an ongoing process, one that is likely to go on for the best part of my life. And I am greatly aware that another season of healing is about to begin for me. I am quite nervous of how I will cope without any extra artificial chemicals in my body. But I am so ready to step out and 'test the waters'...hand in hand with Jesus.

Before I continue, I really need to be very clear about something. I am very willing to say that without Phoebe's help or the tablets, I would not be where I am today. God in His wisdom, chooses to heal us in lots of different ways and one of thoses ways is to work alongside and through health professionals and medication; I get extremely angry (although still find it hard to actually confront face to face) with Christians who tell me I shouldn't need medication, or seek help from health professionals, for matters of the heart/and any kind of mental health dysfunction. If you know you have some form of mental problem, you should never hesitate to get help from those who God has gifted with special understanding and insight into these things, including people in churches who have a known ministry in this area, as well as those mental health professionals!! Who are you to think you can manage on your own?!?!?! Or drag other people - just anybody - down with your own problems when there are people you can see who specialise in dealing with your problems??!?!?

Rant over - for now (can you tell I'm wound up?!)

The other reason why I knew I needed to go to someone who was a professional was that I felt I had a right to offload to her, and that this wouldn't become a burden to her, because that was what she was paid to do and what she had spent many years training for:

a) I would hate to think that I was being a burden to anybody (unless they were a very close intimate friend who was also willing to share her own struggles with me and it was a two-way reciprocal thing)

b) also, unless I was sharing something with someone about myself with the express purpose of helping them and building them up, for me there would be no ground for doing so.

I hope this is not confusing or upsetting or annoying for any of you reading this, I feel I have not made myself as clear as I would have liked regarding the above, and although I feel very strongly I am not always good at conveying my feelings in writing or verbally. Please feel free to feed back, but be gentle with me...!!

OK.

Now where was I??

As well as trying to weane myself off the tablets, and therefore trying to cope with the inevitable side-effects this brings, there is lots going on in my life which is causing great exhaustion...and strain, and making me feel slightly overwhelmed and unsettled. Some (-all??) of what is going on is to do with God pruning, refining, cleansing me, and Him preparing me for greater things, a new adventure? I am excited by the knowledge that He is at work in my life, but it is not a comfortable place to be.

I don't want to get too specific right now, but I can definitely say that in areas such as time management and boundary-setting, I am having to reassess what is right for me and my relationship with God, for my family and my marriage. And there is a fierce battle raging within and around me, for who/what should have my heart, my time, my energy, my attention, etc... This battle has, I am sure of it, really affected my mood in the last few days and weeks: my patience is short, my energy is low, my sleep is not as restorative as it should be, and I feel often physically achy, nauseous, not 100%.

However as I said before, all of this is accompanied by a deep sense of peace, joy, wellbeing and of God being at work in me.

Enough said, this is so convoluted and long-winded that I think I have succeeded in confusing even myself!!

I will finish this by saying again that my God is Good, He is faithful, and He never puts us through stuff just for the heck of it. He has a plan and His plan is Good. I know that my God is full of grace and wisdom, and I gladly surrender my ways to Him, because that is the best thing to do, it is the only way.