Note: as I’ve been experiencing a lot of “one-year” anniversaries this month, I’ve been writing every morning about each day, re-reading old journal entries and just writing through the thoughts and feelings and experiences of each day. That’s why this is “part 7.” You can find a few over on my Instagram (@katie.j.rose). Thank you for reading along.
Today, I’m wearing tights and a jacket outside at 5:29 AM, which is probably one of my favorite things to do, ever. Chill bumps break out over me even still—again, these are a few of my favorite things.
Last night, I laid in bed, pretty hyped up and unable to fall asleep, just praying and feeling the anxiety as I prayed; not attempting to make it go away before I approach the throne of grace. Isn’t that the whole point? To bring what needs grace to the feet of grace?
Why, then, are we so concerned with fixing ourselves out of these ways of needing grace?
Yes, last night, I was anxious. Tomorrow is Friday, July 27th. A year ago, my next journal entry is written at an airport, next to a plane that would carry me back to US soil. Would carry me “home.” But not really. My home on this earth is a series of places and people where and with whom I’ve left my whole heart.
But this week I’ve been slowly getting more and more anxious about it. It’s a big day. I know, for the majority of the people I will see on Friday, it won’t feel like a big day. It’s just a Friday. But I can see the hand of the Lord in every detail of it — having the day off work, having lunch with Beth, beginning Heart Camp. I can see him in that. I know he’s already there. Yet…I’m anxious. Literal little butterflies in my stomach. Tears easily in my eyes. Even now, as I sit outside and type.
Why? the Spirit prompts.
Because it feels like saying goodbye all over again. Letting that dream go all over again. Feeling the shattering all over again.
Does that scare you?
Yes. Everything scares me sometimes.
Why?
Because I don’t like change? That doesn’t feel like the deepest answer. Who does like it? No one. Ever. Yesterday, someone said to me — “Change is never a bad thing.” I think I would agree with that. But that doesn’t mean that we like the moments in between the change and the changing. There’s this whole system of dotted lines between the two. No one like that precarious interchange.
But again, I don’t feel that this is the truest why of my heart.
Maybe, it scares me because I’m afraid of what happens after the feeling.
As an Enneagram type 4, I love feeling. I’m all about those melancholy feels, and going DEEP with them. I’m okay with sitting with conflicting feels and all of that. But for the past few years, doing that — and the shattering that it has inevitably wrought within me — has led to a deep, deep depression that has been so hard to climb out of, so isolating, so scary. It’s not that I don’t want to go to these feelings, going deeper with the spirit, probing the places where words might be found…
It’s that I’m afraid of the aftermath. That’s been a dark, dark road. That’s what scares me most about tomorrow.
But you’re not alone this time, he whispers again. I think about my friend Emilee and the words we’re trying to write, about new friends and even wine and snack night tonight with ladies from church (a brave-hard thing I’m determined to do). I’m not alone this time. Beth will be there, and she will get it. New community will hear my story for the first time this weekend, in a safe place where others have walked through depression and even darker places than I’ve been in.
The Lord has not left us alone in what we’re walking through. Never.
That’s been true every single time in these last shattering seasons. I had HC. I had Kelli. I had counseling and people and INDIA, for crying out loud.
And now? I have friends who are looking at Jesus. I have a church that is SUCH a safe place. I have words and memories and desire.
Those are all heavy weapons in my hands. No weapon forged against you shall stand, the Lord says. Stand firm. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the evil one.
Or as the message puts it (very fight-song-y):
God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish…Be prepared. You’re up against more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet.
UGH, Ephesians 6. Killing it today. Killing my fear in one fell swoop. God has given me the weapons I need.
And you know what? He’s given them to you too.
