the (JOY) of mothering

This is a celebration of motherhood. At one point I was afraid I would never get here. But God, in His goodness, has done a great and marvelous work in my heart. He has given me so much JOY!! Especially in the little girl He has given me.

the way she just fits perfectly in my arms,

 the delight the rattle of little toys bring

the fun of after bath time snuggles and conversation,

perfectly curled eyelashes, blinked incredibly slowly turn my heart into absolute mush.

 the delight her little freshly washed curls bring to my heart.

the teary-eyed wonder that happens almost every time she smiles her beautiful, bright eyed smile at me. 

the times when I can't wait for her to wake up, 

or nap time rockings that are sometimes more soothing and comforting for me than for her.

 cute little button noses,

darling, perfectly formed little hands with dimples for knuckles 

 sitting beside her, listening to her little voice, social cough, and occasional laugh,

walking into a room and seeing that I'm not home alone.

There are hard things about being a mommy. But they're mostly selfish things. 

There are hard things about being a wife. But they're mostly selfish things.

There are hard things about being single. But they're mostly selfish things. 

So HERE'S to the GOOD & BEAUTIFUL things!!!

They're all around if we would only open our eyes to see them!!

The Game-Changer

With the birth of my child came depression and with depression came revelation. I sit here humbled, broken, excited, and a little scared because EVERYTHING has changed. 

I will be the first to tell you that I hated being pregnant. It was extremely miserable. I became everything I said I wouldn’t become when I was pregnant. When Avi was born I was expecting life to become this beautiful thing of joy and happiness, I wasn’t going to be one of those people who complain about being a mom. This was gonna be wonderful, the best thing that ever happened to me, my life would have purpose, etc. Quite frankly, that was the farthest thing from what really happened. 

Avi was born and everything changed, yes, but it didn’t turn into something wonderful and magical. In fact it threw me into one of the darkest times of my life. It wasn’t her fault, I want to make that VERY clear!! It was simply the way God allowed it to happen.  I kept on thinking each week would get better, ending the week discouraged cause it hadn’t. Most weeks it felt like things were actually getting worse. I tried this and that, scurried here and there, thinking surely if I just get the right combination of details together I will finally find healing, life will be good again. I knew if nothing else would heal me my meds would have to eventually heal me. I prayed for healing to come, I was anointed, had some very Godly people pray over me, I renounced satan, I tried to keep my thoughts clean, I did ‘spiritual exercises’, nothing helped. I would feel better for a little but it would come back again. One morning, I was laying on the couch, shaking with fear, talking to Clint, praying and praying. He said something that hit me like a load of bricks, I of course, quickly shoved it off like it didn’t mean anything but it has come to mean so much to me, he said, “Maybe God can’t heal you because you are trying to heal yourself.” In other words, I was getting in the way. Like I said I brushed it off as if it were nothing. The next morning came and I did my ‘spiritual exercises’ which is basically personalizing Scripture and filling your mind with promises from God. It was a rough day. Really rough. I was doing everything ‘right’ but still not getting better. Life still was a black hole and I still had very little hope. I felt so confused and angry. Why wasn’t God healing me?!?! That afternoon while giving Avi her bottle, I gagged (it happens with my medication) so I ran to the bathroom, ended up puking a little bit and then just crumpled to the floor my head on my knees. I was too depressed to even cry. I sat there and thought, “Jesus, I have done everything I know to do. You’re the only thing I have left. You are my only hope.”  And I meant it. It’s one thing to say that it’s another to really mean it. I was at the very very end of my rope. The world was so so ugly. I was such a mess. He really was my only hope of survival. Left to my own devices. . .  well I was a product of my own devices. . . and it wasn’t pretty. 

My devotional is going through Hosea right now. It’s very timely. I see myself in Israel and Gomer so much. Throughout this depression I have been trying to find just the right doctor, just the right med, just the right amount of faith, I have been busy doing ‘right’ things, but to no avail. I have been pursuing all kinds of other gods/lovers, not resting in the love of the one who made me. I have been unfaithful to my first love. 

As time goes by He is revealing more and more to me. I wasn’t just doing this in this depression. I was doing this throughout my entire relationship with Him. I have never come before Him utterly naked, knowing that I have absolutely nothing to offer Him, seeing His holiness and my depravity, my desperate need of Him. In the past I have ‘cleaned up my act’ before I came to Him for forgiveness. I made sure I was doing everything right before I asked Him for help. On one hand I didn’t want to be a pest, on the other hand it was too hard to admit that I really am nothing, that there is no good in me. 

There’s a verse in Galatians that talks about the ‘offense’ of the cross: that we can do nothing to earn our salvation. I looked up the word in the strong’s concordance, it means stumbling block. I don’t usually think of an offense being something I stumble over, I usually think of it as something someone does to me. But I am beginning to really understand this verse, where as before I read it and was like, people are crazy, why would they be able to earn their salvation?!? Now I read it and am like, I’m right there. I’m stumbling over the cross, I am offended that I can’t be pleasing to God on my own. 

Do you know what it really means to have God really love you??

He made this beautiful earth, full of peace and joy. We destroyed it. We chose to follow the lusts of our eyes instead of the God who is the very description of beauty. We thought we knew better. We did that. 

He should have destroyed us with a glance. Of all the nerve of us. God deserved something so much better than that. But look, we knew better than He did, we loved ourselves more. 

He, knowing our desperate need of Him, sends Jesus, Who comes willingly and gladly, to become our sin. God pours out His wrath and hatred for sin onto Jesus, Who knew NO SIN. He NEVER sinned. It’s hard to fathom that especially when I see the gross amounts of sin I do on a daily basis. This perfect, spotless Lamb of God became my sin. He was willing to become utterly repulsive to His Father, so that my relationship with God could be restored. I’ve known this my whole life, but I haven’t really believed it. I haven’t really understood and I am fairly certain I will never understand, but I have gotten a glimpse of it and it causes me to shudder. To look at myself and think, “Brittany, you think you can somehow be worthy of that kind of love?! How arrogant can you be?!?” He died for my sin. My SIN. I am the one who walked away from Him, who constantly chooses herself over her God, and He became my sin, He took the punishment I deserve. Just so that I could once again be united with Him. I can not wrap my mind around that. 

Why would you make something, see it choose to serve itself over You, and then willingly die for it? Why wouldn't you just vaporize that thing??? Why not at least make it work for it’s salvation? Why would you become this very things sin, take it’s punishment, just so that You could know it again? Why would you want a relationship with something that can’t even love you on it’s own? Whose faith and trust you have to give to it? Why would you want a relationship with something so utterly beneath you so completely and wholly dependent on You? 

I don’t understand it. I can not fathom a love like that. I am utterly destroyed in the face of such love. I know, I know I can not earn that love. 

I stumble over it because I don’t understand it. I have turned to Gospel into some kind of horrible religion because I can’t admit what I really am. 

I am nothing. 

Absolutely nothing. 

I have nothing to offer this great big God who loves me. 

The only thing I can do is accept this free gift. I revolt at the very idea. Just accept it?! That’s really all there is to it?!? How can that be possible? How can I just simply get peace, joy, rest by just accepting it? I know I don’t deserve it. I want to earn it. I mean God’s really getting the raw end of the deal. But I look at it and see there is no possible way I can ever ever ever earn that kind of love. I would never be good enough, pure enough, clean enough, holy enough to deserve it. No way under the sun that that could happen. I am very aware of my depravity. 

This. is. a. real. gamechanger. 

It affects everything. The very way I see life. It for sure affects the way I live it. There is so much freedom in admitting that you are nothing and HE IS EVERYTHING, that you can do no good, He does the good through you, that you can’t even love Him in your own power. There is freedom. such freedom. 

It’s terrifying. It’s revolutionary. It’s beautiful. It’s a huge gamechanger.

To bask in the glow of His love. To choose to believe that He really means it when He says I love you. That nothing I do can change it or separate me from His love. He loves me. He is for me. He gives me the victory. It’s all about Him. Not about me. About Him, what HE can do and does do. 

Life changes when it becomes all about God. Things that were a big deal before are suddenly very very tiny. Things that were very very tiny before suddenly become a REALLY big deal. Everything changes. 

I am so thankful. So very thankful for the darkness and wilderness of depression. It stripped me bear. It feels like God took me out into the wilderness, took away everything I thought I had, in order to give me Himself. I am so thankful. Overwhelmed by His mercy and love. 

I am thankful for my husband, who faithfully prayed for and loved me during this time. Even though He didn’t always understand, he held me and loved me.  

I am also so thankful for the sweet friends that have walked this dark time with me. Stacy, Lori, Mom, Mariann, & Naomi, You will never ever know how much your sweet love and encouragement, your sometimes very honest, almost painful words, your prayers and faithfulness, meant and still mean to me. God knew I needed you. Thank you. Thank you for being there and for driving me to His feet. 

To those of you who knew about my darkness and struggle  and prayed for me. Thank you. I am so grateful. So extremely blessed. 

I know it’s not over. This totally changes everything. It means starting over. But He is faithful. He will NEVER leave me or forsake me. 

thoughts on some of my thoughts

I am listening to a series called “Transformed” by Keith Moore. It’s about renewing your mind, how we can control what we think about and how we do not have to dwell on each thought that comes to our mind. It’s been really interesting to me. I have been walking through life as though I am a victim to whatever happens to show up in my mind. In my mind I have thought that “well you just never know. . . you can’t be too confident in winning a battle because that’s pride. . . don’t get mowed over by that positive thinking mumbo jumbo because it’s just that mumbo jumbo. . .” I have been living the Christian life as though I am a defeated warrior and thinking that that’s the spiritual way to live.  Somehow I decided that God doesn’t really think that we will win the battles, I mean yes He wants us to but it’s kind of like just do your best and if you lose than you lose, you know you’re only human, better luck next time. I have thought that I had no control about what I think about and what I dwell on. I made doubt and anxiety into some kind of holy act. Honestly my life has been lived with a victim complex. It’s wrong. I am not a victim. I do have a choice in each battle I face, each thought I entertain. I can be confident that every battle has already been won not by me but by my God. I can believe that I WILL overcome everything I face because HE says so. It’s not an if or maybe, it is a promise. It doesn’t say they may overcome, or they might overcome, it says “they OVERCAME him by the blood of the Lamb”. It doesn’t say you might be a conqueror or could maybe be a conqueror, it says “in ALL these things you are MORE than CONQUERORS through Him Who loved us.”

I am learning so much but I still fail. In fact, I let satan ruin the better part of my day today. I didn’t throw out the lies that he popped into my head. You see you might not be able to keep a bird from flying overhead, but you CAN keep it from building a nest in your hair. I let him build a nest in my hair today. The whole thing of “did he really say that, brittany?? are you sure you can be confident in always gaining the victory?? are you sure this isn’t just a bunch of positive thinking mumbo jumbo that you are trying to temporarily fix you?? are you sure it isn’t just wishful thinking??” and the one that even sounds kind of spiritual, “are you believing the truth or is this belief (confidence in Christ) a lie that you just want to believe/allowing yourself to be deceived?” Guess what, there I was under his thumb again. He had me. But I don’t have to stay there. I can look at him and say, “God will keep me in PERFECT peace if my mind is stayed on him, if I am thinking pure thoughts, if I am not worrying about anything but praying about everything, if I am thinking true thoughts. . . I WILL HAVE peace. I am experiencing anxiety and fear right now so that must mean the thoughts you want me to think are lies and lead to death. I will not think them. I will overcome. I am more than a conqueror. I am overcoming you because Jesus came to DESTROY the works of the devil and guess what, HE LIVES IN ME. You are destroyed. You will NOT have my mind. I do not have to live in defeat! The JOY of the Lord is my strength. Not fearful thoughts, not thoughts of defeat, HIS JOY!! The thoughts that bring me JOY & PEACE are God thoughts, these thoughts/doubts are your thoughts, lies. I choose to think His thoughts!” I wish it were a little easier sometimes, my flesh is so weak and sometimes it doesn’t want me to put up a fight. I overthink everything, I want to know that I am right before I move forward so doubt is very real to me. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to know God’s will for me because I mean, really I just might accept something that just feels good to believe about God and isn’t actually truth. Where I came up with the idea that God wants me to be miserable I don’t know. . . My circumstances might not be great but God gives His children JOY not sorrow. Peace not fear. I have so far to go yet. . . but thankfully, He who began this work in me, WILL complete it. 

in His great mercy, He has afflicted me

this week. . . I am so glad I don't have to repeat it. As most of you know, I had another really bad breakdown on Sunday. So this week has been hard. I haven't spent one day alone. I feel like such an awful person. Like something must be seriously wrong with me. 6 weeks postpartum and still can't be a mommy. Shouldn't my meds be working and helping me? Shouldn't God be healing me by now?

I was anointed on Sunday, God told me He would heal me and I have seen improvement everyday.  But some days it's hard to stay strong and keep the faith. Today is one of those. I have cried a lot and struggled to keep my head above the water.  It's one of those days where I have to tell myself to trust God. Where I have to choose to believe His promises even though I feel like He is failing me. The deepest desire I have right now is to be well, to be able to be a mommy and wife again. To be able to stay at home by myself. To just feel like a normal human being. Where that was once a desperate feeling, it's now just a deep deep longing.

Days like today, I want to run up to every person I meet and ask for a hug. Then tell them to praise God for their normal fully functioning brain. The last thing you want is for your healthy brain to be taken away from you. It's a nightmare to not be able to think rationally. I have had moments, actually hours of sanity this week. Where I can actually think rationally and I look at the thoughts I am thinking right now as completely ridiculous, where I can look at my child and feel a bit of confidence in being a mommy. But when your brain is broken. . . it's broken. You can't process things or work through them. They just circle and circle. All you see is the blackness. Hope is something you have to choose to believe you have. You have to remind yourself that things will get better that this won't last.  You have to fight off the guilt that you feel with everything inside of you.

I struggle to want to live on days like this. Again, when you think rationally  your will to live is tremendous so I'm sure it's hard for you to imagine that and I'm sure it's easy to tell someone how selfish thoughts of suicide and death are. But when you're in it, you know that death is the only place of true relief and healing. Especially if you are going to heaven. Then your will to be well kind of takes over and you would do just about anything to just feel well again.

I know this post is kind of a haphazard post. It doesn't really flow. But it's where I am and sometimes I don't flow very well.

It's hard to think of God letting me go through this. I look at it and am like what's the point? I mean I can't think rationally, I am pretty much dependent on other people, extremely weak and in need of God, my poor baby girl and husband are left with someone who is just a shell of her former self, there is fear tremendous fear. I look at it all and think how unfair, how unfair that I have to suffer and that I have to be such a burden to the people around me. But in all reality, each depression I have been through and come out standing up, on very shaky legs but standing none the less, I discover a deeper relationship with God, a greater dependence on God and a faith in Him that wasn't there before. I believe that each depression has stripped away a bit of my flesh. I know I will come out of this one and see the same thing. Satan might mean it for evil but God always turns it into good. He, in His great love, allows me to suffer so that I might one day see His face. I know how hard it is for me to watch other people suffer and how I would do just about anything to take their suffering away from them if I could. I can't imagine what goes through God's heart when He allows His children to suffer because He knows the outcome will outweigh the current struggle. I can't imagine what it must be like to be able to take away the suffering but knowing that you can't because it's not good for this person to have it all good all the time. I think that takes a tremendous amount of love. Something I don't deserve. Knowing that He will bring me through this, He will bring healing to my mind, and that He will bring me out of it a little more refined and pure-- I don't deserve that. A thousand times I fail Him and still He loves me, loves me enough to make me into someone a bit more like Himself. No, that's not fair but in a completely different way than I meant it before. It's doesn't seem fair that I, a sinner, could be so loved by so great a God. It doesn't seem fair that I, the tiny created being on earth who constantly turns her face from her creator, could be so cared for by the One Who created her. That He doesn't just throw me away and start over is amazing. He actually takes time to refine me, to draw me even closer to Himself. No that's not fair. I deserve far less than that. The darkness may be consuming at times but He is GOOD. Far better to me than I deserve.

A Sacred Calling and the Redemption of an Ugly Heart

I've been struggling ever since Avi was born. Struggling with this whole thing called motherhood. I had/have postpartum depression. Through that/this time I have accepted a lot of information from Satan about motherhood. I accepted a lot of his views. I am not proud of it. I didn't even realize it was happening at the time. 

Satan convinced me that being a mom was all about me. That Avi was the cause of all my struggles-- my sleep deprivation, my ppd, being sick through my pregnancy, really the cause of my 'misery'. That being a mommy was supposed to make {ME} feel better and it wasn't.  I also accepted the idea that getting pregnant just sorta happened, that it was not God ordained. I got myself into this 'fix' and it was up to me now to 'get myself out of it' but there was no way to get out of it. I started to think that all my struggles with motherhood were my punishment for wanting a child and trying to get pregnant. 

Really it became all about {me}. It was ugly. I couldn't figure out why I was struggling with motherhood so badly. I started praying for God to heal my mind and redeem my heart. He faithfully brought all the ugliness inside of me to my attention. 

The Bible is full of verses saying that children are a blessing and a gift. It only makes sense to have Satan attack that and for my flesh question it. Satan loves to twist beauty into something extremely ugly. 

Motherhood is a sacred calling. Children are a gift from God, a reward is actually what the Bible says they are. Satan and our culture has made both of those ugly. Children seem to be commonly accepted as curses. Sadly, the comments that even some Christian mothers say about their children and motherhood lead you to believe that motherhood is a chore, just not even worth it, and children are such a curse. I know I am guilty of that. For that I am sooooo sorry. I don't want to have that view/attitude and am so grateful to God for bringing it to my attention and for giving me a glimpse of what His view of motherhood really is. It's extremely humbling. Extremely beautiful as well. 

God gave me Avi to raise. He entrusted a little soul into {my} care. He somehow trusted me enough to put her there. He gave me this beautiful little girl to love and to hopefully someday take to Heaven with me. The ONLY thing that will go into eternity with me. I can't take money, I can't take clothes, I can't take my house, the only thing I can take are the little people he gives me. Somehow he trusts me enough to put little souls into my care. That baffles me and humbles me. 

I used to think that being a parent wasn't a big deal. That to really make a difference in the kingdom of God I needed to be a missionary. I never realized that being a parent, living here in the states was a really big deal. A huge responsibility. That while some people he calls to live in other countries as missionaries and that is important, it is not any more important than the calling of being a parent. You don't just HAVE children. They are specifically and purposefully given to you. You with the help of God are responsible to raise them to serve God and love Him. It's kind of a big deal, y'know. It doesn't just happen. 

{I} have to be removed from the picture. It's all about {God} and what {He} wants me to do. It's all about the calling, the sacred calling, He has put on my life. So humbling. I can't imagine why He would trust me enough to do this. That He would give me this beautiful little soul to raise. 

I feel like I am doing a horrible job of explaining the picture of motherhood that He gave me. But I felt like I needed to at least try to put it into writing. In hopes of encouraging another mother who has been deceived by Satan, but also as a means of 'drawing a line in the sand' to say this is where I stand. I have been working on replacing the mindset of Satan with the mindset of God and it hasn't been easy. Satan has been very upset about it. His attacks on me are very real and very scary. I wanted to write it out to have some accountability and to make the discovery of TRUTH more 'real'. It might sound weird but it's something that has always helped me. I am humbled to think of God calling me to this great thing of parenthood/motherhood. I am also so grateful for His faithfulness in revealing TRUTH to His children, that no matter how ugly their hearts, He does NOT give up on them. 

"He who has called you is faithful,

and He will do it."

I Thessalonians 5:24

the battle continues

I don't know what to write today. Except for: I am so tired of feeling like this. So ready for healing to be complete. To feel like myself again. But depression doesn't work like that. It's all 'one day at a time' until suddenly you realize you are better. I know there has been improvement already but I'm still not whole. I still face fears and tears. I still wake up each morning knowing that it's going to be a battle all day long, go to bed at night exhausted and knowing that I get to do it all again tomorrow. It's hard. I am weary and feel beaten. I want it to be over. Heaven looks so beautiful.

The battle continues.

I am thankful that Avi is so strong. She seems to be very unaffected by her mother's turmoil. She sleeps and grows just like any other newborn. So so grateful for that.

I am thankful for my 'maid' Heidi. She is a life saver!! Takes Avi for me at night so I can focus on healing my brain at night with sleep.

I am thankful for my sweet husband. Who prays with me over and over. Who keeps me calm and reminds me that it won't always be this way.

I am thankful that this really is only a season. Healing is coming. I will get better.

though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

Today has been black. So dark. So hopeless. Mentally/emotionally it's up there with the worst days in this depression so far. I feel like a grape being pressed, all the life being squeezed out of me.

I woke up from a very fitful nap and felt like I was really losing my mind. I can't remember ever feeling like that before. Darkness was like a pond and I was being held under the murky depths-- drowning.

I cried out to God. I struggled against the desire to be bitter. Wanted to throw a fit, scream, 'how can you do this to me??' But somehow I managed not to.

I moved from my couch to lay under the shade tree outside. My precious daughter in my arms and the breeze blowing over me. Staring at all the green, I started saying Thank you. . . for the patch of yellow showing up in the tree, the promise of fall, my favorite season, in the air, the beautiful breeze Avi and I were enjoying, for the sweet little girl alive in my arms. I knew I was going to have to say thank you for the darkness. But I kept pushing it off. Struggling, struggling to be thankful, struggling to trust this God who is allowing me to suffer. The verse in Job kept popping up in my mind, 'though he slay me, yet I will trust Him'.  I couldn't say it. . . I didn't want to trust God.

Finally after wrestling with God for a while, I looked up in the sky and cried, 'Though you drown me in blackness yet will I trust you. I surrender. I don't understand why you are doing this but I choose to trust you and choose to be grateful for it. I choose to believe you are good even when life is hard. This is my stand! I will NOT be moved!'

On this ROCK I stand and will continue to stand. I don't know what He has in mind for me over the next days, weeks, months but I will not give up on my faith in God. I will not let this darkness cause me to loose sight of His goodness and mercy. Today I make that choice.