Two Months

I've now been here two months. I rolled into town and started my job two months ago today.

I'm a little incredulous, simply because so much has happened in such a short time span. Most of it is really, really good. I'm just reeling a bit and haven't had time to truly process. I guess that's why I find myself here instead of doing something about the paragon of pandemonium that is my bedroom right now (it's driving me nuts). I guess I need to get some of this out.

At the risk of sounding dramatic (what, me?), I truly feel like this move has represented a bit of a bifurcation of my life. It took a lot to get me off the West Coast, but when I was finally ready--I was all in. And, I know I'm only two months in, but there's been nothing to change my mind. I'm still all in, and it's honestly a kind of odd sensation for an inveterate itinerant like me. I'm happier than I've been in a long time, and the deepest part of me knows that I have followed my Father straight into the place He had for me. There is no shadow of doubt in my mind that I am supposed to be here, and I'm almost just as sure that this is a whole new era of life for me. And I cannot adequately articulate my gratitude.

Even still, a lot of good things all at once are still...a lot. I don't know where to start. Like I said, I'm sort of reeling. First I landed for six weeks with some close friends until I found an amazing home to live in with some of the most amazing, God-fearing people I've ever met. Then, entirely not of my own doing, as collateral of living with these amazing women I am already started getting embedded in a remarkable community (and possibly church) that is reminding me that church doesn't have to be the struggle that it has been for me the last 15 years. I love my job and I still can't believe that I get paid to look at books, help people find things, and coax them along their legal research way. Oh, and I get to speak French with a coworker nearly every day and my focus is on Foreign & International law. Pinch me.

There's more too--but that's for another day. Suffice it to say that my current struggle is to keep up emotionally with all that's happening around me and process accordingly. And praying, several times a day, for wisdom from On High: "Dear God, there's so much to navigate right now, and I am failing in some of it. Let love cover every multitude of wrongs and give me the wisdom of Solomon as I walk ahead in this human box I live in."

Praise God, I've also found a Dr. to work with. This week I got some not so wonderful news about what is going on with me and I've had a difficult flare up health-wise in the last week and a half, but I have faith that this won't be forever and I do know that treatment will start soon. And I'm grateful that this place is being more thorough than anyone else has been so far.

In short, I acknowledge that I may still be in the honeymoon phase, but I finally feel as if I'm with my people. I miss my family, but I am supposed to be here. I don't know how to say it otherwise.

My Daily Prayer

I walk up to the brazen altar and in my mind I throw all my internal mess on it. Sometimes it takes a minute--there's a lot. My soul breathes a little deeper as I watch my mess burn. I walk to the water basin that's next in the outer court.

Worshippers are supposed to wash their hands in the basin, and as they do so, they see their own reflection in the bottom of it. I almost invariably find myself getting my hands wet, and then my face too. I then watch my dripping visage in the reflection and I'm reminded of the fleshly façade of my humanity. My wet, dripping face being made holy by living water.

I turn toward the Holy Place and draw the curtain back and step in. I look up at the ceiling, the tabernacle tapestries shimmering with gold and telling me a story of all the stars that would be Abraham's descendants and how by some undeserved, intentional sacrifice I get to be one of them.

I look to my left, and I see the golden lamp stand. I walk toward it and finger the almond blossom figurines all over its gilded base. I remember what's remarkable about the almond tree: it's one of the few that bud, blossom, and seed all at the same time. It's in a constant cycle. The small flowers remind me that, when one thing is brought to seed in my life another is budding and God is always, always at work. I gaze at the flickering light on all twelves of the wicks, and I catch the faint scent of the freshly pressed olive oil burning.

I turn around and approach the table behind me. The bread of the presence. Manna. Daily bread. Made daily and never good enough for the next day too. Mercifully, that's His presence.

Finally, I come to the center of the next curtain and I light the altar there. A small stream of smoke wafts upward and a sweet smell overcomes the small, traveling chamber. The altar of incense. Prayer, it means. Here I go: my favorite part.

I draw back the final curtain and walk almost unceremoniously into the Holy of Holies--but still fully cognizant most days of what a privilege it is to be so familiar with it. This is my Place, where I belong, and many days I end up on my face because it's oddly comfortable and...well, perfect.

In my mind's eye, I see Him on the Throne above, the Ark of the Covenant as his footstool. And then I remember that my own person is now the Ark--I am where his feet rest.

"My Father, who is in Heaven above--hallowed, holy, sacred is your omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Name. The very utterance of it. Hallowed.

I ask that Your Kingdom, Your Economy, would come and Your Will be done here on Earth, in my home, in my life, and in my heart and mind as it is in Heaven. I pray I would live in Your Economy and not this world's.

Give me, Father, today what I need. Not what I want but what I need. And give me the wisdom to know it when I see it. You say if any of us lacks wisdom to ask You, for you give generously to all without reproach and so I'm asking: give me wisdom as you give me my Manna today.

Father, take my sins from me--as far as the East is from the West. Remove them from me and forgive me my transgressions. The ones I am aware of and the ones I am not. Make me holy and whole before you today. Give me the grace for others You have for me.

Holy Spirit, fill me. You are always present, but I ask that you would be unimpeded in me and fill me. Take me over until I am helpless to Your power in and through me. Take over my mind, my thoughts, my heart, and my actions. Fill me to the outer extremities of my limbs and take me over today. Go before me in all I do.

Father, let me not be led into temptation. Send it far from me, and give me the instinct to flee it. Deliver me from evil.

Father, Yours, and Yours alone, is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for now and all Eternity.

Amen."

A Few Things

I've recently had some major upheaval in some significant relationships in my life. I pray that my words around the upheaval I speak of would be life-giving and sparing. In all my own humanity, this season has brought me some valuable lessons that I've already begun to put to work (and I'm delighted so say I've already seen some fruit). Here are a few things this weird newness is teaching me:

• Don't assume. It doesn't matter how many years you've poured into a relationship, no matter how much you might think that years of walking a road together may have put you on the same page and you finally "get" each other, you don't always. In fact, probably most of the time you don't. And that's okay. This is where it can actually get really beautiful if you choose to be healthy about it. If something isn't clear: ask. If it's only partially clear: clarify. Don't assume. It can lead to really ugly things.

• Clear up misunderstandings or hurts right away. It might seem small, and you might think you're being "forgiving" by not bringing an offense up--and sometimes it might be true--but when you don't speak up for too many times, the little things you think you forgave add up. You end up thinking yourself a gracious person to the other for all the times you "forgave" them when, in fact, you were missing a huge part of the picture many times over and you actually completely missed where their heart was when they said or did something(s). This can breed unnecessary and destructive bitterness. So, if it doesn't make sense or sit right: ask about it as soon as convenient. You might be surprised. Sometimes you actually learn a ton about how other people think and it stretches and grows you. Ask, clarify, and don't assume. It also deepens your relationship.

• If it's not the kind of relationship where you can do this, it's probably not healthy. Enough said.

• Don't give more than you're getting over long periods of time. We all have seasons where we need more than we can give. Sometimes those seasons last months--even years--but if you've gone too many years without seeing effort that you need from the other person, it's not healthy or sustainable. Don't be selfish about this, but also don't be an enabler. Enabling is actually selfish and sometimes stems from control issues. (So let that go!)

• This one might seem obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me for too long: it's not just okay to have needs in a friendship,  it's healthy.  It's not okay to need a human more than Jesus, but it is okay to lean on your friends in times of need. That's why He put them there. It's not selfish to articulate your genuine needs. Don't replace God with friends (or any other relationship), but don't think it's selfish to say what you need to those who love you and expect that they will respond in a loving way. It's a vulnerable thing to do, but it opens up space for depth that you couldn't know otherwise.

• If it's not the kind of relationship where you can do this, it's probably not healthy.

• There's a difference between loving someone and loving them well. Strive to not just love someone, but love them the way they need to be loved. This can be confusing sometimes. Ask, clarify, and don't assume.

• I've learned that it is unsafe to assume that someone's behavior always demonstrates their heart. That idea is an oversimplification. Humans are complex beings, embedded in even more complex context, and we can't begin to know what is going on in someone's heart or attendant circumstances. In a healthy relationship: ask, clarify, and don't assume. You might be surprised how much you learn and how much more compassion you have to gain.

• Shame is not a friend. EVER. Nor is a friend whose input in your life brings shame. If someone's input brings shame instead of life-giving awareness, something's wrong. It might be your own narratives through which you're hearing the input (examine this carefully!), and it might be your friend's perspective or even delivery--regardless, something is wrong. Get to the bottom of it and address it. Jesus leaves no room for shame.

• However: I will fail. I will fail. I will fail. It's human. Healthy friendship loves through failure and is not a source of shame over your failure. I must also remember that others will fail me too, just as I fail them. I must have grace for myself and others as well all move forward trying to do better. But above all, it's not about the behavior, it's about the heart it comes from. 

• Have the courage to look in the mirror first. HONESTLY. Before you speak into someone else's life, or even before you think you've run across a fault of theirs, look in the mirror first. For a good, long, hard, time. Take someone else's shortcoming as an opportunity to be honest before God about your own. It's funny how that changes how you see things after that. A mirror is a powerful thing. But the key is to be self-honest about it. That takes courage.

I guess it's worth noting that the "upheaval" has been more freeing than I could have imagined. It's been heart and eye-opening and I'm truly grateful for it.

Spirit of/and the Law

Someone asked me the other day what it was I loved about the law. That’s a funny question to ask someone who struggled in law school as much as I did. But, the fact is now that I am two years out of law school I can now say that I love the law, and I can actually answer that question:

What I love about the law is how it gives you a deeper, and sometimes wider, understanding of how the world works. Almost everything we do is legally transactional in a way I had never considered or seen before I studied the law. I love that perspective. Furthermore, the “law” in the colloquial sense of the word also lends reflection upon other “law.” For instance, scientific laws are descriptions of the way things are—we can’t change them. How different from human derived “law,” where it is a local, national, or international construct that we choose to live by—or, pay lip service to. There’s agency involved (admittedly in some places more than others). I’m only scratching the surface of these thoughts.

Anyway, in pondering all this, the 5 years of my legal immersion have convinced me: I think that one thing we all long for in the law is clear guidelines that bring justice, to every situation, no exceptions. Unfortunately, it’s neither of those things, or can it ever be. We can participate in the creation and execution of a system that can attempt and even remain on a constant trajectory toward meeting those goals, but we will only ever be able to deliver a shadow of what true justice is in any situation. To be clear: this does not make its pursuit any less important. We are called as humans to never stop pursuing justice. But, honestly in today’s society I keep seeing people blame the system, trying to fix the system, and even perpetuating the (broken) system without ever looking inward. Really, it’s always been this way. This is why the system fails. It’s as frustrating for the observer as it is for those inside the cycle. And we all flip between those roles at any given moment. The law, while I love it, is necessary but…dissatisfying. Something’s missing.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this in the context of faith. In faith, just like with the law, human nature wants clear guidelines that bring us to the right result. Basically we hate but want rules. This paradox is the underpinnings of all organized religion, and the reason it continues to rise and fall. Just like in the law, though, there’s something missing. It fails to hit the mark. It’s dissatisfying.

I’ve had a few situations come up recently where I’ve been asked for advice. One sticks out in my mind. I was recently asked how to look for a church. “So…what do I look for?” It gave me pause.

The question didn’t sit well with me but I had to think for a second on why. We use this language all the time. “Church shopping” is what we usually call it. We are unabashedly consumer-minded about church, and it unsurprisingly shows up in our language.

I finally responded by musing whether it was the right question to ask. I was only halfway being Socratic, because I don’t fully know myself, but…I don’t think it is. I think the right question to ask is rather “where does God want me?” It’s a completely different approach and one that potentially opens us up to pain, hurt, uncertainty at best. But that’s the point, I think. Church isn’t about the needs we think we have, it’s about the needs God knows we have and He takes us exactly where we need to go, right? He is, quite literally, the Master of the counterintuitive.

That answer then begged the next question, which it was I think ties this all together with the law. My friend of course asked (the Golden question): “how do I know where God wants me?” The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that the answer to that question is the answer to all that dissatisfies.

It’s listening to Him. It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s that part of the Trinity that (most of) the Evangelical church puts on a back burner and replaces with a bunch of formulaic, damaging pseudo-answers. The law is missing love. It’s missing the element that sees all the nuances and knows how to individualize in order to arrive at true justice. In the same way, I often see modern day “faith” walks missing the “Holy Grey” that is the Spirit who knows ALL the nuance, ALL the motives, ALL the dynamics…ALL of everything so that He can lead you right where you need to be. Make no mistake. Listening to God is as difficult as Love, as painful, as trial-and-error, and as humiliating. But that’s the thing that satisfies. There’s no formula for it, there’s no right way to pray, there’s no one way to know you’ve heard God because there’s no one way that He speaks. It’s hard, it’s a relationship, and it takes time to figure out how it works for you. And you’ll fail meanwhile. But that’s not the point.

So yeah, that’s what I love about the law—and I also love what it’s teaching me about how faith works.

Repatterned

It's not a dictionary word, but it crosses my mind daily now. For the majority of the last decade, each year I've had one word that was supposed to be a theme for the year. Usually God gives me the word near the end of the preceding year. Last year about this time it was "health." A timely word. I can't believe what a different person I am just one year later. It was a bit of a ride, and I'm still not 100%, but I am doing so much better. Turns out the word was about my physical health (long story).

I'm doing just so much better that now I guess God is now moving to work on me more internally.  The word is "repattern." I think that's meant to address my mentality and patterns of thought around relationships, both in some specific ones as well as generally. Hitting rock bottom and then trying to climb out has uncovered this. This last year has been a process of realizing this lack of health, and I'm praying that this next year will be a process of truly dealing with all of it. I'm also realizing that process may include counseling.

There are all sorts of things that I was told or thought about myself that I believed and let shape me. Things I now "know" I'm not. I "know" because I understand these things in my head, but I'm still patterned to think them and live around them and therefore continue to be governed by narratives that are not true nor healthy. It needs to stop.

I'm not sure what exactly this looks like in the bigger picture. I do know that on a practical level it means not capitulating when I shouldn't, not apologizing and accepting responsibility for things that are not mine, not enabling, etc., but still doing all of these things with grace, nuance, and compassion. I have no idea how to get there. I just know that I can't stay here. I've been living in this unhealthy for so long and I am done. I want Jesus, I want His Economy to come and His Will be done--and I will work for it.

I heard someone say today that the kind of love we're called to, "agape" love, is a commitment to help someone become the best version of themselves they can become. That definition necessarily includes Christ because there's no other way to become that. That's what I want to do. Really, it's what I've always wanted but the patterns I've fallen into preclude that so I must be re-coded.

Here goes.

Sometimes Reasons Need Mercy

I’ve known at some point I would want to open up about the last few years on this forum. I have no idea who all actually reads this (I do know about a few of you), but this little blog has been a site of catharsis for me so I knew this would come at some point. Read at your own risk.

I made it through the longest fast of my life a few weeks ago. I was fasting for direction and cleaning house. I thought the “cleaning house” would come during the fast and had an idea of what that would look like. As usual, it didn’t look like that. The “cleaning house” has actually happened in these after-weeks. And it’s good. This is a part of it.

It’s a long story, and a hard one. I’m not sure when it all started, but I think it had already begun before law school. If that’s the case, it started at least 4 years ago. Anyway, whenever the slow fade began, law school accelerated it.

Where I’m eventually going with this is that I ended up in bona fide depression during law school and I wish I were exaggerating when I say I thought the whole experience might kill me. There were a couple of moments when I genuinely wondered if it might, and many moments when I actually wished it would.

I think it would be good for me to write about it.

I don’t need to go into too many particulars of all the events leading to the bottom of that pit, but here are a few:

• Leaving Alaska;
• Starting law school;
• An ADHD diagnosis;
• Trying to get through volumes of difficult reading (with ADHD);
• Trying to pay attention and follow difficult concepts in class (with ADHD);
• A car wreck in which I and most of my family should have died;
• Significant (though necessary) ruptures with unhealthy law school relationships;
• Trying to work and pay some bills while in law school;
• An internship in Italy falling through after I arrived there;
• No time to realize or process any of the above; and
• A lack of people around me that had known me long enough to know something was wrong (and help me get help).

That’s just some of it. Looking back, the first sign that something was really wrong should have been after the car wreck (May 2015). My father, mother, two sisters, and I miraculously walked away from a Jeep that rolled 1.5 times into a ditch and hit a telephone pole right above my head. The worst injury was my mother’s broken collar bone. The fact that I leaned forward in prayer for Jesus to literally “save us” is actually what saved me. I still shudder when I think about it.

My odd emotional reaction to the whole thing was genuine disappointment that I was still here. I struggled with why I was still on earth and a dear friend of mine who had also been in a car wreck a few years ago wasn’t. Normal, except that I was actually struggling with some jealousy: “why did he get to go Home and I didn’t?” I kept asking God. I chalked the strange reaction up to faith. Faith is weird, I thought.

I got through the next year of law school and the stress started to appear in my body. I won’t go into detail. I was just told that all the stuff happening to me was a product of “stress.” I made it through that year and I thought I’d landed the internship of my dreams in Rome that summer. I bought tickets, secured housing, and was on my way—on Cloud Nine. Finally, I thought, a breakthrough. Things were starting to make sense. The week I left for Rome things started to fall through. I got on the plane anyway, thinking that I could take classes in Rome again as a back-up plan (I had studied abroad in Rome the summer before--which is how I heard about the internship). That’s what eventually happened. The dream internship finally fell through completely in the first few days I got to Rome. I reluctantly enrolled in classes, and started some networking. Through some Divine Intervention, I found an unpaid internship in a little Italian business law firm that “happened” to be a few blocks from school. (If you’ve ever been to sprawling Rome, you’ll know that’s Providential.) I took it, and was immediately in over my head in Italian contract/legal terms. They were very good to me. But understandably I was reeling from the abrupt change of course. One that had game-changing ramifications for my career future.

So, the summer didn’t start out great. Suffice it to say, rock bottom happened in Rome, Summer 2016. I have since tried to put to words what that brief season felt like, but it’s hard.
It’s hard in part because some of it is foggy. I was not okay. It’s also just hard to articulate.

I remember a couple of weeks where I found it so difficult to get out of bed. I couldn’t fall asleep at night and then when I finally did, it was 3, 4, or 5 in the morning and so I couldn't sleep long before I had to get up and go to class or my internship. One day, I didn’t really mean to but I ended up not getting out of bed, groggily thinking no one would notice at the little firm where I was interning. I was wrong, of course. I missed work and finally got up when they messaged me to see if I was coming in. I apologized and told them I was sick, and that I couldn’t come in. I had never done that in my life. I didn’t realize what was going on, I was so far down a hole that I didn’t realize was a hole. And it wasn’t for lack of wanting to. It wasn’t for lack of prayer or faith or trying…I was either "doing all the things" or trying with every ounce of my ability to muster what it took to do the things—and failing—not realizing how dark things were getting in and around me.

I remember struggling with God and telling Him in the morning that He was the reason I was getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other. I knew that even though I wasn’t okay, that God knew what I was doing was out of worship. And I wanted that more than staying in bed--most days. I prayed my way out the door in the morning, through public transit and all the way to anywhere I needed to go.

I was regularly wiping up tears from the tile in my house after being on my face in prayer and then trying to hide my red face with makeup. I somehow was able to mosty conceal this from my roommate—who was going through her own version of depression (post-car accident, ironically).

I remember daily walking from class across the bridge to my internship and closely examining every car that was passing me by and daydreaming about one of them hitting me and knocking me into the Tiber river. I didn’t want to take my own life—that was not the “right thing to do”—but I actually wanted it to be taken from me. I had had a glimpse of what that might be like in the car wreck, and I just wanted that to happen. There was a tram that went across that bridge too, sometimes I'd imagine another pedestrian or bike rider accidentally jostling me onto the tracks at just the right moment. I remember some days sitting by the Tiber river watching the water flow and wondering if it was swift enough to kill me if I ended up in it. I still vividly remember the hue of water. I was obsessed with it for a short time without realizing it.

I think that my desperation probably sounded like anger toward God, but it wasn’t. It was just that: desperation. I was starting to get scared. All of my life, regardless of the bleak nature of the day, I had always been able see the next morning’s horizon. At heart, I’m an optimist. But I was losing that, and it was slowly terrifying. The “horizon” wasn’t just blurred, I actually couldn’t remember what it looked like. I only vaguely remembered what it felt like to see it, so I hung on to that, by choice. But the further I descended into where I was headed, the more scared I got—what if my rosy little life had shielded me from reality to the point that I couldn’t handle it?

Again, there aren’t really words to effectively communicate depression. One of the only ways I’ve been able to describe that rock bottom is that I was “seeing” life but unable to perceive it. I was going through all of the motions with no meaning because none of it would sink in, and I didn't know why. I didn't know how to make anything sink in. I went through the motions of everything I did: work, school, learning Italian, trains, make food, choke it down, coffee….more coffee. Try as I might, I couldn’t see past the hour or two hours I was living in. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, it was lack of capacity. I was praying the right things, I was telling God I trusted Him and that I knew He was doing something with the circumstances around me, that I knew He knew better than me….

I remember having a meltdown when I realized how soon the bar exam was going to come after graduation the next year and panicking. Later I was talking about it to a friend and trying not to burst into tears as I was discussing it with her and I was telling her that maybe I shouldn’t try to take the bar exam right after law school was over—she nodded, trying to understand, but also reminded me that the knowledge would be fresh in my mind if I took it right away. But I remember thinking that she didn’t understand how tired I was. It’s true, she didn’t, but I also didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be feeling those things. And I wondered how she wasn’t as tired as I was? Maybe I was just too weak for this, I thought. That certainly didn’t help thought patterns.

I couldn’t fathom making it so far as the bar exam, so I just decided to not think about it. I had so slowly faded into all of this that I had forgotten that it wasn’t normal for me to feel or think those things. It wasn’t until one day I was sitting in a two-hour class and I fought back a flood of tears for the entire duration of the class period, without knowing why. Something finally clicked when I realized I couldn’t hold myself together in public.

I don’t know why it took so long to realize. I called home, and I cautiously confessed to my mother that I thought I might be struggling with depression. She paused. So did I. Then she said, graciously: “Traci, it wouldn’t surprise me.” It brings tears to my eyes again remembering those words coming from my mother’s mouth. God knew I needed a loving voice of reason speak life into where I was. My mom did just that. She graciously walked me through all of the things I’d been through in the previous couple of years and added them up for me when I couldn’t. She calmly affirmed me and, above all, didn’t tell me I was crazy or needed to suck it up. She saw that I had had “one thing after another and depression would make sense.”

I remember falling apart on the phone, sitting on the gate outside the Jewish school next to my campus, praying none of my classmates saw me, and ugly crying to my mom while she spoke to me. I remember one of the military guards of the Jewish school coming over to check on me, and I remember trying to tell him that I was okay in slobbery Italian. He didn’t believe me (he shouldn’t have) but he left me alone. (I'm happy to say I find some humor in that memory now.)

Then I called school back in the States. I’m blessed to have gone to a law school that talked a lot about the epidemic of depression among law students and regularly encouraged us to tell someone if we were experiencing it. So, I did. I wasn’t at the “ideation” point of suicidal yet, but I was further gone than I had ever been in my life and I had no idea how soon I could get further—if that makes sense. I wanted to address things immediately. I was given a hotline to call and one of the professors in Rome (sort of disingenuously) offered to be there if I ever needed to talk. Whatever. But at this point, I had at least figured out I needed help.

I was supposed to fly to Alaska for my dear friends’ wedding, and then fly back to Rome to finish my internship. I remember holding my phone in my hand, about to call to  cancel my flight back to Rome from Alaska. I needed to be in a safe place and get help, I thought. But right before I dialed it dawned on me that maybe I should try going off my ADHD medication. Exams were over, maybe just try it, I thought. So, I did. I started sleeping a little better and the clouds started to lift, just enough, in a manner of 2 or 3 days. I was amazed. I called my nurse practitioner back in Minnesota and told her what happened and she told me that it was highly unlikely that it was medication related. Again: whatever.

I never touched that medication again. At that point I began the journey to try and manage things without meds. That included going to see the school therapist. I can’t stress enough: a good move. Through the course of our sessions, the therapist sort of echoed what the NP said in that, the medication was just a factor in the sh*t storm that led to my rock bottom moment. She also did the addition similar to the way my mother did, pointing out that in the last couple of years I’d experienced a significant number of the typical stress factors that often contribute to depression. I was grateful for the "validation" but at that point I believed I was out of the woods and over it. I could get out of bed in the morning and there was some kind of horizon, so I was fine, right?

Anyway, I made it through my last year of law school and began to learn about the benefits of guided meditation on the mind, exercise, time management, etc….I made it through the year but I now see that I was just too busy to actually know that I wasn’t fully healed yet. I was doing just better enough to get done what I needed to get done. I lasted all school year like that and then I left Minnesota to come back to Alaska for the summer. Then I sat for the bar exam in July of 2017.

Studying for that bar exam highlighted the fact that I was still not “out of the woods.” As it turns out, the journey out of depression has probably been just as long as the slow fade into it, and it’s been pretty difficult too. I’m only now letting go of “getting back to who I was”, realizing that I’m never going to be that person again, these last few years have irrevocably molded me, and I need to let God channel that into something good. We all know that’s not a day surgery.

Anyway, the stress to emotional turmoil ratio that ensued during the bar exam study last summer underscored that a) I was still not okay, and b) I needed to figure out space to deal with that. I had been planning on continuing on to law librarianship school last Fall. I ended up pulling out of the program last minute and taking a job as a clerk for the year here in Alaska instead. I wasn’t sure of my decision then, but I see God’s grace in it now. I have desperately needed this space to heal.

Providentially, I started to do research on ADD and natural ways to approach it. My research sent me on a journey of learning all about the connection between gut health and the brain. It’s fascinating and (quite literally) mind boggling. Early on, I read somewhere that there was a connection between gluten and ADHD. I decided to experiment and went off gluten.

I couldn’t believe the brain fog that lifted. It was actually a game changer. But, I still wasn’t sleeping well, and I was an emotional mess. I chalked it all up to studying for the bar exam (reasonable assumption given that it was genuinely one of the most terrible things I’ve ever had to do). Then I failed the July 2017 bar exam. Meanwhile, I was also learning that poor gut health can also be a huge contributing factor in depression. The more I read, I was determined that there was more going on that just “stress” and “ADHD”. I truly believed that God created my body to work a certain way, and something was interfering with that.

So then I started an Ayurvedic regime* to help try and “heal my gut” and clean it out to see if that would help with ADHD and depression. It was working! I was doing so well, I was able to concentrate at work, get exercise, I was sleeping better. I spontaneously stopped drinking coffee because I just didn’t want it anymore (yes, a brief existential crisis ensued). I was feeling better than I had in a while and it was even in the middle of the winter in Alaska! I felt like I was, again, finally “out of the woods.”

Then in January I went to Hawaii with my mom and sisters. We were only there for five days, but I spent the whole time feeling like I was trying to wake up. I couldn’t sleep, I felt achy and groggy and, most of all, frustrated. I came back home from Hawaii and I didn’t feel much better. I was so frustrated that I had been set back months. I was also scared because in Hawaii I had begun to feel physically like I had felt in Italy while depressed. I didn’t want to go back to that place. As I was having a moment of slight panic, I decided to go see someone.

I’ll cut to the chase: it took a few weeks but tests came back to show that I had a microscopic parasite in my gut, and some other stuff too. As a result I had become severely anemic to the point that my body was basically running on the iron I was intaking for the day. “That explains the fatigue” I heard over the phone. “Start taking iron right away.” Turns out that this parasite feeds on starch and carbs (gluten) and tends to come out when stressed. Side effects include (among other things), malnourishment, anxiety, and depression.

This was in February. Right now I’m on treatment to get rid of this thing, a strict diet of no grains whatsoever, and lots, and lots of supplements. However, it’s working—or at least it seems so! Based on how I’m beginning to feel, I’m realizing that I haven’t felt like I’ve had my own mind or body for the last few years. If I’m honest, I have no idea what healthy me feels like—there’s no telling how long my life has been affected by these microscopic organisms-non-grata in my gut.

At work, I can focus now. Turns out there’s also a correlation between iron deficiency and ADHD. I’m more productive and able to wrestle with more complex concepts. I even made it through working full time and studying for another bar exam with 0 medication.

In the last few weeks I finally feel like I’ve had a breakthrough healthwise. I wish I actually had words to describe how that feels. I am now so acutely aware of how my body’s health affects my mind and how both have been…on a journey. When I say “I’m feeling better” it’s not just that my gut is doing better, it’s that I can make it through a work day now without getting frustrated that I can’t tune out the people talking around me. I can work, concentrate, bill hours, and be productive—AND still have some energy at the end of the day. I’m not going home in tears at the end of the day wishing I could have actually focused on what I was paid to do and sorting through the guilt of that.

I can honestly say I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt this way. I can’t remember ever being able to get through a day like this without coffee or medication, or both. I have no idea how long I’ve had this parasite, and how long it’s been leaching nutrients from my body. There’s a part of me that wonders how long this physical intruder has shaped my emotional well (or not well)-being and therefore shaped who I’ve become. I am kind of looking forward to exploring what a healthy me is actually like. But, anyway, I also said I’d discuss what I’ve learned through all of this. If you’re still reading this, I’m impressed.

First, while I just outlined the bare events of the last 4 years of my little life, what is ever-present between these written lines (that I cannot truly do justice to) is God. While I have been all over the map physiologically, mentally, and even geographically, the ironic part is that I can say that the one area of my life that remained steady throughout all the other upheaval is my spiritual life. Still, I would not begin to say that I navigated all of the above well. When one is merely surviving, it’s hard to do it gracefully. I truly lacked grace in just about every way: for myself, for others, for the principle of process, for my geography sometimes…so many things. But as I look back, I see a writhing, weeping me at the foot of the Throne, asking God to keep me alive and give me what it takes to go through what He asked me to, with no idea what that would look like—and a daily prayer that I’d know it when I see it. And He did. I’m still here. I also see how God built discipline into me, and through this is giving me a foundation of compassion for others struggling with mental health issues.

Anyway, I’m not sure anyone ever does depression “well”, but if that’s even a thing let me be the first to admit: I did not. As a result, I lost some relationships in my life. Whether that is entirely on my shoulders or not is still something I’m sorting out. As another result, I failed the first bar exam. Yes, some of these things can be chalked up to an unwelcome guest in my body preventing it from doing what it was created to do—but, at least when it comes to some things, that’s a reason not an excuse.

I’m learning that sometimes people need to know their “reasons” for their behavior are heard, and grace is extended. “Love covers a multitude of wrongs.” (1st Peter 4:8) That’s what I needed. Thank God I received that from my mother, but I didn’t from some others. No, reasons are not always excuses, but they are not to be ignored either. Grace takes them into account. It’s so easy to put “mental health” into a box and divorce it from all other things and just call it selfish. In reality it’s so much more complex than that. And to really engage with this reality in someone else’s life takes discernment and involvement. I’m learning that, unfortunately, the Church is terrible at this. I want to be a part of a different Church. I want to see the reasons and move (with those I’m called to) toward health without allowing excuses. That takes a kind of love that’s perseverant and discerning. A, powerful, engaged, 1st Peter kind of love.

There is a sort of “meme” in the Evangelical church that goes “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” It’s patently false. He regularly gives us more than we can handle. That’s part of the point. I found out this week that I passed the bar exam the second time around. I remember hearing Beth Moore teach once on that part of the book of Esther where Mordecai looks at Esther and says, famously, “…who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) She said that often our “such a time as this” moment is when the “who knows” part of that sentence is turned into a “YOU know,” where YOU KNOW that there is no way you’d be where you are except by God.

I’m there. I don’t know what that means in the broad scheme of things as far as the “for such a time as this” part—and thank God I care less at this point, but the important thing is I know. I know that I would not have gotten through all of law school and finally passed that thing except that He carried me over the finish line. I KNOW. These last 4 years have made me face the extent of my broken humanity in ways that I never have had to before. I am more human than I ever understood. I can’t fully articulate or explain it. Here I’ve written a veritable treatise on what the last 4 years have looked like, but I can’t explain every moment of every case or statute I read and how often I prayed to my Father for clarity and understanding, and above all, focus about even the menial things. I can’t explain all of my interactions with Him and how intimately involved He’s been with this entire process. I would NOT be a lawyer but for Him. I know.

More than that, I’ve also come to grips with the fact that, while I have gone through the hell of my life these last few years, I am slowly becoming grateful for it. It almost makes me laugh, but this hell of my life is also the thing that is saving me from thinking I did it of my own accord. I can never say I did this all on my own that after what I’ve walked through.

THAT is grace.

I’m trying to memorize the book of James right now. Ironically (or not), as I’m contemplating the fact that a legal career is finally a reality in my own life I’m memorizing the second chapter which talks about the law. It talks about how you can follow all of the law except for one point and still blow the whole thing, but the punch line is counterintuitive: "mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13)

I needed mercy more than I knew and didn’t get it everywhere I should have. But, I’m learning that I’m grateful for that too because now I understand in a way I never could have without that experience that, truly, mercy does triumph over judgment. I need to understand this as a human, a Christian, a lawyer…a woman of God before all things. Mercy often (if not always) looks like peering beyond the symptoms and looking at what’s really going on. Sometimes the person going through hell doesn’t even recognize that it’s hell they’re in. “Who knows.”

Anyway, as I said, the journey out of depression has seemed just as long as the descent into it. I’m a little wiser now (I think) to say that I’m not actually sure if I’m out of the woods yet. I’m still processing and healing. My physical health has drastically improved and that’s done wonders for all areas of my life. I get sworn in a couple of weeks, and I’m praising God that law school is now irrevocably behind me.

Excited to see what healthy looks like.

Seriously, if you read all this I’m really, really impressed.


*If you're interested in gut stuff, I really recommend this eye opening book: The Prime, by Kulreet Chaudhary 

Thus Far

Today I found out I passed the bar exam. This was my second try. Words cannot begin to describe the exhilaration knowing that I am done with that part of my life—that I can continue in the legal field and I won’t ever have to do that part again. It feels amazing. I already feel lighter and I know that it will continue to sink in. That was an extremely difficult 4 years, and it’s over. Really, finally, and officially over. I get sworn in in a couple of weeks. 

There have been many congratulatory words today, which have been very meaningful. But I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to recognize publicly that this wasn’t me. Iknow that I didn’t do this myself. Yes, I worked hard, persevered, etc. But I wept when I finally had a moment: My Father carried me through this in a way I can’t really describe. I can’t put it to words right now, and maybe won’t be able to ever, but the important thing is, I know. This was the brand of difficult that won’t allow me to forget that I didn’t do this on my own.

I struggled with ADHD and depression all throughout law school. I finally got back to Alaska and it took me another 8 months to figure out that I was also struggling with health problems that contributed to both those things. I struggled all throughout law school more than I “should” have. (I say “should” because there’s theology there I don’t want to get into. The point is, I see God’s grace in it now, and it’s awestriking.) It’s taken me all year to crawl out of the hole I’d thought was “normal” and realize how unhealthy I’ve been—physically and otherwise—and I’m still crawling.  It’s taken me a year to get out of a pit of physical unhealth that I didn’t realize was largely (not entirely) the fount of my other emotional, mental health issues. I had flat out forgotten what healthy felt like. I’m only now starting to glimpse it again. It’s at once amazing and humbling. When we found out what was going on with me, my doctor said “I know why you didn’t pass the first time. We’ll take care of this.” And we are. Thank God.

But I know Who carried me. Who was there as I had to study longer, months longer than I had planned. I know what I’ve learned about perseverance and how not glamourous it is. I know the discipline and tears that I took to Him over and over. I know this wasn’t all me. I engaged with the process, yes, but it was only my Father that gave me what I needed to engage. This. Is. His. 

Somebody told me today that no one could ever take this from me. It’s sort of true, but it’s not really totally mine. It’s ours. We did this. He carried me thus far. I can’t take credit for this. And in realizing that I see the grace of God. For so many reasons He’s let me and carried me as we’ve walked through the hardest season of my life yet, but one of many things He’s protected me from in this process is my own pride: I CANNOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THIS. I DID NOT DO THIS.

Only I know this the way it needs to be known, and that’s all that matters. But I just want to say thank You, Father. You carried me thus far, and I know that. I know how much of this was You. Thank you from my tired, healing, full and humbled heart tonight.

I Love You.