Unprepared

Opera House Red and that's just her living room walls (until her husband makes her paint it). Kim's got more color in her life than a fruit salad, mixed in glorious chaos with elegance, wit, perseverance and unshakeable conviction. She doesn't like to talk about integrity because she's too busy living it. She's passionate, obstinate, and sometimes sounds like Whoopie Goldberg on truth serum. I've loved her dearly for nearly thirty years. Read her own blog: Mountain Home Companion, but today enjoy her guest post here:

Ordinarily I find my monthly reminder of the curse bearable. I know what to expect. A couple days of irritability and depression and the strong urge to cry, probably a day of really bad cramping followed by a lightening of mood that is nearly euphoric because it follows hard upon such a depressive low. Generally I manage not to act out too much because I know what to expect and I know the feelings are hormonal, and thus are a magnification of small disappointments, hurts and sorrows. I deal by keeping my mouth shut and warning people when I am on edge a bit, and by apologizing a lot when I over-react. This past week I found myself floundering, not because anything was that terrible, but because my expectations weren’t met. Guys may age with thinning hair or an ever-increasing forehead, and I’m sure some of what they go through stinks, but I find the hormonal changes at this early age unexpected and really annoying.

This month, for added fun, the cramping and depressive mood hung on for days. Five very long days. Ask anyone in my house. It was a very long week. Oh not the first day, which I expected, but when the expected mood lightening didn’t happen, and I never felt that wonderful lift in spirits I have come to expect over the last several months, I gave in to the black mood. I had geared myself up for a short sprint and used up my strength, having no idea that this was going to be a cross-country run.

I would love to tell you that I turned to the Lord and allowed him to empower me with his strength, but I didn’t. Even the wonderful joy I experience being part of the worship team, and the excitement and pleasure in singing praises to God didn’t reach the deep level of exhaustion and weariness. One day this week, finally realizing that I could not continue as I was, I headed out to a friend’s house several miles and a world away. When I called to ask if I could come I heard the hesitation in her voice, but then she said “If you don’t mind if I work.” She had to give haircuts to 13 of her 50 goats, the ones she is showing at the Boulder County Fair this coming weekend.

I rushed home to change into clothes that can get stinky, dirty, and torn without causing me any distress and headed out. It was mid-afternoon and I had put in several work hours already, but had been relatively unproductive. It was a hot, humid afternoon, and the barn smelled of goats, hay, manure, and sweat. Not a bad smell, but earthy.

For the next several hours I swatted flies away as I watched my friend shave one goat after the other in the sweltering barn. We were able to catch up a bit, and in the sharing, the heat, the sweat, the animals, and the fresh, albeit “earthy”, air, running the goats out to pasture for a bit, watching them feed, petting, playing, and having several goats chewing on the hem of my shirt, my good humor returned.

The tension and anxiety I’ve felt building lately, that had only gotten worse with my monthly visitor, was washed away, and I slept better than I have in ages. Even tramping through a field of ragweed and the headache that followed didn’t dampen the effects of simply being with my friend in her simple but hard-working life.

Today I find myself thinking about Elijah, who had his time of discouragement just after God has done a mighty work through him against the prophets of Baal. In a very public triumph, God showed himself powerfully, but upon the completion of that task, and after watching God do mightily, Elijah showed his human weakness. But God did not scorn him, he cared for him and sent ministers to him, revealing himself in a still small voice. There is such comfort to me in my own times of weakness and depression in how God treated Elijah. Were there recriminations? No. There was restoration for body and spirit.

Okay, I know that dealing with the monthlies is not the same as battling the prophets of Baal and their wicked queen, but we battle many things in this life that are discouraging and try to sap our spirit. For me it is physical disability, financial distress, family discord, and sometimes just the feeling that I am very alone in this world with few to understand me. It may be spiritual warfare, lack of visible improvement in situations we pray for, whatever. Perhaps for you it is the daily battle to remain true and upright in a godless workplace, trying to stand for righteousness without being self-righteous, being gracious in a graceless society, or living out grace and mercy in a church that preaches it but doesn’t live it. Perhaps your family doesn’t share your faith, so you are constantly being tugged in two directions. Perhaps you are raising kids on your own after the man/woman to whom you pledged your life walked out the door. Perhaps you are mourning the loss of a loved one. Perhaps you are dealing with your own failures, bad choices, missteps and misdeeds. Or perhaps, like Elijah, you have just come through a time of seeing God work mightily through you, and now that the work is done and you have come down off the mountain, normal life is overwhelming you and depression

Perhaps your restoring time won’t be on a goat farm, but I pray that you will have that time. It can be alone with God, where his simple presence heals and restores your spirit or it can be when you are with someone who shares your faith and lets you fall on your face without judgment. Perhaps it will be simply being with those who believe in the God who cares and who can remind you that even when life is at its worst that you are loved. May you have your time of restoration.

Blessings on your head.