Getting Back Up, Again

Last updated on January 20, 2023

Last time, we thought about what it means to guard our heart.  In that process, I’ve done a fair amount of reflecting on areas that are weak in my own guard. As Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun, so I thought sharing my weaknesses and how I am moving through them might be something others could relate to.

It is June 2020 and much of the United States remains in various states of “lock down” due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Since March, my family and I have been mostly sheltering at home.  Our usual involvements outside of the home have concluded or moved to virtual options.  It gives us a lot of time with each other and leaves me with my own thoughts. Spending that much time with the challenges in our household and within myself, without much interaction with people outside these walls led to a bit of depression.

I’ve been here before, in the shadows of depression.  Not a fun place, but we all get there sometimes.  None of the things I used to enjoy were enjoyable anymore, and little in life seems worth the effort.  But there are good days and bad days.  It’s all part of the journey, they say.

I thought I needed to get out and away, and I had a scheduled road trip with my sister.  To be honest, looking forward to that trip is what got me through a lot of days.  But as hyped up expectations often produce, I was disappointed when the trip wasn’t the breakout party I wanted.

Still, it was a good trip.  It cleared away my everyday commitments and helped me to get better perspective on the state of my heart and mind.  I spent most of the trip in a fog I just couldn’t get out of.  It was like the whole world was covered in a thick mist and I just couldn’t get through it. I was there. Things were happening. I was physically functioning, even laughing genuinely from time to time.  But the fog hung heavy yet.

We made it home safely from the road trip.  The kids seemed happier under Dad’s watch than they had been under mine when I left.  I started to wonder if I was the problem.  If all the tensions and conflict in the house were my fault.  Maybe the house ran better if I took a back seat?

Praise God for my therapist.  She called out the depression for me and that naming of it has helped me to resume some control over this path I’m walking.

Some days I’m able to walk with confidence, and other days I’m crawling or even just sitting in the path staring at the pebbles in the dirt. 

God is using this to teach me a greater understanding of resilience by the power of Christ, because I can’t get back up on my own when I’m like this.  I can sure try, but it’s not sustainable.  When I’m trying to do it myself, it’s because I believe I “should”.  Like I owe someone something. 

I don’t.  And you don’t.  All that we owe has already been paid.

Getting Back Up: Why

Yet, I am doing the work to get back up again because:

I am determined to believe God has good for me.

How great is your goodness that you have stored up for those who fear you and accomplished in the sight of everyone for those who take refuge in you.

Psalm 31:19 CSB

I am determined to believe God has a plan for me and my life.

“For I know the plans I have for you” ​– ​this is the LORD’s declaration ​– ​”plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11 CSB

I am determined to believe God values me and all the people around me

The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in faithful love. The LORD is good to everyone; his compassion rests on all he has made.

Psalm 145:8-9 CSB

I am determined to believe God has given me a role to fill and uniquely suited me for it.

Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God. If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:10-11 CSB

I am determined to believe there is great joy in engaging with God and his plan.

You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.

Psalm 16:11 CSB, see also Acts 2:28 CSB

Each of those determined beliefs are more than just ideas.  I’ve lived them in fits and starts throughout my life. I know they’re true. Still, they are demonstrated not only by my past story, but by current action. By living out the beliefs now, on this day, even with this mess going on in my heart, I continue to declare them true for the world to see.

Getting Back Up: How

How am I living out these beliefs? By choice.

I am choosing to come back to my life, rather than living inside my mind and letting the fog overtake me. One of the ways I am doing this is to make a daily routine and stick to it, no matter what I’m feeling like that day.

Sometimes it’s a schedule. Sometimes it’s just a checklist. It always includes a cup or two of coffee, some food (today it’s apple butter coffee cake), time with Jesus just being with him Mary-style, writing, some household chores and projects, some family time, and some recreation and outside time.

It’s hard to get through my routine most days, so my sister does it with me. She’s living with me right now until her new house is ready. So thankful God has given me her companionship during this season. Get a routine buddy. I highly recommend it.

I am choosing to honor the roles God has given me with my family and with the world. At home, I’m a wife and a mother. I am the manager and keeper of the house while my husband works an intense job away from home during the days.

This is a difficult job. We have two kids still at home, both with ADHD, though it manifests differently in each. The oldest turns thirteen the day after this post goes live, but we’ve been in the teenage tantrum stage for a couple years now. Maybe that means we’ll get through the rest of this tempest sooner, too? Pray for us.

The younger is our tender-hearted, overly dramatic, only girl. She is an artist through-and-through. She’s a free thinker who needs a lot of reigning in, but it’s tricky to do without squashing her creative spirit.

I am exhausted nearly every day working to love them well and train them the way they need for the season they are in. They train me plenty, too, I can tell you!

On days when it’s especially difficult, my tendency is to want to check out, to take an extra nap or a really long bath and just hope they don’t kill each other or burn the house down. While there’s an appropriate time for a nap or a long bath, checking out is not what I am choosing.

Instead, I am choosing to love them in the hard. That is the role God has given me, and no one else can be the mother to my children or the wife to my husband. Those roles are mine. Gifted to me by God. I will not turn away from them.

Even though I have no idea what I’m doing. Which leads us to my next choice toward getting back up again.

I am choosing to hold uncertainty, rather than run from it, and lift it up to God when it crops up daily. This is so much the main thing right now. Roles aside, living simply as a person, there is much more uncertainty than certainty. Throw in wife, mom, friend, and writer and it’s all one big, “Do I really want to walk into that?” Yes I do. “With fear and trembling” (see previous post for what that means…it might not be what you think).

The image below is the wallpaper on my phone. A friend sent it to me as an encouragement on a particularly down day. I look at it whenever I feel the fog creeping in and it helps me to remember I’m not the first to live through uncertainty, I won’t be the last, and there is a good and whole way through. Perhaps it will also encourage you.

Getting Back Up: With Help

All the previous things are fine and good, but they risk the appearance that I believe I have the power to pick myself up. Oh, Friend. I do not. I can have all the great plans in the world and all the intention of executing them, but the power to get back up again comes from only one source: The Spirit of Christ, The Holy Spirit.

Jesus told his disciples about the arrival of his Spirit after his physical body would no longer be with them. It is recorded for us in John 14.

“If you love me, you will keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. … But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

John 14:15-20, 26 CSB

He gives us his Spirit as our Counselor, when we have no idea what to do or even how we feel. He helps us. He helps me. He brings me to scripture so that I can remember the words from God about how loved I am and about the ideals I hold tightly in my heart.

He gives us his Spirit to be with us forever, he remains with us and is in us. Because of this, we can know we are never alone. Even with our dark thoughts. Even walking through the fog. Even when we can’t even see the path anymore.

He is Christ’s life living in us, the power that raised him from the dead and the power to go through a life in which everything was against him and yet he maintained purpose and joy. That life and power lives within us. It doesn’t go away because we’re depressed or having a bad day. It’s always there. It raises us back up when it feels like all life has left us.

And the Spirit teaches us all things and reminds us of what Jesus has taught us.

So we get back up again.

So good.

I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know both how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content ​– ​whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:11-13 CSB

Like Paul, I am more often than not at the end of my own capacities.  The work is for me to submit the best of what I have to Jesus and for him to accept these ashes and bring forth blessing from it. It is his strength by which I live. It is his peace that allows me to be content in any circumstance.

His is the power that redeems me from the pit, restores me to my rightful place as his dear daughter, and remains with me no matter where I go or what comes my way.

Getting Back Up: For Him

ALL that to say, I am getting back up for Jesus. Because I love him. And I love him because he loved me first.  And I am getting back up for others.  Because Jesus loves them, and so I work to love them with his love. 

This means, even when it’s hard, I love.  Even when I don’t know how to love, I love.  Even when I feel like I am drifting away, I remember that I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and I give this life to him to use as he wills (Galatians 2:20). 

He has paid for it, after all.  It doesn’t belong to me.  And even as I submit in that way, I know that he doesn’t want to use me up and pour me out for his selfish purposes.  He is a good God. He doesn’t–can’t–do that.  No, he is also working out what is glorious, good, best, and satisfying for me and for his people around the world.  Because he loves us and I can trust him even as I give myself away in his service.

Are You Getting Back Up?

If you, like me, are doing the work of getting back up, I’d like to send you off with this benediction: rest in the comfort of Christ. Remember the one who loves your soul. Choose him and his way in this moment. Rise, Friend. You are not alone.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 CSB