Well, hello there.

Hello indeed.

After nearly a year of not putting any blog posts up, and several weeks of wondering if I should maybe possibly get back on here, and several days of adamantly avoiding this thing... I'm back. I tend to avoid writing when I'm trying to avoid something in myself, so maybe that's been the case, at least in part. Honestly, though, I never did really get in the habit of posting very frequently and/or consistently on here, and I've spent a lot more time with my own personal journal(s) in recent months than I ever have before.

I've changed a lot over the last year. A lot's happened, after all... And I have learned and grown more than even I am yet fully aware, I think.

Even the last few months have been radically transforming for me, but not in ways I ever would have expected, nor that I would have necessarily wanted if I'd known they were coming. And yet... I actually asked for some of the hard things. Crazy, I know. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Then again, I don't suppose it was me getting into anything: it was much more God taking me by the hand and leading me into a gloriously unpredictable adventure.

And sometimes you have to wend through the brambles on the way to the blackberries.

Back in, oh, February or so, there was one particular day that I was doing nothing spectacular -- driving back to my apartment, I believe -- when I actually asked God to teach me to be weak.

And then realized what had just come out of my mouth and absolutely panicked.

In other words, I thought OH CRAP (...though my word choice may have been slightly different?) and spent the next several minutes trying to take it back and arguing with Him. He, however, did that crazy thing He does and showered out love and peace (particularly that) and grace over me... and I did that crazy thing called surrender. For that moment, anyhow.

From that point, He has been teaching me how to be weak; and I'm strangely glad for it. I don't think it's in our nature as humans to "delight in weakness," as Paul puts it. Not at all. We do what we can to save face, to project brilliant images of ourselves, to sweep our faults behind the masks we so expertly affix to our faces, and to pretend that no darkness dwells within us.

Personally, I try to embody perfection in every capacity. That's been my tendency since I was a child. And though I know I never can be perfect, I often pretend that I am. I strive to be in every realm that I could possibly reach perfection (and people's different definitions of perfection, for that matter) -- intelligence, fitness, work ethic, even spirituality and love -- and, honestly, fail miserably. Over the last several years, I've come to realize the futility and pointlessness of that desire. It took until this spring, though, for me to confront the reality that striving for perfection is, with no exception, an attempt to run from grace -- an attempt to tell Jesus I don't need Him. Is there anything wrong with striving to do the best I can in any and every area of life? No. Unless my motivation is (or becomes) self-driven rather than love-driven... and, really, Love-driven.

So. There's that part of things. I'm learning to throw away my desire for perfection; or, if not that exactly, to acknowledge that desire while desiring, above all, to love and follow Jesus. To realize how utterly dependent on Grace I am. To know how fully, extravagantly, and ridiculously loved I am by the greatest Love of all -- despite my failures and faults. And yes, coming to the end of myself in this way is a bit strange and exhausting, but HE is worth that. He is a much better sustainer than I ever could be; He extends much more and better love than I ever could or would give myself apart from Him.

And then... not long after I asked God to teach me to be weak, I was spending time praying one evening, and I distinctly heard Him ask me a question. I've never actually heard Him audibly speak, but I have heard Him speak... and He asked me, of all things, if I'd be willing to step back into depression.

Naturally, my first reaction was WHY?!?!?

I've dealt with episodes of depression since high school. I didn't talk about it then, really, because I didn't know (and didn't want to know, honestly) what was going on in me; I felt like I had to explain it or have a reason for it before I could tell anyone that something in me was wrong and broken. At that point, too, it was infrequent and inconsistent. That didn't do much to help with my experience of it, but it did help me explain it away and, in some ways, deal with it on my own. And then I went to college, and the worst and longest episode I've experienced to date hit, alongside a massive wave of spiritual attack. I thought I was crazy. I thought day after day that I should tell someone, that I should ask for help, that I should find a community... and I tried, but I felt like I was powerless to speak, to explain, to reach out. And at that point, I probably was.

I'm still not sure how I got through that stretch. I wanted to cut, but I didn't. I wanted to die, but I kept waking up, and getting up, and going through the motions every day. I wanted to kill myself... and somehow never "had the guts." (But really, He kept my hands on the steering wheel.) But somehow, by some mysterious Grace and Glory, God kept me through it, and He proved Himself utterly faithful and unshakable in the midst of something that broke and nearly shattered me.

It was the reminder of that faithfulness -- His constancy, His very BEING, and the knowledge that He is immovable God and is worth loving and following regardless of my emotional state -- that brought me to finally say YES as He continued to ask me if I would follow Him, even again into depression after basically a two-year hiatus.

Maybe I'm crazy. It remains, though, that He did ask if I'd be willing. And though I don't really have a desire to be depressed -- there's no way that I'd ever resign myself to it -- I do have a deep desire and need to follow Jesus wherever He leads. I do not at all believe depression is from Him; I do, however, believe He allows it sometimes. If I, and others praying for me, ask for it to be removed, and He doesn't do so, then He must have a reason for it. And, trusting that He is who He says He is and will be faithful to keep His promises, He would use even this for good.

Because oh, do I love Him. As much as I can -- and with all the grace He allows me, as much as He enables me to -- I LOVE Him.

Funny thing. It took me a few days to finally say that I would follow Him into that. That I would indeed be willing, though I certainly wouldn't prefer it. When I finally did say that, though, I expected it to hit right away.

But it didn't. So maybe it was just a question, I thought. Maybe it was just a test, a thought process, a wrestling with God. Maybe nothing more would ever come of it.

....Or maybe it would. About a month after that, it hit out of the blue.

Depression is strange. Sometimes it's like a constant fog, though it clears a bit some days; sometimes it's like a brick weighing on your chest and sinking into the pit of your stomach; sometimes it's a series of aches and pains and random muscle spasms; sometimes it's an overwhelming, dark heaviness that infiltrates every emotion, every action, every thought. It isn't always demanding and controlling, but sometimes it is. Those days are the hardest.

The strangest thing in all of this to me, though, is the way that Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in me, are renewing and re-molding my mind. Do I like depression? Oh, that's funny. No, of course not. But I am, in so many ways, grateful for it. Not every moment, not every day... but, increasingly so, I'm grateful for it because, and really ONLY because, I am absolutely convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. He reveals that love through His own presence, absolutely (and oh, thank You); and He also reveals that in a rich, beautiful community that surrounds me.

I'm not alone. We're not alone. And the fear of appearing weak and imperfect becomes a reality -- but it then becomes the reality that living in a community with other weak and imperfect people is, though messy, so much better. It's better to have somebody -- or somebodies -- praying for you, staying on the phone with you until two in the morning when you're not sure you'll be safe on your own, or holding you on the couch when you're sobbing for no reason.

It's better to be able to do that for others in return, too.

This is part of what it is to be the Church: to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the world, we must be the hands and feet of Jesus to one another. And we must allow others to be the hands and feet of Jesus to us.

Oh, what love. By Love, we extend love to one another; we receive love from one another; and we spread that love throughout our broken, hurting, depressed world. We know how to do that better when we have ourselves been broken, hurting, and depressed.

It is thus, too, that we share in the sufferings of Christ. And that is one of the greatest privileges I can imagine.

"The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him  so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us..." (Romans 8:16-18).