Winter Blues? Self Diagnosis...

Winter Blues? Or is it depression? Care to help me?

I'm not sure what it is I'm going through, if it even has a name, or if it should have a name. I don't necessarily think so. I feel fine, I love the winter time, the cold, and being a stay at home mom. I like not leaving my house for days on end. I like cooking, baking, laying back, watching movies and enjoying a season that is so easy to be lazy in. I have no problems with it all.

The problem?

It seems that others don't feel the same way. I believe to other people signs of not wanting to have to go and do things and stay home are signs of depression.

My hubby is a very social man, he loves pleasing people and doing social events. He has a Santa suite and my, oh my, he makes a very gorgeous Santa. He hasn't had many gigs this winter but has two this weekend. Friday he goes to a preschool program and Saturday night is a church visitation.

Friday is also Sky's birthday party and Sunday is our church's Christmas dinner. We were asked to head up the Christmas dinner, which basically isn't a lot. Just fixing menu's and getting the members to sign up. Then of course that night we have to make sure things are going as they should and people are doing what they should. Just over seeing things.

It is cold outside and they are calling for a wintry mix Saturday night.

The problem?

I'm dreading the whole thing. Every single bit of it. Me, I want to stay home, in my warm house and snuggle with my family. I soooo wish we didn't have a single plan this weekend. To me, it feels like a HUGE load. It feels like SO much we have to do.

I voiced this to my hubby this morning and he doesn't understand. I can't help that I feel the way I do. I don't necessarily want to feel this way. The reason I wish that I felt different is to please my husband. Still, I just want to stay home. BUT I can't because the guilt would consume me. I would feel so guilty for not going and helping.

By talking to my husband about how I feel though has put some sort of burden on him. He now feels bad that he has asked me to help out because he now knows how badly I don't want to go.

This wasn't my intention. I was just talking it out, I was hoping he'd....console me? Talk me through it? I don't know what I was thinking but I wish I'd of kept it to myself. He doesn't understand at all and he thinks I can just choose to WANT to go. That I could just look at it differently.

I never said I wouldn't go. I just said I DREAD it.

I feel so overwhelmed.

I really do dread it.

Not just one day but the entire weekend.

I hate the thought of having to do something every day. Not having just one single day that I don't have to leave the house and go out in the cold. That isn't completely true. I'm leaving something out. Even if I had one day it wouldn't change the dread. The real point I suppose, is that I don't want to have to get out in the cold or go into the crowds around all the people. Knowing I'm commitmed makes me angry because I feel like I HAVE to go or I'll be disappointing people, especially my husband. So it feels like a weight on my shoulders. Like I have no choice.

It'll lift when it's over and the next time I'm asked to do something I'll most likely say no for a long while.

Where I struggle is trying to determine if I'm depressed or if I'm normal.

Then I wonder what normal really is. Sometimes I think the world is crazy for feeling like it has to be in this social state of busy all the time. Whatever happened to family time? Why does everyone feel like they have to be DOING something in order to feel like the are accomplishing something or doing something with their life? For me, being a stay at home mom and homeschooling my girls is more than enough.

My hubby would say, we never do anything. That these busy weekends are few and far between and he is right. Every weekend isn't like this. And there are times when they are and I do enjoy them. But right now, the thoughts of this weekend make me almost mad, because I don't feel like doing it but I'm committed.

Then I feel horrible because it's hurt my husband. He doesn't understand how I feel and to him it feels personal. It's not, I assure you. I love him so much. We are just so different. I hate the struggle and the distance it seems to put between us.

When I talked to him this morning I honestly didn't realize how it would make him feel. I didn't plan the conversation or contemplate the outcome. I was just talking to him about how I felt.

When he shared how it made him feel it upset me because THAT was NOT what I was INTENDING. It has nothing to do with him directly. The reason I go anyway is BECAUSE I love him and want to make him happy. But now, all he sees is how miserable I'll be doing it, and as far as he's concerned I can stay home and he'll find someone else to go.

Situations like this suck.

Opinions?

I have to add this part. The phone just rang and I didn't recognize the number. It was one of Tony's friends and he had gotten another deer. He doesn't eat the deer he kills so he always calls us and we pick it up, clean it, cut it and can it. Or take it to have it processed. If we clean it ourselves it takes at least a day, we get it cut up and have to soak it over night sometimes two before canning. I usually go on the mountain to his  mom's and spend the night and can. Most of the time I get 14 quarts of meat.

You would think if I were depressed that this call would have added to the overwhelming feeling that I have about the above events but it didn't. The thought that I might actually get to go and do something productive for my family and NOT have to do the above things removes the guilt I'd feel for not going. I actually got excited about it.

So, in hindsight, wouldn't you think it sounds more like an anxiety instead of a depression?

Rising to the Surface

I have had such peace over the last few months, bliss, peace, a wonderous feeling. The peace is there as long as I am in prayer or in the presence of God. When I come out and I start thinking, I sink. I'm binding my thoughts and doing all I can to crucify my flesh and line my thoughts up with God's word. I'm not discontent, I'm so happy with my life and all the Lord has blessed me with. How can I express what I am feeling and going through? Where are the words?

It happened out of the blue....the beginning of the fall I mean. Everything was fine, it was a day like all other days. Heaven had come over to help me clean Sky's room because she was away at camp. We were talking and laughing, really enjoying our day together. We found an old box that Sky was using for trash and we were emptying it piece by piece, you know, just in case something of value happened to have landed in it.

I reached into the box and I pulled out an old prescription bottle. I read it and it had my name on it. It was an old Clomid bottle. How in the world did that get in there? Of course it was empty because I had taken the medicine already. Somehow though, in that moment, I became mesmerized. I just read the label over and over and over and over. Frozen in a moment, not realizing I had traveled back in time with no awareness to where I was at that moment or what I was suppose to be doing.

"Mom?" "Mom?.." "M-O-M!"..... "What are you doing?" Heaven was trying to bring me back, I wasn't ready though, not yet. I wanted to stay where I was for a little while, I wanted to think, I wanted to remember, I wanted to feel what was deep inside of me.

No, I bound it up. I moved on.

We continued working.

Then Heaven found a bag, it was a beautiful African bag I had found at the airport last summer when Heaven was getting ready to leave on her month long missions trip in Africa. It was clearanced and it had shouted my name! So, I bought it. I didn't really need or know what I was buying it for, but for me, it symbolized Heaven, her faith and her trip, so I purchased it.

I was so longing for another child during that time, desperately seeking. So I decided to act in faith and begin buying clothes. Of course I wanted a son, so boy clothes it was. Crush velvety soft blankies with trains on them. Two, you know, for twins. If I was going to dream and have faith for something, it was going to be extrordinary. So as the months rolled by I'd add to my faith bag and it wasn't long before it was full. I had to start another bag and had it stored in my bedroom closet. I also had clothes hanging on the back of my bedroom door, I had purchased an abundance of faith clothes!

This African bag had made its way into Sky's room, into her closet. I had sort of forgotten about it, I mean, I knew I had it but it hadn't came to mind in a long long while. I had stopped adding to the collection some time back when I made the decision to STOP wrestling with the idea of having another child.

Here is was, just moments after seeing the Clomid bottle. Why was this happening to me? I'm so close to the Lord, so strong in Him, growing, working, serving, moving on and yet, here it is. What am I to do with it?

Overcome it...

I prayed, Lord help me, don't let me slip, don't let me fall back into that pit. Draw me near, safe in Your arms, where I am so satisfied, there is no pain or dreams that haven't come true. I need You. I need You right now so much.

Thank-You Father. Thank-You for hearing me.

Heaven asks me where in the world all of these gobs of baby boy clothes had come from.

I told her.

'Oh, mom, I had no idea, where do you want me to put them?'

Deep breath.

"Heaven, I want you to take them."

'O, mom I couldn't.'

"I want you to Heaven, I've come to terms with not having any more children and you just got married, you'll be having my grandchildren soon. It's okay, I'm okay, take them."

'Are you sure?'

"I'm sure."

So it was done, we put them in her car and I breathed a sigh of relief that it was over and I didn't have deal with it anymore. I'd done the right thing, felt most sure of it, as sure as sure can feel when you are 37 and have been trying to conceive for the last 6 plus years. AS sure as you can be when you aren't sure if wanting more children is selfish or logical, or if you can even afford them. As sure as you can be when you are afraid to have faith for something that may not be God's will and all you want more than anything, more than life itself, is to be in the perfect will of God.

I moved on, with a smile. We finished up and I put it all out of my mind.

Later that night I had settled down. I felt good.

Then the phone rang.

I have a friend that is struggling with a lot of sickness, not a little but a huge load. Physical and mental sickness and its hard. It's hard for them and its hard for me. My heart goes out to her. She has fought for her very life. Satan has attacked them from every direction, financially they are on the bottom. Her sickness has affected not only her but her husband and her three children and although the Lord is healing her, she has such a long way to go. It has been hard for me to watch because when someone is in a situation like this there is only so much you do. You can't step in and be a mother to the children, no matter how strongly you see the need. It's hard when you see someone suffering and you know some of the answers but they refuse to listen. Sometimes you feel like they are choosing to stay in it, but you have to remind yourself, the devil is the master of deceit. The best most powerful thing you can do it to pray. So I have prayed. I have intercessed. I have seen defeat but I have seen victory. I will continue to stand in the gap for this family. I love them.

I knew she was having test run and I was anxious to hear her results and how she was doing. She'd had a rough few days and I was concerned for her. She is my friend. A good friend, not just an acquaintance. I speak with her weekly, most of the times several times a week and there is little that we don't share with one another.

She asked me to pray for someone, I replied, 'Sure, who is it?' Well, she opened up and began pouring out this long story of a girl who had been raped and had a baby girl and she didn't want the baby because she reminded her of the rape. I don't know all the details of the story because this was the first I'd heard of it and I couldn't absorb it all. I caught bits and pieces, the girl had been in France in school but had traveled to Africa, had the baby prematurely and the African government wouldn't allow the baby to leave because it had African citizenship. She'd been talking to this girl for months and yet had never mentioned it to me. My head was swirling.

My friend and her husband had been approved as adoptive parents and were suppose to pay a refundable insurance fee to get the girl and the baby out of Africa. The girl wanted my friend to adopt her daughter. So, somehow, the girl and the baby would be flown into a local airport, drop off the baby and then the girl would head on to France. The insurance was to guarantee that my friend here is real and that she really wanted the baby. Once she has the baby the money will be refunded with a check of some sort that no one could cash but my friend, the people in Africa are suppose to send a code to my friend's e-mail and then my friend will use this code to cash the check and get her insurance money refunded.

Are you still with me?

My friend has supposedly contacted the US Embassy. All of this is suppose to be legal and on the up and up but it sounds so much like a scam to me.

So here is my dilemma.

I don't want my friends to be hurt or to lose money I know they do not have. I love them.


Let's just be honest here, why her Lord and not me? Why did my husband's sister get Aiden and not me?

How is it that I may, and I say may, because I really do smell fish here, but how is it that I may have to deal with someone else, that isn't capable of taking care of a child being given one by someone else.

Most women with infertility deal with other people getting pregnant and having to participate, be happy for them, do the shower deal ect... For me, its different, my husband is a convicted felon, I have secondary infertility and unless one of these miraculous situations happens to me, like a mother choosing me to raise her child and giving me her precious baby I can't adopt.

So it pains me so to see miracles happening to people who in my eyes, shouldn't be raising more children. I'm sorry, I'm truly not meaning to be judgemental. I am not saying I am perfect but in these two situations I have to say that the baby is not better off with these families that have them. There are better homes out there. But it doesn't work that way does it?

So, I've hurt, I've felt pain, not because I can't pregnant but because I want to be chosen.

The wonderful thing is that it isn't over yet. The Lord has great things planned for me, whether they include a child or not is irrelevant. I want His perfect will above all else. I truly do. In spite of my pain.

Father God I ask you to forgive me for questioning You, forgive me for judging these women if that is what I have done. Forgive me for thinking myself to be a better mother than they are. Forgive me for falling into this pit. I ask You Lord, if it be Your will, choose me.

Looking back it started with the pill bottle-strike one, was fueled by the African bag of clothes-strike two and set on fire by the phone call from my friend-strike three. And I was out, I fell and I fell into the Pit hard.

Three hard strikes, at first subtle and then hard blows. Satan, the master of deceit.

I share this because as always with this blog, it is my desire to be real, to share the greatness of God that I experience but also to share the struggle. It's been a while since I've struggled, but here it is.

My Father is there to pick me up, and He did, and He continues to carry me.

I've added a new song to my playlist, the words are below, this is what I am doing right now, and if I abide in Him long enough, the pain will dissipate.

Kari Jobe- The More I Seek You

The more I seek you,
The more I find you
The more I find you, the more I love you

I wanna sit at your feet
Drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath, feel your heart beat
This love is so deep, it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming