Yesterday and today hold deep significance for me. My Dark & Light. February 12, 2014, I went to the hospital after nearly a week of severe vertigo and several days in bed to find out I had an inner ear infection. The doctor also told me, unrelated, I happened to be pregnant. Those 2 events came near the end of a multitude of compounding circumstances that caused me to contract pregnancy depression.
Over the course of 8 months, Light, Joy and Hope faded. I became lost in a mind full of questions unanswered and voices unsilenced. I became mentally crippled to a point where being able to decide to shop for food became impossible. The sheer number of people in an auditorium filled me with such overwhelming anxiety I would literally be frozen to the floor unable to choose a place to sit. I couldn't run away because my mind and my ever growing belly followed me everywhere as constant, loud reminders of my situation. I was forced to deal with realities of being asked "Have you thought about hurting your kids? Yourself? The baby? Have you thought about dying? Are the decisions you can't make safety issues to those around you? Do you have an emergency plan in place?"
This is my story told below through a letter to an incredible woman. (Posted with her permission) She came from a state I know nothing about and a city I'll never be able to spell. She was completely outside of my world and knew nothing of the life I had or the life I was in...which was exactly what I needed. She had no idea the divine intersection that occurred the day she filled out Mosaic's All In card.
Subject: 6 Months
Dear Julia,
Call it being the hands and feet of Jesus, being an angel, making a compassionate intervention, doing your social duty, or just doing the right thing. Six months ago today, you saved my life.
I could pick one of a dozen dates I guess. I could pick the day we met on April 4th when I opened the door of my home to a woman who radiated a peace like that of watching it snow at Christmastime. I still remember sitting slightly removed at a table bustling with group conversation and interruptions and looked over to see you engaging in a quiet exchange with Polly. I knew "she's going to change everything" -- which I thought was just a generic "world", "LA", "Mosaic" everything at the time. By the way, I remember having a side conversation with Joshua that night, telling him his wife was stunning. And his response as he looked at you was, "Yeah, I married up."
I could pick Easter on April 20th when I saw you serving. I found out you weren't all that into SHE and hated country music and realized there was a chance that we could be Friends.
I could even go back before I ever knew you to November 2013 when you decided you were moving back to LA; the same month my circumstances starting crumbling. Or March 3rd, when you pulled out for California. I didn't even know you were coming, but God did. He was bringing me someone from 15 hours away who would step in and make sure the life we had just found out was inside me would make it into this world.
Or any of the days I stepped out of my comfort zone would do -- May 30th: deciding to call and confide my fears and torments in a stranger, July 16th: being talked in to humbling myself and seeking out prayer from Mosaic, or even Aug 15th the day you talked me into starting medication.
Just an aside, so many of the moments that had the least amount of sadness were with you. You became my happy place as I was starting to dive and pull away from those I had loved. Good Friday, Easter, In n Out, MSC, your commissioning, midweek, SHE debrief, dinner with you, 4th of July, 30x30s. I'm grateful even if you were trying to be someone who you've come to realize you're not. As I reflect, I'm reminded of Hank's message of those having enough faith that they drag 10 people into heaven. It was as though in the days of drowning, your faith, your peace, your soul, exhaled enough oxygen to keep me in the struggle for a semblance of the surface for one more day.
But I choose August 13th. That day, 6 months ago, because it was the day where words became actions. You gave me lift where I couldn't even see I needed it. You drove me to the hospital. You walked in to my house and literally put food in my fridge. You fought for my self-care more than I ever had in my lifetime. And what a divine intersection that it came on the day of Mosaic's Hope in a Desperate Time. (When I about threw up in my seat with anxiety that my brokenness would be found out and I would be exposed as a fraud of a human being. And thought I would break both your and Ethan's hands.)
But I've realized in analyzing last year a hundred times over that I had become afraid to hope. And even though August 13th set in motion the events that would feed and breathe life into my sick and lifeless soul, I had resolved to reject it. I saw help coming and I ran. I defied God, myself, and you. I gave away the last happy place I had. The voice that had been screaming into my soul for months,
"He is real!
He is hope!
Wake Up!
Satan convinced me to choose to suffer. Because suffering felt safe and familiar. It was an excuse to pity myself, pull away, and refuse to work on getting better. The end game of suffering seemed closer than the distant life of health. I chose to be enveloped in the darkness. I cut for the first time in a decade under the lie that it was the last time I would have control over my mind and my choices. I had become numb to the idea of surviving.
And then God smacked me upside the head. Her heart's too big. The chambers aren't pumping in sync. The rhythm's not right. I remember fighting between anxiety and numbness to focus harder than I ever had to digest the information being explained to me. And at the end of that visit, I thanked God all the way home that you were in my house. Someone with hope was waiting for me. But I conceded to God that having waves of hope washed over me wouldn't save me. I had to find a way to find hope from within me. And that night I took my first breath of God in months and exhaled a prayer for a miracle beyond hope to 300 people.
God often has spoken to me in pictures and metaphors because they work better in the deep and rich world inside my head. I sometimes see Kylie's original heart condition almost as a manifestation of the health of my soul. Her heart was bigger because it was beating for her life and mine. It was out of rhythm and out of sync because I just couldn't and wouldn't connect with the source of our pulse. And then my tribe started to beat out the most beautiful rhythm I've ever seen or heard. Our PlanA cry and your calendar set off a chain reaction that I couldn't have stopped if I tried. I had people I only knew by face or had never even met in my house. We found out people all over the world were praying for our miracle; people that didn't even believe there was a God! I felt like the paralytic whose friends carried him to the feet of Jesus; Mosaic carried me to the healer. This is how the world will recognize that we are His disciples, when they see the love we have for each other.
This is my Exodus story. The one I will return to telling for years to come. The week before Kylie Michelle was born, Hank said, "God never promised to save you from disease, disaster, or disappointment. He only ever promised to save you from despair." It's one of the biggest take aways from this whole journey. I have found a hope that is rooted so deep within me. God told me during our listening prayer session that my daughter will always remind me of God, for I have truly learned what it means to hope. You made a very short list of names that went with us to the hospital because your faith was life to me and hope for her. I had to let Ethan decide because the emotional weight Michelle and Julia carry for me are identical.
It's taken some time, but somewhere along the line I started waking up and breathing without having to think about it. And now I am done only inhaling. I need to start exhaling. I saw in the scribbles and fragments I had written down a phrase, "What if she's not coming back?" It was this thin fence between fear of losing what had been a life of beautiful obligation and falling forward into something more beautifully inspiring.
I've come to believe that I lost my first love; and maybe I never even knew what love was before. I have to reign myself in from hyperbole that nothing I did before my faded life had value or furthered the mission of God. That's not true. I was a happy woman serving more and connected more than I had ever been in our seven years at Mosaic. But I think I fell in love with the good rather than being in love with the source of goodness. I loved Mosaic more than anything. But I could talk a lot of church without talking about Jesus in my life. It was as though God looked at the design for me and the piece of art that stood before Him and realized it was beautiful but that the material wasn't pure. There was pride, fear, envy, shame, judgment, apathy, cowardice. And the only way to remove them was to break it, burn it, purify it.
And it felt humiliating being stripped bare of my body, my mind, my reputation, my quenched spirit. Day after day, week after week, month after month. But I've also learned that the difference between humiliation and humility is just a matter of defiance versus obedience. And now I feel beautiful on the inside. Being "so alive" feels like an understatement. I feel transcendent. You have written faith, hope and love on my arms and Jesus has written them on my soul.
When I first heard your story at dinner, I was inspired. But the life you continue to live is inspiring daily. Here are the ways in which you have spoken into my life:
1: My literal physical life - It is nice not to try to imagine what those last 5 weeks could have looked like.
2: Kylie's life - My survival was her survival
3: Real Worship - Retreating into myself, I got to watch you worship for 4 months and what a wellspring inside someone looks like as they connect with God.
4: Hair - Hair is fun :)
5: Purging - Listening to you tell how you sorted through every piece of paper and got rid of almost everything you had in order to move with God inspires and motivates me that purging is a healthy thing to embrace. Memories can remain without the memorabilia.
6: Presence is Powerful - I think I told you a long time ago that I can see and sense the peace you emit. And reading the book Quiet about women like Rosa Parks, presence alone can still be a powerful influence.
7: True peace is in Jesus - I have to laugh at God when I decided one of my words for 2014 was Peace. It really was "less stress" but I wanted to phrase it in the positive so I chose Peace. At times when I exuded chaos and anxiety, you stayed and listened and countered it with so much peace and calm, speaking Jesus to me. He brought me someone who is so peaceful to teach me how to truly find it.
8: Kids are not #1 - they won't remember 😉
9: Self care - I can't do or help anyone if I'm not here. I have to choose myself too. Sometimes disappointing others in favor of myself is actually the best decision for everyone.
10: Get it out of my head; write it down - I'm not really a writer. I'm horrible at journaling. But it seemed like once I had permission to write in fragments, single words, even notes that no one but myself will ever read, it cleared some of the clutter and horrible voices in my head, even if temporarily.
11: Don't feel guilty about enjoying alone time - I need time away from everyone; literally everyone. And banking on their nap time doesn't count. It was freeing to accept that.
12: Perfection is pointless - God can't use perfect. I remember the day I hit bottom adamantly telling you I needed to make it through in one piece. And you said, "So what?! So what if you don't?!" And I responded if she came out anything less than perfect I'd feel guilty for the rest of my life that it was my fault. What a lie from the pit of hell that I believed with every fiber of my being! What God has done through Kylie's story is so much greater than my perceived ideal of perfect.
13: The need for coffee warmers in my life - we go together like peanut butter and chocolate. I have two now and really need like six.
14: Stop apologizing - I'm not responsible for the thoughts, feelings and responses of others. It is possible to reign in the empathy and responsibility because, most likely, they aren't wired like me anyway. I'm the only one that can let me be upset.
15: To Write Love on Her Arms - This site, blog, and organization is super helpful and hopeful. It's the first time I've felt like I have something to advocate for.
16: Healing is going to take time - Depression is an illness. And even though the trauma has passed and my initial recovery is over, there is still a long road of healing in front of me. Like breaking my back and finally being able to walk on my own, it will take time to be able to run, jump, and dance.
17: Emojis - My texting life is so much richer now. Thank you for introducing me to them, Pirate Ghost 👻.
What you endured, invested, and gave to me can never be repaid; and I know you'd never let me. And so I'm always grateful. I pondered once what was beyond grateful, for it doesn't seem to be a strong enough word or emotion. And it's LOVE. I will forever and always love you and the life you've allowed me to exhale. What a beautiful reflection of Jesus you are, Julia.
Love, your sister in Jesus,
-Suzanne
So many of you came into this story somewhere along the line. Love is an action and I have had heaps of love poured out on me and my family. Sarah Turner shared with me the concept of "sistering" when a joist is broken and can no longer support the burden upon it, a carpenter can add another joist on one or both sides and fasten them together to make it capable of bearing the load. They call it a "sister joist." I thank Jesus for all of you: women, men, friends and strangers. I'm so grateful for Tribe and the powerful things that happen when there is trust, lift, prayer, stories, dreams, support, giving, and protection among them.
You are a part of me - my mosaic art
We belong to a tribe called Mosaic that lives by faith, is known by love, and is a voice of hope.
To Write Love on Her Arms is a nonprofit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and invest directly into treatment and recovery.
Over the course of 8 months, Light, Joy and Hope faded. I became lost in a mind full of questions unanswered and voices unsilenced. I became mentally crippled to a point where being able to decide to shop for food became impossible. The sheer number of people in an auditorium filled me with such overwhelming anxiety I would literally be frozen to the floor unable to choose a place to sit. I couldn't run away because my mind and my ever growing belly followed me everywhere as constant, loud reminders of my situation. I was forced to deal with realities of being asked "Have you thought about hurting your kids? Yourself? The baby? Have you thought about dying? Are the decisions you can't make safety issues to those around you? Do you have an emergency plan in place?"
This is my story told below through a letter to an incredible woman. (Posted with her permission) She came from a state I know nothing about and a city I'll never be able to spell. She was completely outside of my world and knew nothing of the life I had or the life I was in...which was exactly what I needed. She had no idea the divine intersection that occurred the day she filled out Mosaic's All In card.
Subject: 6 Months
Dear Julia,
Call it being the hands and feet of Jesus, being an angel, making a compassionate intervention, doing your social duty, or just doing the right thing. Six months ago today, you saved my life.
I could pick one of a dozen dates I guess. I could pick the day we met on April 4th when I opened the door of my home to a woman who radiated a peace like that of watching it snow at Christmastime. I still remember sitting slightly removed at a table bustling with group conversation and interruptions and looked over to see you engaging in a quiet exchange with Polly. I knew "she's going to change everything" -- which I thought was just a generic "world", "LA", "Mosaic" everything at the time. By the way, I remember having a side conversation with Joshua that night, telling him his wife was stunning. And his response as he looked at you was, "Yeah, I married up."
I could pick Easter on April 20th when I saw you serving. I found out you weren't all that into SHE and hated country music and realized there was a chance that we could be Friends.
I could even go back before I ever knew you to November 2013 when you decided you were moving back to LA; the same month my circumstances starting crumbling. Or March 3rd, when you pulled out for California. I didn't even know you were coming, but God did. He was bringing me someone from 15 hours away who would step in and make sure the life we had just found out was inside me would make it into this world.
Or any of the days I stepped out of my comfort zone would do -- May 30th: deciding to call and confide my fears and torments in a stranger, July 16th: being talked in to humbling myself and seeking out prayer from Mosaic, or even Aug 15th the day you talked me into starting medication.
Just an aside, so many of the moments that had the least amount of sadness were with you. You became my happy place as I was starting to dive and pull away from those I had loved. Good Friday, Easter, In n Out, MSC, your commissioning, midweek, SHE debrief, dinner with you, 4th of July, 30x30s. I'm grateful even if you were trying to be someone who you've come to realize you're not. As I reflect, I'm reminded of Hank's message of those having enough faith that they drag 10 people into heaven. It was as though in the days of drowning, your faith, your peace, your soul, exhaled enough oxygen to keep me in the struggle for a semblance of the surface for one more day.
But I choose August 13th. That day, 6 months ago, because it was the day where words became actions. You gave me lift where I couldn't even see I needed it. You drove me to the hospital. You walked in to my house and literally put food in my fridge. You fought for my self-care more than I ever had in my lifetime. And what a divine intersection that it came on the day of Mosaic's Hope in a Desperate Time. (When I about threw up in my seat with anxiety that my brokenness would be found out and I would be exposed as a fraud of a human being. And thought I would break both your and Ethan's hands.)
But I've realized in analyzing last year a hundred times over that I had become afraid to hope. And even though August 13th set in motion the events that would feed and breathe life into my sick and lifeless soul, I had resolved to reject it. I saw help coming and I ran. I defied God, myself, and you. I gave away the last happy place I had. The voice that had been screaming into my soul for months,
"He is real!
He is hope!
Wake Up!
Satan convinced me to choose to suffer. Because suffering felt safe and familiar. It was an excuse to pity myself, pull away, and refuse to work on getting better. The end game of suffering seemed closer than the distant life of health. I chose to be enveloped in the darkness. I cut for the first time in a decade under the lie that it was the last time I would have control over my mind and my choices. I had become numb to the idea of surviving.
And then God smacked me upside the head. Her heart's too big. The chambers aren't pumping in sync. The rhythm's not right. I remember fighting between anxiety and numbness to focus harder than I ever had to digest the information being explained to me. And at the end of that visit, I thanked God all the way home that you were in my house. Someone with hope was waiting for me. But I conceded to God that having waves of hope washed over me wouldn't save me. I had to find a way to find hope from within me. And that night I took my first breath of God in months and exhaled a prayer for a miracle beyond hope to 300 people.
God often has spoken to me in pictures and metaphors because they work better in the deep and rich world inside my head. I sometimes see Kylie's original heart condition almost as a manifestation of the health of my soul. Her heart was bigger because it was beating for her life and mine. It was out of rhythm and out of sync because I just couldn't and wouldn't connect with the source of our pulse. And then my tribe started to beat out the most beautiful rhythm I've ever seen or heard. Our PlanA cry and your calendar set off a chain reaction that I couldn't have stopped if I tried. I had people I only knew by face or had never even met in my house. We found out people all over the world were praying for our miracle; people that didn't even believe there was a God! I felt like the paralytic whose friends carried him to the feet of Jesus; Mosaic carried me to the healer. This is how the world will recognize that we are His disciples, when they see the love we have for each other.
This is my Exodus story. The one I will return to telling for years to come. The week before Kylie Michelle was born, Hank said, "God never promised to save you from disease, disaster, or disappointment. He only ever promised to save you from despair." It's one of the biggest take aways from this whole journey. I have found a hope that is rooted so deep within me. God told me during our listening prayer session that my daughter will always remind me of God, for I have truly learned what it means to hope. You made a very short list of names that went with us to the hospital because your faith was life to me and hope for her. I had to let Ethan decide because the emotional weight Michelle and Julia carry for me are identical.
It's taken some time, but somewhere along the line I started waking up and breathing without having to think about it. And now I am done only inhaling. I need to start exhaling. I saw in the scribbles and fragments I had written down a phrase, "What if she's not coming back?" It was this thin fence between fear of losing what had been a life of beautiful obligation and falling forward into something more beautifully inspiring.
I've come to believe that I lost my first love; and maybe I never even knew what love was before. I have to reign myself in from hyperbole that nothing I did before my faded life had value or furthered the mission of God. That's not true. I was a happy woman serving more and connected more than I had ever been in our seven years at Mosaic. But I think I fell in love with the good rather than being in love with the source of goodness. I loved Mosaic more than anything. But I could talk a lot of church without talking about Jesus in my life. It was as though God looked at the design for me and the piece of art that stood before Him and realized it was beautiful but that the material wasn't pure. There was pride, fear, envy, shame, judgment, apathy, cowardice. And the only way to remove them was to break it, burn it, purify it.
And it felt humiliating being stripped bare of my body, my mind, my reputation, my quenched spirit. Day after day, week after week, month after month. But I've also learned that the difference between humiliation and humility is just a matter of defiance versus obedience. And now I feel beautiful on the inside. Being "so alive" feels like an understatement. I feel transcendent. You have written faith, hope and love on my arms and Jesus has written them on my soul.
When I first heard your story at dinner, I was inspired. But the life you continue to live is inspiring daily. Here are the ways in which you have spoken into my life:
1: My literal physical life - It is nice not to try to imagine what those last 5 weeks could have looked like.
2: Kylie's life - My survival was her survival
3: Real Worship - Retreating into myself, I got to watch you worship for 4 months and what a wellspring inside someone looks like as they connect with God.
4: Hair - Hair is fun :)
5: Purging - Listening to you tell how you sorted through every piece of paper and got rid of almost everything you had in order to move with God inspires and motivates me that purging is a healthy thing to embrace. Memories can remain without the memorabilia.
6: Presence is Powerful - I think I told you a long time ago that I can see and sense the peace you emit. And reading the book Quiet about women like Rosa Parks, presence alone can still be a powerful influence.
7: True peace is in Jesus - I have to laugh at God when I decided one of my words for 2014 was Peace. It really was "less stress" but I wanted to phrase it in the positive so I chose Peace. At times when I exuded chaos and anxiety, you stayed and listened and countered it with so much peace and calm, speaking Jesus to me. He brought me someone who is so peaceful to teach me how to truly find it.
8: Kids are not #1 - they won't remember 😉
9: Self care - I can't do or help anyone if I'm not here. I have to choose myself too. Sometimes disappointing others in favor of myself is actually the best decision for everyone.
10: Get it out of my head; write it down - I'm not really a writer. I'm horrible at journaling. But it seemed like once I had permission to write in fragments, single words, even notes that no one but myself will ever read, it cleared some of the clutter and horrible voices in my head, even if temporarily.
11: Don't feel guilty about enjoying alone time - I need time away from everyone; literally everyone. And banking on their nap time doesn't count. It was freeing to accept that.
12: Perfection is pointless - God can't use perfect. I remember the day I hit bottom adamantly telling you I needed to make it through in one piece. And you said, "So what?! So what if you don't?!" And I responded if she came out anything less than perfect I'd feel guilty for the rest of my life that it was my fault. What a lie from the pit of hell that I believed with every fiber of my being! What God has done through Kylie's story is so much greater than my perceived ideal of perfect.
13: The need for coffee warmers in my life - we go together like peanut butter and chocolate. I have two now and really need like six.
14: Stop apologizing - I'm not responsible for the thoughts, feelings and responses of others. It is possible to reign in the empathy and responsibility because, most likely, they aren't wired like me anyway. I'm the only one that can let me be upset.
15: To Write Love on Her Arms - This site, blog, and organization is super helpful and hopeful. It's the first time I've felt like I have something to advocate for.
16: Healing is going to take time - Depression is an illness. And even though the trauma has passed and my initial recovery is over, there is still a long road of healing in front of me. Like breaking my back and finally being able to walk on my own, it will take time to be able to run, jump, and dance.
17: Emojis - My texting life is so much richer now. Thank you for introducing me to them, Pirate Ghost 👻.
What you endured, invested, and gave to me can never be repaid; and I know you'd never let me. And so I'm always grateful. I pondered once what was beyond grateful, for it doesn't seem to be a strong enough word or emotion. And it's LOVE. I will forever and always love you and the life you've allowed me to exhale. What a beautiful reflection of Jesus you are, Julia.
Love, your sister in Jesus,
-Suzanne
So many of you came into this story somewhere along the line. Love is an action and I have had heaps of love poured out on me and my family. Sarah Turner shared with me the concept of "sistering" when a joist is broken and can no longer support the burden upon it, a carpenter can add another joist on one or both sides and fasten them together to make it capable of bearing the load. They call it a "sister joist." I thank Jesus for all of you: women, men, friends and strangers. I'm so grateful for Tribe and the powerful things that happen when there is trust, lift, prayer, stories, dreams, support, giving, and protection among them.
You are a part of me - my mosaic art
We belong to a tribe called Mosaic that lives by faith, is known by love, and is a voice of hope.
To Write Love on Her Arms is a nonprofit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and invest directly into treatment and recovery.
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