Depression Confession; Not What I Was Expecting

Written last night:

I thought today was going to be a good day. I was so good this morning.

I took care of my skin, drank plenty of water, decided to forgo that second pot of coffee, used heat and product on my hair (which is against the principles of a certain segment of my generation of which I was a part). I did laundry before my husband was even awake. I washed the dishes I couldn't face the day before. I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, made my grocery list, and coordinated my schedule with Michael so I could go to Walmart. I vacuumed the living room carpet in an attempt to get the dog smell out, again before my husband was awake. I even called the newspaper to find out how to replace my four-year-old son's newsprint roll.  In fact I was on a roll. Oh so productive until 10:00 a.m.

It didn't last. It was over even before my trip to Walmart which happened at mid-day. And tonight I apologized to Michael for not having a more positive attitude like some wives. His response was to thank me for being exactly myself.

But this is why I have never really believed in the power of positive thinking. So often my mother would say to me, why don't you smile? Why don't you expect good things? It has been a point of contention between us for many years.

And of course to some extent she is correct. Sometimes approaching an issue with a correct (and cheerful) state of mind really does make all the difference.  But not always.

Actually, believe it or not, I have started many a project with the necessary enthusiasm. Every job I ever had I thought was the best thing ever for the first month, first six months, maybe even for the first year. I really, really want to look on the bright side.

This morning I expected that today would be a well modulated day. I would work hard, but not too hard. I would set realistic goals. I would take care of my family. I wouldn't waste time on inconsequentials unless it was while taking a reasonable break.  I was going with Dan Miller's idea big changes are easier to make than small ones (No More Mondays). It's true that I was stretching his point a bit, but it seemed a sound idea to me this morning.

Now, at the end of the day, you could easily look at my house and wonder if I had done a thing. I said as much to Michael. It's one of the difficult things about housekeeping. Sometimes hard work really doesn't seem to pay off.

All the same, I will choose not to use a bit of frustration as an excuse to not continue in well doing. Just because the kitchen looks terrible now doens't mean the morning's work was wasted. Just because the babysitting for the weekend didn't work out as I expected doesn't mean my children won't be well cared for. Just because my two-year-old wiped tomato sauce on my bed pillow doesn't make me love him any less. Just because a business development I was hoping for fell through doesn't mean that God doesn't have a plan to take care of us. Whatever the final outcome it will eventually turn out to have been worth the wait.

Notes and Rumination on the Complications of Faith

This is one I wrote in May. As you'll see, I had been thinking about faith for a while, longer in fact than what I indicate below. I still don't feel I have a handle on it, but I think that's part of the point, part of what it means to believe God and to trust Him with things that cannot be seen:

I really ought to write something long and sustained about faith. I've been thinking about it for just under a year now. I should be accumulating quotation wherever I can find them, other peoples' words that give me a hint of what it means. Last week a guy was talking about his experience during the tornado. He said he thought he had plenty of faith before it happened, and I don't remember where he went from there because I was instantly distracted. I turned to my father, who was sitting beside me, and asked, “Do people really think that, that they have plenty of faith?” I asked because I know for a fact that I have very little.

Kierkegaard, when he isn't talking about the leap of faith, not that I really know what he means by the phrase, Kierkegaard says that faith is not the same as resignation. He says that resignation has to come first, but not to mistake it for faith. Faith is always hopeful, expectant, never disappointed, exists apart from what comes. That's what I understand from a part of Fear and Trembling, anyway, a book I freely admit I may not understand.

Philip Yancey, in his wonderful book, Disappointment with God, says that faith believes God, even when nothing in your circumstances indicates His presence, even when you have no proof that He cares, even when it seems as though He has become your enemy. Faith always believes.

In another of Yancey's books he quotes Frederick Buechner. I love this one. It's long:

If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you're either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: 'Can I believe it all again today?' No, better still, don't ask it till after you've read The New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always Yes, then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you're human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and...great laughter. (From The Return of Ansel Gibbs, Quoted in Soul Survivor)

It would never have occurred to me to pose the question in just that way, which is exactly why I like reading Yancey, Buechner, MacDonald, Kierkegaard, Dillard and others. I don't actually wake up in the morning and ask myself that question. Usually it's all I can do to remember to say good morning, and acknowledge that half the purpose in my getting up is to say hello to Him. (I don't read the newspaper either.) I wonder how my morning might go differently if I did.