... these boots are made for...

... these boots are made for... Recovery

Friends, I have felt out of sorts for a while.  Much of my life I have felt like a square peg in a round
hole.  I talk too loud. I talk too much. I feel deeply. I over commit and become greatly invested in the lives of those I love and care about.  I am a person of excess.  If I love boots, I want all the pairs of boots. Every color, every type: spike heeled, low heeled, leather riding boot, fun-fancy cowboy boots, warm cozy Uggs, wacky colorful rain boots, and now the ankle booties.  My mind becomes fixed with all the things, and how I can scrimp on the grocery budget here, and the household budget here, to scrape together the funds for the perfect pair of boots.  They will be on sale, of course. That is one excuse I always use to reassure myself.

But friends, it's not just about the boots.  My brain suffers from a disease of compulsion.  It doesn't have to be footwear.  It could be healthy compulsions, such as apples. In autumn when the most delicious apples to ever hit your mouth are coming straight from the orchards in Michigan to my fruit bowl in Indiana, I CAN NOT GET ENOUGH.  My brain thinks about the apples all the live long day.  The crispness, the different flavors, sweetness, bitterness, yellow, red, green, and shades of the fuiji sunset.  Apples are healthy right?  So no harm.

Friends, this is where I had to get real with my warped way of thinking.  Too much of anything is not good for me.  I'm going to repeat that for myself, because I can be a slow learner at times.

Too much of anything is not healthy for you (Becca).

In the spring of 2014, I had to become very  honest with myself.  I was feeling very out of sorts.  Life was not going according to my expectations.  I needed to "slow my roll," and adjust my thinking.  I can't explain it, but the Lord impressed upon me, "Go where you can feel accepted."

I felt compelled to google a ministry I had read about on a family member's FaceBook page,
Celebrate Recovery.  The Celebrate Recovery website had a location locator (that phrase seems like the opposite of an oxymoron).  Low and behold, there was a church 5 minutes from my home that hosted a Celebrate Recovery on Thursday evenings.

My husband relented to be in charge of the fellers, and I walked through the doors of Grace Fellowship Church.  I felt so nervous.  Like a middle school girl on the first day, anxiously anticipating what the program would be like, but nervous as can be.

The evening proved to be amazing. Soul cleansing.  After a time of praise and worship, and a short lesson, they played a reflection song over the sound system with corresponding lyrics on the big screens.  The song was Undo by Rush of Fools.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0K_cwy81tg

Friends, I sat in a room full of complete strangers and sobbed.  The Lord had nudged me, I obeyed and took a leap of faith to walk through the doors of a new place, and He began the journey of bringing me home.

Do I still have racing compulsive thoughts? Absolutely.  I now use my accountability tribe, a group of trusted friends, soul mates, sisters in Jesus, to inform me they are seeing signs.  I take time each day to think through my my actions and thoughts and reflect on  whether or not they were the healthiest.  And the beauty of my reflection time, is that I generally do it at night before I hit the hay.  Then I thank the Lord for the gift that day has been.  One of my accountability tribe members gave me the sign to the right after we had both logged a bit of time at CR.

"May every sunset hold more promise. May every sunset hold more peace."

That is one of the mantras I use to "self-talk" when doing daily reflection.  It is one of the gifts of taking the scary first step and walking through the doors of Celebrate Recovery.  I still love boots.  I often wear them on Thursday nights.  When I take a break and wear sneakers, there is an old-timer who always asks, "Hey cowgirl, Where are your boots tonight?"

... desperate no more.

... desperate no more

It has been a bit since I've sat at my laptop to scribble down my thoughts. My oh my, there has been so much rattling around in my head, but I had lost my moxie friends.  I didn't have the courage to write.  You see, for several years I have been going through a "rough patch."  I became the opposite of my tag line, I became quite desperate.

Anxiety and depression are evil. They invade your heart, mind and soul.  They make everything seem gray; riddle your bones with fatigue; and for me, they paralyzed my creativity.

I once drafted a blog about why I was the not-so-desperate-housewife.  It told a tale of a woman who loved the Lord with all her heart, who sought to serve others, who's greatest desire was to bring abounding joy where ever she went.  I never published that draft, and about 4 years ago the ugly effects of anxiety and depression took hold of me.

There was a series of events which led to the unraveling of this housewife. I can be a long winded gal, ask anyone who has chatted me up and gotten cornered.  I won't bore you with the day-by-day details, rather I'll give a brief sequence of events since the spring of 2012.

-Our family experienced a great big hurt, in regards to our youngest son, whom is eccentrically, beautifully, and wonderfully made by the father of the heavenly lights. (James 1:17)

-Our oldest son, a big heart'd caring sweet boy, had to change his place of employment(school) too.

-Our hearts were ripped to ribbons as we lost our friends, our social network, and what we had believed to be our tribe of Christ-like witnesses.

-I first reacted rather loudly, being out spoken, wearing my feelings on my

sleeve, and not backing down.  Offending many in a community where you should be seen, not heard. It was believed things should be swept under the rug.

-I began to feel the effects of it all in an extremely emotional way, and I began to isolate.

-I stopped advocating for my sons in their education, not wanting to be the squeaky wheel any longer.

-I allowed the hurt of our families' abandonment to trigger my hang-up of anxiety and depression.

-I stopped writing, not wanting to share the thoughts of my soul with others.

-We traveled to amazing places around America and Canada, that I didn't digitally journal about (blog) for my sons to read when they are grown.

-We updated our "family goals" (refer to past blog .... dream), http://tales-of-a-not-so-desperate-housewife.blogspot.com/2011/04/dreams.html

-We bought a boat, taught the boys to wake surf, snow ski; enjoying the great outdoors in a new way.  We bought a FedEx type delivery van. The hubs gutted and fabricated it to be our mobile command center, as we took sojourns camping, rock climbing, glacier hiking, exploring God's green earth ... but these were all external things, fun joy inducing activities. They were not they things that cultivate the soul.

But friends, here is how I became desperate.  I was mad at God.  I yelled and screamed at him at times when I was driving in my car alone.  We drifted away from an amazing church home, that is actively reaching the disconnected to show them the love of Jesus.  http://www.faithchurchonline.org/
I stopped reading the word.  We, both the hubs & I, stopped taking care of our health and our bodies showed the evidence. I let my heart become sardonic, bitter, and resentful.

What have I done to have a change of heart?  Well, it was really all about the people God placed on my path.  The faithful who showed up, who drug

me along kicking and screaming, who were obedient to God and followed His command... "Just be

her friend."

A small tribe of women, wouldn't stop showing up.  Even as I tried to be ugly, to get them to ditch me, they persevered.  They showed up at my house unannounced.
(gasp, was the house clean? Probably not.)
They made pots of coffee, brought baked goods, folded baskets of unattended laundry.  They drug me out to lunch, took me on joint grocery fetching field-trips (I would rarely leave the house alone, agoraphobic?... very close).  They were Jesus wrapped in skin.  They loved me when I was unlovable.  They were true and constant friends for my husband and children in our direst of times.  Gradually, God used them to mend our broken hearts.

There are many tales to tell about healthy life changes I had to make along this path of healing, but those may be told on a different day.  Today, I need to tell you I am back in the word; I am fellowship-ing with a tribe of believers; I am worshiping the one true God in a place  I feel loved, a place I feel safe being my broken self, a place where the Holy Spirit breaths into me, and I am learning from a pastor who obediently allows the Holy Spirit to speak through him.
http://www.demottefirstnaz.com/sermon-podcasts/

Is life perfect?  Am I miraculously healed from my emotional aliments? The answer is, nope.  I am a work in progress, finding contentment in being perfectly imperfect.  I have days when anxiety creeps in, but I notice it now.  My tribe of accountability people notice it too.  I spend time identifying my anxieties trigger.  I use healthy tools to restore my soul to peace.

My cloud of witnesses, my tribe.