a wide place

Last night I was searching my laptop for a recipe to send to my cousin, and I stumbled across two months of old journal entries from summer, 2016.

That was 8 years ago! I was 34. Our kids were 8, 7, 5, and 3. And back then, I kept my journal in a Pages document on my laptop.

As I read, I was plunged headlong into a dark time of my life. So dark, I’ve forgotten large parts of it. In short, I was a few months into a medical diagnoses of a panic disorder, and social situations were excruciating for me.

Of course I remember that I suffered from extreme anxiety in social settings, but I’d forgotten just how debilitating it was in that season. I struggled to go to the grocery store. To church. To small group. Even to have my in-laws over for dinner. I had to take a Xanax just to go get a hair cut.

I saw a psychiatrist regularly and took large amounts of medication just to cope with daily life. I also began seeing a therapist after a several-year break, but those therapy sessions felt nearly unbearable because they involved sitting in a small, close room, talking to someone. And that was precisely what I could hardly do.

When I did go to church in our rented Main Street building, I couldn’t even sit in the sanctuary. I’d set up a metal folding chair right outside the door so I could be near enough to listen to the service. It was humiliating, and many Sundays I’d just sit there and cry.

Here’s an excerpt of a night we invited extended family over to watch a movie.

By the time we started Oceans 11, I was basically writhing in anxiety. I went to the kitchen to take a Gabapentin. I got up multiple times, walked into the dining room or bathroom to just breathe for awhile. I started out on the sofa, but that was too close to people. Finally I stood in the doorway, and then eventually eased in the little white chair in the corner of the room.

I jumped back up and took a Xanax and Pepto Bismal, because my stomach was so upset too.

Even then I spent the whole two-hour movie focusing on staying in the living room and staying seated while waves of panic washed over me.

I’m so bewildered. I’m not intimidated by my family.

But then all the old fears started flooding back. I’m terrified of New Members class and Life Group and helping David with premarital counseling. I’m scared of the officer’s wives retreat next month. I don’t want to invite anyone over to our house for dinner. I just want to hide.

This is terrible. I’m a bad wife for David. This is my life as a pastor’s wife, and I can’t escape it.

It’s a scary feeling.

I can hardly even remember that girl who used to sit in the front row at church, people all around me, and didn’t think a thing of it. The girl who went to the movies and invited friends for dinner and went on coffee dates without thinking twice about being scared and anxious.

That was me, in summer, 2016.

Reading all of this is painful. The memories washing over me are painful.

Mostly I just feel terribly sad for 34-year-old Julie. I feel a compassion for her that I wish I’d allowed myself back then but I don’t think I knew how. I only knew how to berate myself.

I thought I’d tell you what I’d say now to that Julie if I could.

The most important thing I’d say is, “You have no idea what’s happening to you, but God is safe to trust.

“It’s going to be okay. Not because everything will go your way or you’ll get better overnight or even completely get better in the next 8 years. But it’s going to be okay because God is good and He’s in control of everything that happens to you. He loves you right now, when you feel you have nothing to offer Him. He’s so beautiful that He is using all of this for good. He doesn’t waste a single thing.

So please be gentle with yourself. It’s your pride that causes you to beat yourself up mercilessly for what you’re calling a weakness. Open your tight-fisted hands and allow this thing, this sickness, to happen to you. Take care of your body and yes, keep seeking professional help, but be patient in the process. It has been building up for years and it will take years to heal and learn a new way of living.

I promise, it will be worth it.

God is humbling you, prying loose deep-rooted idols of people-pleasing that have caused you to way over-commit and to try to be everything for everybody so that you’ll be liked and feel like you’re worth something. This is a well that will always run dry for you.

You’re running smack into your natural limits and that is a good thing. You’re doing way too much and you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.”

I’m so thankful 34-year-old Julie did not know that things were going to get worse before they got better, that less than a year later our church would go through an incredibly difficult season that would last a long time and feel like a death in many ways.

It is truly God’s protection that we don’t know the future. When we’re in it, He gives the grace to bear it, but not a moment sooner. My friend Elisabeth calls it His “manna grace,” just enough for today.

That panic disorder did two big things for me. First, God said “no” for a long season to ministry outside my home. I’m so glad He did because I needed to see my kids, to see David, as my first ministry. They were getting the leftovers and that was not right.

The second thing it did was help me along on my journey to become my own person before the Lord, loved by Him because I’m His child, disentangled from all the activities and people I work so hard to find my identity in. I began learning that what I was doing was using people so that I’d feel better about myself. I needed to learn much healthier ways of being in relationship with others.

These are both journeys that continue to this day. They are both still areas of temptation, and God continues to send times of suffering to break me of the idols of self-sufficiency, control, and people-pleasing. But I have to say that the process comes a little smoother now. I’m able to identify the idols quicker and open my hands and accept the mystery of God’s Providence. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Also: some things just take time.

God has not seen fit to wholly remove my anxiety disorder, and sometimes that is still really hard for me. But I’ve learned ways to live so that it doesn’t dominate my life. I still take medication, but thankfully it is minimal now. I exercise regularly and watch my caffeine intake. I can sit in the sanctuary for our worship service each Sunday, albeit in the back row. In God’s timing, I slowly added back some of the activities I had to quit. Last year (7 years after that season I journaled about), I returned to helping lead a small group and to Book Club. Being back felt like pure grace, a gift. I hope I never take them for granted again.

And finally, as you can see from the pictures in this post, that year of suffering was also full of gifts. All the years are full of gifts; that’s another thing David and I have learned. We have suffered much in our marriage, yes, but God is the giver of all that’s good and beautiful and there are always, always reasons to rejoice.

We don’t understand many of the hard things that have happened to us but we also don’t understand so many of the good things that happen. All the blessing and the beauty and the people that surround us. This unspeakable gift of having a small part in spreading God’s kingdom in our city, together as a family.

That’s something I hope to impart to my kids, who are all growing up so fast and are beginning to encounter their own times of suffering. I hope that David and I have been honest with them that hardship is part of following Jesus, but also honest about the immense joy and freedom there is to be found in this kind of life.

Thanks be to God.