Dissertation Writing, Writing, Writing

Psalm 126:6

Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

During my last week in Papua New Guinea (2007) I was struggling with a lot of questions. I was dying inside with burnout, I was perpetually sick, and I didn't know what the future held. My friend Laura sat down with me and read Psalm 126 to me and I felt like that Psalm was written just for me.


Carrying seed to sow - There's a lot of planting and harvest imagery in the Bible. Anyone who has planted a tiny garden or a full field understands the concepts involved: preparing the soil, planting seeds, watering, and waiting for God to do the rest. In the ground is where the seeds germinate and eventually break through the soil.Painful times require prayer and persistence. These are times that build our faith as we choose to say, "God, I don't know what's happening, but give me strength to keep moving forward." 

Songs of joy - Harvesting is a time of hard work, but it's also a time of celebration.  Seeing how your work has produced a harvest gives us cause for celebration, praise, and gratitude. 

Dissertation Writing - My specific work right now is reading journal articles, data analysis, and typing page and after page. I send drafts off to be proof-read, I get them back with changes. Meanwhile I am going through a range of emotions from anger and doubt to hope and the joy of discovery.  Deep down there's a humming tenacity that I know God has given me to persist until this is completed. 

I know that God is building my faith right now. I am maturing during the process because I'm learning deeper levels of patience and peace. I know God's using this to help me become more like Him. My dream is to be a college professor and this process is preparing me for assisting future students. 

Thoughts from a Christian with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Cave Diving 
 
The first time I really understood that what I was feeling was anxiety was in 2009 when I was in graduate school.  I was trying to process the knowledge that I wasn't healthy enough to return to Papua New Guinea to work in a remote village allocation.  I woke up shaking.  I had to mentally berate myself to get up, get dressed, and go to class.  I felt like my brain was constantly in "fight or flight mode" - even when the stresses I was responding to were relatively mundane. 

I've continued to have horrible bouts of depression and anxiety over the years.  Some of these are because of extremely stressful life circumstances (doctoral program, anyone?) or because the medication I take was out of balance.  

To me, anxiety feels like being sucked into an underwater cave where it's dark, you can't breathe, and there's no real sense of what way's up.  Elements of anxiety are feeling isolated, panicked, and out of control.  When I feel this way I have to basically put my life on hold until things come back into balance. (On the worst days going to the store for milk can feel like a journey to Siberia.)

Hold the Guilt

Let me get straight-up honest here.  Something that makes anxiety worse is well intentioned Christians telling me, "You shouldn't be anxious. You know the Lord." 

Some of the greatest, strongest men and women in the Bible experienced anxiety and depression: King David, Elijah, and Simon-Peter. Telling a Christian to not have anxiety is ludicrous and it piles on guilt because it implies that we must be doing something wrong.  Anxiety isn't something that we can turn on and off with a switch.  

Support and Encouragement

If your loved one is experiencing severe anxiety please be understanding and patient.  Don't minimize their feelings or push them to do more than they're able to.  Encourage them to continue following the directions of their health care provider (including taking medication consistently).  Encourage your loved one to do manageable activities like taking a short walk.  Pray with them. Pray for wisdom for yourself.

After conversations with my counselor and friends who also have anxiety / depression, I learned some helpful responses to folks asking about anxiety:

1. The bodies we live in are corrupt. Christians are not immune to illness like the flu, diseases, or cancer. Our minds are corrupt as well.  No person on earth is free from pain, suffering, or loss. The symptoms of living in a fallen world come in different manifestations.

2. Taking anti-anxiety medication isn't a "crutch" or sign of lack of faith. This stigma is unhelpful and inaccurate. Would you tell a Christian with diabetes to skip their insulin? 

3. God has a purpose in everything. Having anxiety has allowed me to be more understanding and compassionate. Desperate, lonely times when all I can say is, "God, help me!" are times I've felt His presence the most. I realize that I need to rely on Him completely. 

God is Good

 A verse that has given me great comfort is:

Proverbs 3:5-6 (AMP)

⁵ Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.

⁶ In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.

I know that whatever the world throws at me God is there for me. He will lead and guide me each step of the way.

Knowing that I'm not alone makes the biggest difference in dealing with GAD.  I don't have an easy solution, but I do know that God has given me tools to deal with difficult times.  For that I am eternally grateful.

Kitty Nuggets has a way of showing how I feel sometimes.

Thoughts on Decluttering - my relationship with my stuff

I wrote the following post for Reddit, /r/declutter. You can read it here.

Some changes were made for clarity.

Part One

My resolution this year is to stay on top of the clutter in my house - move things on when I'm done, put things away, and clean up after myself.

My Momma told me this my entire childhood: clean up after yourself. I told my students when I was an elementary teacher to "Clean up your space." It's that simple, right?

I stay by myself with four pets, so my situation may be different than mine. I work full time and I'm working on my PhD.

I look around my house and what do I see? My work space (the dining room table) is piled with papers, books, and office supplies. In the kitchen there are boxes of cereal and coffee on the counter, dishes in the sink, and an empty box of dog treats. In the bathroom there are make-up palettes on the sink and a pile of dirty laundry. In my bedroom there's a laundry basket of clean, unfolded clothing.

The cause of my clutter is my own laziness, distractability, and failure to follow through. My biggest issue in my home, and the rest of my life, is avoidance.

When I come home from school I walk the dogs, cook, have dinner, and read. The last thing I want to do is clean. So I end up with the clutter and mess mentioned above, and it adds up every single day.

So what do I need to do differently? I need to wash my dishes after each meal and put food items away. I need to put my make-up back in the drawer when I'm done. I need to clean the litter boxes. I need to do a little bit each day.

As I've worked on my avoidance issue, I've noticed my home is more a home. I'm returning emails right away, answering text messages, and calling my parents more often. I feel much more calm and in charge when I have a tidy work environment and I am much more focused in my studies.
I hope to keep improving in this as the year goes on!

PartTwo

I've been thinking about the reasons people have for clutter and messiness, and also the reasons people have for strict cleanliness and order. There's some truth in how our surroundings reflect our inner thought lives. Also, the kind of home we grow up in impacts our relationships with out belongings and our surroundings. 

 

I grew up in a busy household. My Dad worked long hours in a medical practice and the hospital. My Mom worked as a nurse and raised 4 children. I shared a room with my sister, who is very tidy, and I had a sense that I didn't have my own "space" and that any "space" that I claimed (even a shelf) would be taken over. One of the reasons I am clutter-y, perhaps, is subconsciously claiming my home as my own space. The consequences of that is described over and over.I can only speak for myself, of course. It's been and it continues to be an interesting journey.

Part 3

I've been reading articles about decluttering and organizing. There are whole magazines devoted to it and stores devote entire sections to organization containers. What strikes me about this is that often the articles fail to address the thinking behind habits, and also how long it takes to change habits.
If you've been tossing your shoes in a pile beside the closet door, a fancy shoe rack isn't going to change your habit right away. (Or will it?)

There are two TV shows about hoarders. One of them requires the hoarder to confront mountains of stuff and have their home cleaned out in a weekend. At some point, the person breaks down. Of course they do! The stuff represents safety or protection.

Have you noticed that those folks usually experienced some trauma or abuse before they began hoarding? A child died, they lost their job, or they were in a major accident. It is a great disservice to these individuals to take away what is essentially their protective shell without giving them an opportunity to work through their trauma.

In some circumstances their home is so bad that it's a health and safety risk. That's a different issue, of course, and I wouldn't wish for anyone to be in a home full of mold or without running water.
The second show I watched allows the people to work through their "stuff" with the help of family, friends, and an organizer. They also have access to counseling. One man took 1 grocery sack of trash out of his home and that was a big step for him. In the follow-up, he communicated that he worked more and more, and saw the progress, which motivated him to do more and more.

These are extreme cases. I think it illustrates how change in the physical environment has to take place in the head and heart.

What do y'all think?

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

The past two weeks have been rough.  I had a bout with anxiety that kept me from really functioning.  It's happened a few times before - during my last months in Ukarumpa, after my first year of graduate school, and in 2011 when I crash landed in Dallas on medical leave. 

What is it like to have an anxiety attack?  Imagine that you are afraid of something that you cannot see, you can only feel.  Imagine that your world shrinks down to feelings of loneliness and helplessness.    

Then, imagine that you slowly start feeling like yourself again.  

I am grateful for my counselor, Cindy, and my Mom for helping me to work through each day and see things for what they are.

I've been thinking about the Prayer of St. Francis.  
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

An instrument is a tool that is used for a specific purpose.  When we ask God to use us, we must put aside certain comforts and be prepared to make sacrifices.  We have to "get out of His way" and realize that we our His vessel.  

God calls us to love one another.  The command is so simple, but is the hardest thing to do.  Love one another?  Love, when we don't feel like loving?  I'm still wrapping my mind around this.  

How can I be an "instrument of God's peace" today?  I can offer words of encouragement and kindness.  I can offer people the "benefit of the doubt."  I can make the world a kinder place to live.