So Loved

God’s love: When you’re a Christian, you tend to hear a lot about it. Especially during the Easter season, there is an emphasis in church on the John 3:16 truth: “For God so loved the world…” I memorized that verse a long time ago as a six year old in Sunday school and AWANAS. But for whatever reason, I have a hard time incorporating that truth into my practical reality.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been let down by others, so I brace myself to be let down by God. Or maybe it’s because I have such a hard time loving myself that I can’t comprehend someone would actually love me. Whatever the reason, God’s love has always seemed intangible to me, something I can’t quite grasp.

I’m not a perfect person. In fact, I can be a downright lousy person when I want to be. I’m always selfish. I’m often jealous. I have a quick and petty temper. I hate those parts of myself, and I’m pretty sure others aren’t too fond of them either. I hurt those closest to me, over and over and over. So could God love me? Yeah, yeah, I know he loves me because that’s what I’m supposed to believe. But…really? I don’t think I’ve actively believed it.

But then I had a baby.

Searching for Purpose

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down to write. Sometimes I go through phases when I barely write at all, which is hard when so much of my identity is in being a writer. I envy the kinds of writers who go up to their lovely writing lofts every day and write for hours and hours. I’m just not that kind of writer, I guess. I thrive on creative bursts, so when creativity is lacking, I have a hard time forcing it. I’m not very disciplined. But today I’m finally sitting down to get words on the page.

So what have I been up to?

I’m not working right now. For a while, this was a struggle for me. I felt a sense of purposeless, of failure. Jobs I applied for didn’t work out, which was impactful on my self-esteem. I struggled with questions like: Am I not good enough? Why doesn’t anyone want me? What am I even good at? And then I got pregnant. Since I’m planning to stay home with the baby, I didn’t want to start a job that I’d be leaving in a few months. So I decided to stop the job search and to just wait for the baby. But here’s the thing: waiting turned out to be very hard. I felt the purposelessness very keenly, very acutely. I began to wonder: What is my purpose? How do I bring meaning into my life?

Thankful

I’ve been wanting to blog for a while now, but every time I’ve thought about sitting down to write, something kinda strange kept me from my computer. I wanted to write, but I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to come out once I did.

Those of you who’ve followed me know that I tend to write about an issue, concern, or pressing thought when I have one. Lately, though, I just haven’t had any. And you know what? That’s been pretty great. It’s nice not to have a concern constantly bearing down on me. 

Anxiety: Giving Myself Grace

Many of you have heard Rob’s and my good news: we’re expecting! I’m 14 weeks along, so just beginning my second trimester. After a miscarriage, pregnancy can feel like a tentative and uncertain thing, but as the weeks have gone by, we’ve become more confident and I’ve allowed myself to get excited.

But I feel like there are two people living inside my head right now. One person is more happy than she’s ever been before: I can’t wait to have a baby and February can’t come soon enough. That person, though, is wracked with self-disappointment and anxiety. Pregnancy and mental illness can be a bad combination. 

5 Things I’ve Learned about Myself After 5 Years with Bipolar Disorder

This month marks five years living with Bipolar Disorder. On one hand, I can’t believe it’s been that long. I can still remember sitting in that physiatrist’s office, smelling that cinnamon candle, and hearing the diagnosis for the first time. On the other hand, I feel like I’ve had Bipolar disorder for a lot longer than that. I’ve been taking time to reflect on these past five years. Life is a lot more complicated than it once was. I’m a different person now. Life has forever been altered. All of that is true. But what else have I learned about myself?

Five things:

• 1) I’m less resilient