August 26 taking my son to College, that is 4 hours form home.  It’s been a trying weekend.  We have been very busy we had some work related social events to go to.  I am back to work and thus lots going on.  I have been fighting some depression twinges.  I have felt the darkness sitting across the yard, or the room or the office or where ever I have been.  It’s not sneaking up on me, its sitting there watching me.  It is sitting in a lounge chair relaxed and watching waiting, wanting me to drop my guard or my defences, any sign of weakness to approach.   I have turned my back on it.  Looking to the Lord to protect me, which I know will happen.  The Lord always protects me.  It’s my mind that lets me down and confuses me so I forget that God protects me.  That of course as I have said before, is the pitfalls of a chemically imbalanced brain.

I actually cried today watching my daughter jump on her brother and tickle him as she left for work and he got up to finish packing to move.  I cried again when he showed me the text she sent while she was on the bus to work.  Full of love and sentiment.  Gosh they really do love each other who knew!! (joke).  We are an hour away from the city he is moving to.  I have been sitting in the back of the van doing some  paperwork  for work.  Writing this blog. Thinking about life and things.  Like how the hell did this boy of mine get so old so fast.  When I brought him home from the hospital it seemed like yesterday and I walked around the house for house wondering what to do and then I thought I could put him down.  Maybe I shouldn’t have!  I put him down he grew, but this is what is suppose to happen.  It is truly all good and it is apart of his journey in life and my journey too I am not ready to let the change happen. We went to a party yesterday for my husband’s work, and we were talking to people who were there and they were talking about when they were born,  and I’m thinking darn it I was in school then—I have always been the youngest of groups how did this happen?  The process of aging.  It is something that sneaks up on you.  I still see myself as a young chick and I’m not in my 50’s so yes I am a young chick.  I am just having a change in life and maybe that is what is shocking me.  I have time away from kids and time with my husband.  The parents get older – of which my Mother is still alive and so I look at her and see the needs she will have in the future and see that maybe I will be busier than I think.  But there is another thing in all of this growing up and maturing I am also maturing my faith.  God has shown me he is with me in the good and bad and as I go through these changes in my life he is the constant; the never changing love and creator of life from the beginning, which he set, to the end which he will decide.  I am created loved and apart of a spiritual realm that I cannot explain.  As I think of this realm, I feel the love and warmth of God fill my spirit I am driven to discover know and understand more.  I can feel the darkness move his easy chair back a few feet away from me.  Its times like this when I am tired from lack of sleep and restless,  I am concerned that my son has all that he needs to spread his wings in life, that is when the doubts come and the darkness’ chair moves a few feet closer.  Did I do all I could have done to prepare this boy for this world.  Does he desire to be apart of Gods direction or his own.   Was there more that I could have prepared him for?  Doubts doubts doubts.  They swallow up all that is good and true and solid in my mind.

There is something that God has been revealing to me that I have been trying to understand and I am far from being there, but I think that people with depression can grasp this and handle it better than those who don’t.

Depression reveals a darkness that can pull at you and completely engulf you.  It shows you a dark realm that is at work looking for the weak to devour, and pull down. It is looking for new conquests, and if it does not get you the first time it will follow and try new tactics and try to confuse hurt and bully you into a state of panic.  But this real realm of darkness also has an opposite.  The Realm of Light.   Jesus said he was the light of the world. He was a beacon that reveals itself in the darkness so us dimwitted humans can see the light and follow him.  In the first chapter of John (where I have spent most of my studying this summer) talks about Jesus being with God in the beginning and a light to the darkness but the darkness does not understand.

In my darkest points of this depression I did not understand the light.  The darkness though is a little quicker than I and can easily confuse me into believing that the Light is loud, exposing and lacking love — when it is the darkness that are all these things and the light is love kindness truth.

Its the middle of the week now. The use of hand held divices has kept me connected with my boy and I am feeling better about that.  But the darkness has moved his chair closer today.  He is still just sitting watching I am occupying my mind and body with exercise and cleaning of the house.  I have not been sleeping this week, again!  And am at my wits end about that. Maybe tonight.  Its this sleeplessness that makes resisting the darkness so hard.  I become so tired and unable to think straight that I have a flight or fight feeling come over me and I want to run, where I could care less, but its what I want to do. Tonight however I am trying to relax.  Maybe my occupying of my mind and body has left me unable to relax. Tonight as I write this I am watching the slow rising of the full moon.  The full moon makes me happy.  My Grandfather used to say if you butcher a pig on the growing side of the moon your bacon will not shrink….ah ya I’m not sure about that too.  But a growing moon always makes me feel better… no idea why.

Forgive me for not writting in a while… summertime things have occupied my time I only hope that it has for you too.  In the mean time I will try to fight this darkness watching me and I hope you can too.

till next time…….