Inhale, exhale.

I used to think I was made for intense seasons. For the five years my family ran a quilt store and cafe, I revelled in a packed schedule. Even when it freaked me out, I kind of relished the challenge of adding 'just one more thing' when it seemed there wasn't room for even half of one more thing. That was me, back then. So the question I'm asking now is: where on earth did that person go?

The last month has been a steady trickle of just-one-more things. Uni things. Finance things. Health things. Brain things. Heart things. Daily life things. Future things. Wondering things. And I've turned into one big Anxious Thing. I should probably mention here that before I was the girl who revelled in the packed schedule, I was the girl who lived in the terror zone. I guess you could call it my special gift -- an unwanted gift, but one in which I particularly excelled. My special skill peaked in my teen years, during which time I really hit the fear zone. It was a time I don't look back on with fondness -- it was pretty crippling, actually -- but it taught me some good things, mostly about how it's not who I am, but who I am in Christ that matters. And that sounds like a pat phrase, but it's really not.

I thought all that stuff was in my backstory, though. Then KABOOM, it suddenly catapulted itself into my present. Whew. Just as ugly and paralysing as it was back when I was seventeen only, like, now. Yuck. Yuck and yuck. And it seems petty and weak because there are people with infinitely huger things going on in their worlds, as well as some very good things going on in my own world (and I promise to tell you about those things), but of course none of that makes sense to a brain when it's on the fritz. Logic puts on its cloak of invisibility.

In the middle of it all, though, and just like back in my teens, this season has sent me running back to the shelter that is true. The truth doesn't take away pain, but it reminds me that it's bearable, that it's for some good reason, and that there is Someone who has promised to keep me within His love. Man, I can't express enough how good that is.


Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. Psalm 103:2-4