Image: Kelly Hanwright

Warning – this is long. So if you get bored, skip to the end. It’s the best part. But I couldn’t get there without all the stuff that happened before it. So. I included it. Also please remember:

The things that have happened to you have been perpetrated on you. They are not your fault.

Yesterday was a dark day. Why? I couldn’t exactly tell you. The day before was perfectly fine and beautiful. It’s just that things will go well for a while, maybe even a long while, and then suddenly the past will step from around a corner and slam its iron fist into my guts.

The tricky part, both for trying to understand or exercise any modicum of control over these episodes and also for trying to explain them, is that they are almost never triggered by a concrete memory. I may not know what causes it, but the physical and emotional experiences each time are fairly similar.

I wake up feeling like my stomach is full of gravel.

I want to throw up, and maybe even feel like I’m going to. I came as close as ever yesterday. But no matter how sick I feel, nothing comes. Not like when I was a little kid and would puke for days.

Sometimes I cry. Not always. Sometimes tears won’t come out. Yesterday, tears would not stop. It was a slow drain too, which is the most painful kind because I keep thinking I’ve stopped, only to spring a fresh leak a little later in the day. If I’m in a house full of people, say visiting family, then this is a pain in the ass because I keep having to find places to hide or go to the bathroom a lot. Even here at home, I hide from my husband unless it’s really bad. Because, I just feel like that gets old. What would I tell him anyway? I have no concrete idea why I’m sobbing but I feel like I’m 5 years old again on the inside? Yeah, okay…

Sometimes it gets pitch black and all the lights go out…

When I go to this place (or maybe it would be more accurate to say, when I am thrown into this place), sometimes it gets pitch black and all the lights go out. I find myself wondering things I thought I knew the answers to. Why am I here? What does my life even mean?  Is life a cruel joke? What will be the sum of all the shit we go through, anyway?

To top it all off, my husband and I had a stupid argument about something stupid, so I couldn’t talk to him about it until later after we finally calmed down and things went back to normal. Thankfully we had a long conversation before bed, which definitely led to sleeping better!

I told him, when faced with the choice, I trust him.

But before that I took a long walk and committed my doubts to God. I told him, when faced with the choice, I trust him, even though I didn’t feel like that was true at the moment. I made the decision to make it true. I told him, all I can do is just commit my life and its purpose to You. Then, I just tried not to think about it anymore. I was pretty glad the day was ending because I sort of felt like Muhammad Ali after he got hit in the head one too many times.

Just before falling asleep, I prayed over my night in a way that used to work for me as a teen and young adult, but that lately I’d forgotten to use. I used to claim Proverbs 3:24 over my night – “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.” I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. Haven’t really slept well one single night now in over a week. But last night, that prayer worked. I slept soundly and peacefully without dreams.

Now let me tell you what I read this morning.

I’ve been reading a devo on the Bible app (YouVersion) called The Parables of Jesus. I enjoy these because The Parables themselves have always fascinated me. Today’s reading was over the parable about “Growing Seed” in Mark chapter 4. And what was the first thing I noticed?

Growth can be taking place even if we can’t observe it.

“This parable shows that growth can be taking place even if we can’t observe it.” In the parable, the guy goes out and scatters some seeds around. Then he goes in the house and goes to sleep. But. Lo and behold a few months later, all the plants have grown up from those seeds and he has a harvest to reap.

It seemed, at least for the time, to provide a satisfactory answer for yesterday’s  questions of meaning. How do I know my life makes any difference at all, whatsoever? Maybe it’s all for nothing?

Well. Yeah, okay.

But so often in life, things are happening that we cannot see – we only see the results of. Like Spring, for instance. It’s been bubbling beneath the surface all this time, but there was no evidence until suddenly little green shoots and leaves sprouted out from everyplace. I think maybe (although sometimes I need a major reminder!) our lives are like that. If we keep putting positivity and good things out of our selves, it can’t help but sprout sooner or later. It is the nature of the world for something to be always growing. Nobody would say, oh no, I don’t believe in Spring. That would be kind of stupid because sooner or later the evidence will overwhelm that theory!

So in the same way, I want to continue believing in the growth that is happening during this process of life.

It may take concentrated effort sometimes. It may not come naturally. But I choose to believe good things will grow if I scatter seeds filled with goodness.