You're familiar with the CS Lewis Quote where the Lord helps you progress gradually, until one day it feels more like a wrecking ball:
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."
This describes the month we've had. Save Isaac's job, it seems like everything else in our lives has changed. It's not all bad or good, pretty or ugly, it's just change--which is hard. Here's the bullet list and my "in hindsight" commentary:
This describes the month we've had. Save Isaac's job, it seems like everything else in our lives has changed. It's not all bad or good, pretty or ugly, it's just change--which is hard. Here's the bullet list and my "in hindsight" commentary:
* My every-afternoon job homeschooling ended. It was so odd to go from being at the Faber's every day to hardly ever talking to them again. I miss them! In hindsight, it was good timing to have a break. They were a huge financial blessing as my main source of income and that happened at a poor time because...
* We got a new (better) accountant who said we owed 5K in back taxes for said job.
* We had another 15K in medical bills, the biggest chunk of that being for another ICSI round (the most advanced fertility treatment) that was a complete bust and money dump for not getting a single embryo to work with. In hindsight, we're thankful we did it so that we have no regrets and can leave everything from here on out in the Lord's hands.
* The news was that fertility treatments would not prove useful to prevent pregnancy loss and deal with endometriosis because I was on the road to menopause. That is so shocking at my age that my doctor thought perhaps I had some rare genetic disorder. You'd think that would be a huge relief to be told not to bother going back to a doctor, but we were actually excited for IVF at this point and thought it would be our ticket to having as many children as we wanted...when we wanted...and into our old age (thanks to frozen embroys). Losing that control was more devastating than any previous pregnancy loss. In hindsight, I would experience it all again for the sake of my brother's wife, who had an almost-identical experience, yet worse, just a few weeks later. I treasure my friendship and empathy with her. (And turns out she and I don't have some rare genetic disorder, but that our ovaries were potentially damaged in prior surgeries and we simply have hardly any eggs left.)
* I'd been putting a lot of time into an integrated approach of physical therapy, physical training, chiropractic, and medical massage for my rotator cuff injury from over a year ago and problems from my last pregnancy in my hip. It was taking about $200/wk and though I didn't mind it, I was discouraged at my progress given the commitment. I just wanted to move on from those problems and nothing was working. In hindsight I can see that having those appointments and my temple job was the only thing getting me out of bed.
* When my regular doctor said my inflammation levels weren't good and put me on a specific diet where we were supposed to prepare our own fresh food from scratch several times a day, it was all too overwhelming and I had a mental breakdown. Thankfully my mom helped me prepare meals to last a couple of days and since then we've scrapped the recipes and just eat foods from the approved list.
*For the first time in a long time, I didn't go to mutual and canceled at the last minute. I wasn't missed but I felt guilty about it. I had been wanting to be released because I was getting burnt out and thought the girls deserved better. BUT...I concluded there were still some things I wanted to get better organized about and take care of before I'd be ready to pass on the baton. The next week the Bishop called me in and told me he'd already called a replacement and I was done. The activity I got to end on was a blessing, but instead of relief I just felt more guilt about not being up to the task and not having the YW organization in a place I wanted. In hindsight, I needed to be taking care of myself and the Lord releasing me was a blessing to have that off my plate.
*I was told by multiple people that at least I still had my church secretary job and what a great environment like the temple to find peace. That made me feel even more guilty because I get anxious about going to work. It's not like my job is sitting in the Celestial Room all day, and it actually can be a stressful, unhappy place in the recorder's office. Don't get me wrong, it's a huge blessing and I have friends there, but I often feel micromanaged and an expectation of near perfection, let alone a whole lot of employee and sometimes patron drama. My heart rate has doubled there and I'd panic every time I got a call from the office wondering what I had done wrong or when I had to work next. In hindsight, the Lord still blesses me to get through my shift every time and it is giving me a good place to practice some of the skills my counselor is teaching me such as assertiveness, boundaries, forgiveness, agency, dis-engaging, etc.
* We got a new (better) accountant who said we owed 5K in back taxes for said job.
* We had another 15K in medical bills, the biggest chunk of that being for another ICSI round (the most advanced fertility treatment) that was a complete bust and money dump for not getting a single embryo to work with. In hindsight, we're thankful we did it so that we have no regrets and can leave everything from here on out in the Lord's hands.
* The news was that fertility treatments would not prove useful to prevent pregnancy loss and deal with endometriosis because I was on the road to menopause. That is so shocking at my age that my doctor thought perhaps I had some rare genetic disorder. You'd think that would be a huge relief to be told not to bother going back to a doctor, but we were actually excited for IVF at this point and thought it would be our ticket to having as many children as we wanted...when we wanted...and into our old age (thanks to frozen embroys). Losing that control was more devastating than any previous pregnancy loss. In hindsight, I would experience it all again for the sake of my brother's wife, who had an almost-identical experience, yet worse, just a few weeks later. I treasure my friendship and empathy with her. (And turns out she and I don't have some rare genetic disorder, but that our ovaries were potentially damaged in prior surgeries and we simply have hardly any eggs left.)
* I'd been putting a lot of time into an integrated approach of physical therapy, physical training, chiropractic, and medical massage for my rotator cuff injury from over a year ago and problems from my last pregnancy in my hip. It was taking about $200/wk and though I didn't mind it, I was discouraged at my progress given the commitment. I just wanted to move on from those problems and nothing was working. In hindsight I can see that having those appointments and my temple job was the only thing getting me out of bed.
* When my regular doctor said my inflammation levels weren't good and put me on a specific diet where we were supposed to prepare our own fresh food from scratch several times a day, it was all too overwhelming and I had a mental breakdown. Thankfully my mom helped me prepare meals to last a couple of days and since then we've scrapped the recipes and just eat foods from the approved list.
*For the first time in a long time, I didn't go to mutual and canceled at the last minute. I wasn't missed but I felt guilty about it. I had been wanting to be released because I was getting burnt out and thought the girls deserved better. BUT...I concluded there were still some things I wanted to get better organized about and take care of before I'd be ready to pass on the baton. The next week the Bishop called me in and told me he'd already called a replacement and I was done. The activity I got to end on was a blessing, but instead of relief I just felt more guilt about not being up to the task and not having the YW organization in a place I wanted. In hindsight, I needed to be taking care of myself and the Lord releasing me was a blessing to have that off my plate.
*I was told by multiple people that at least I still had my church secretary job and what a great environment like the temple to find peace. That made me feel even more guilty because I get anxious about going to work. It's not like my job is sitting in the Celestial Room all day, and it actually can be a stressful, unhappy place in the recorder's office. Don't get me wrong, it's a huge blessing and I have friends there, but I often feel micromanaged and an expectation of near perfection, let alone a whole lot of employee and sometimes patron drama. My heart rate has doubled there and I'd panic every time I got a call from the office wondering what I had done wrong or when I had to work next. In hindsight, the Lord still blesses me to get through my shift every time and it is giving me a good place to practice some of the skills my counselor is teaching me such as assertiveness, boundaries, forgiveness, agency, dis-engaging, etc.
As difficult as the actual circumstances seemed at the time--to lose your job, your calling, your money, and your future children--I can see now that all of them really were blessings.
*Perhaps the hardest thing, then, was switching gears from physical problems (which are improving greatly probably thanks to the diet, exercise, and removing a lot of stressors) to mental problems. After all the tears and grief and stress ended from the above, I found myself the next month just staring at the wall with no emotion or motivation anytime I wasn't forced to be anywhere. Whereas I used to like people, now I'm scared of those that I know the best. That has happened to me before but I always blamed it on not having any physical energy, which now wasn't a problem. I could see that my counselor was right and even back in college, there were emotional issues that I didn't know how to deal with. The root of them seems to be not knowing who my human support system is and feeling rejected from all the unsympathetic responses or no response or help at all after trying to be vulnerable. Relationships (or lack thereof) are my most difficult trial anyway and feeling like I was being pushed down by the very people who I thought would be there for me felt isolating and just created more social anxiety. I've never had to deal with mental illness in myself so it was very confusing, yet eye-opening. I sympathize with all who function with this debilitation and I'm excited to learn more about it so I can be more relate-able and increase my coping skills for future trials. My goal in learning this is to rely on the Lord more than others and become more emotionally and physically self-reliant. While I can't expect others to be perfect, the Lord is, and He has never left me. These experiences are one more testimony to me that He does what is in my best interest even if it don't like it.
*Perhaps the hardest thing, then, was switching gears from physical problems (which are improving greatly probably thanks to the diet, exercise, and removing a lot of stressors) to mental problems. After all the tears and grief and stress ended from the above, I found myself the next month just staring at the wall with no emotion or motivation anytime I wasn't forced to be anywhere. Whereas I used to like people, now I'm scared of those that I know the best. That has happened to me before but I always blamed it on not having any physical energy, which now wasn't a problem. I could see that my counselor was right and even back in college, there were emotional issues that I didn't know how to deal with. The root of them seems to be not knowing who my human support system is and feeling rejected from all the unsympathetic responses or no response or help at all after trying to be vulnerable. Relationships (or lack thereof) are my most difficult trial anyway and feeling like I was being pushed down by the very people who I thought would be there for me felt isolating and just created more social anxiety. I've never had to deal with mental illness in myself so it was very confusing, yet eye-opening. I sympathize with all who function with this debilitation and I'm excited to learn more about it so I can be more relate-able and increase my coping skills for future trials. My goal in learning this is to rely on the Lord more than others and become more emotionally and physically self-reliant. While I can't expect others to be perfect, the Lord is, and He has never left me. These experiences are one more testimony to me that He does what is in my best interest even if it don't like it.
And another blessing from all this is that Isaac, who has had his own bouts of depression and social anxiety, has had to pull my weight and is really trying hard to get his personal faith game on. That has translated to an increase in personal revelation and assurances from the Lord that our children will still be born to us when it is time and that we just need to focus on taking care of ourselves. He has increased his physical and mental stamina to work on the yard, the neighbor's house, exercise, read, stretch, and deal with some shoulder issues and a newer calling that he has. He's striving to do Come Follow Me and be more productive at work and home. In short, he is simply amazing and helpful and growing all the time. We feel we are developing better habits that will make parenting easier for us and we're glad the Lord has given us this time rather than giving us children five years ago. We could have learned from that, too, of course, but how much we have learned without them and still have a wonderful marriage and life! "O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape"!
Thanks again for all those who were willing to fast for my emotions last month. I know others cannot fix my problems but every act of reaching out helps, whether someone wants it or not. I wish I had been less selfish and been there for others the way I wanted them to be there for me. My best birthday present was your fast because it helped me to see how grateful I should be and that my support system is there if I can learn better to minister and be ministered to. Please let me know how I can better meet your needs in your times of trial so that none of us is ever isolated or in despair! I know the Lord is loving us through kind acts and the acknowledgement of others and I want to be better about providing that service. Hugs!
