When I first met my husband he had been diagnosed with clinical depression about a year previously. He was unable to work, barely able to get up in the morning, on extremely strong anti-depressants and seeing various psychiatrists. With no obvious trigger point, life had been sucked out of him and he felt angry and abandoned by his Father in Heaven. He describes it as being completely numb to every feeling and emotion; no passion, no joy, no real sadness, just complete apathy. I believe that mental illness, particularly depression, is one of Satan’s biggest weapons of warfare today. It hangs like a thick fog over society as people are overcome by feelings of stress, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness. Depression flattens people, squashing the life out of them and Christians are by no means immune to this disease.

I really struggled with God as to why He was bringing me into this hugely significant relationship at a time that seemed completely wrong. But He showed me that His timing and plans are perfect. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Sometimes, I think God uses us to be light bearers, to carry the light of Jesus into dark places where people are broken and lifeless. That’s how God has used our marriage. There hasn’t been a bolt of lightning healing; it’s been a long and gradual, often painful process, of prayer, healing and hope restored. We are in an ongoing battle against depression, with defeats and victories, but we choose to fight because we vowed to love each other in sickness and in health. We choose to say “Blessed be your Name” even in the desert places. If we don’t, then our hope is lost. And light does break through the darkness – my husband cried for the first time in years on our wedding day, he’s held down a job for the past four years, and now has an incredible passion to go and be a missionary. Our children’s names mean life-bringer and hope and they are a testimony to the life, light and hope that Jesus brings.

The time that has passed since that day has been full of indescribable pain, total and overwhelming love, loneliness, hope, despair, confusion, unbelievable anger and questioning things to distraction!

Not only did I lose my best friend, my lover, my companion and my favourite person but I also lost the father of my child, my hopes and dreams for the future, I lost my home, I lost the belief and hope that life is fundamentally good and safe, the very grounds of all that I had believed and based my life upon had been shaken to the core.

But two years and nearly four months on I can sit here and say that I am a truly blessed woman – I knew the love of an amazing man who gave me so much. Although the time we spent together was so short in terms of my potential life span the impact he had on my life will always be immense. I have been given the most beautiful daughter. I have known the love of friends, family and strangers to a point were I am often reduced to tears. I have been blessed with deepened friendships, healed friendships, new friendships, which even in my anger towards God reminded me deep down that God does provide and does restore. I have known material provision. I have known protection emotionally. The prayers, the words, the gifts, the experiences and the people that have blessed me could in themselves fill a book .

What I have known above all else, even in the midst of my biggest tantrums towards God, is that his everlasting arms are holding me. It has been a difficult journey back to trusting God again and at times I feared I would never get back there. There are still moments when I scream “why have you let this happen to my lovely family?”,” what did I do to deserve this?”, “are you trustworthy for my future?”

I may never know this side of heaven why John was taken from me but I have to chose to believe that through God life can be good again, I can love again, I can have more children, I can know deep joy again, that God can heal the hurt and pain and bring good from it all but it is not easy to do that. It is a choice I have to make every day but I need to choose it because I know that I want a better life for me and my little girl and not a life of bitterness. I know as been proved time and time again in my life over the last few years I cannot do that without him.

I got married last July to Jon, who has been a huge support in dealing with my Mum’s death (mainly by not saying very much!).  Jon lost his Dad when he was only 2 and I see a great amount of God’s redemption in our relationship, in our support of one another, and through our heart to be family to others. 

But there is still so much brokenness and weakness for God to work in.  As me and Jon have become a new family, we’ve also joined one another’s families.  The truth is grief never affects only one person – the cataclysmic shift that death brings to a family is sometimes the hardest impact that it can have.  Where I’ve known healing and breakthrough in my own personal loss, it is the brokenness of my family that exposes my anger, judgement and desperation.  As I look at the consequences that death has had on our families I feel grief and sadness for what has been robbed from us.  And in that place most often what is exposed is my own brokenness – my frustration with people’s insecurities, my judgement on how family ought to be, my anger towards others’ inability to love me how I want to be loved.  Most frustrating of all is that I’m incapable of reaching out to them.  In my own struggle, there is nothing left. 

The thing is, loss exposes our weakness and our sinfulness.  It doesn’t matter what the loss is, we all experience loss in something.  Life throws things at us that surprise us, and are not always the way we expected or wanted them to be. 

The one thing I’ve learnt is that God is the only one who can hold me up and through grief, I have known Him more than ever before.  His faithfulness is true and, when those around me don’t understand or are dealing with their own grief, He whispers quietly, ‘I know, I know, I know.’  In those times His hope has resonated within my heart.  In my weakness His grace is sufficient for me, His power will be made perfect (2 Cor.12:9) - and it’s never been so true, or so necessary, before.

Is life really like a box of chocolates? Or more like a box of Elastoplasts?

Why is it we go through life, experiencing hurt, pain, sorrow, and grief and never really deal with it? We patch it up with a plaster (US: Band Aid). The wound is gaping, messy, bleeding so instead of confront the problem expose the situation which may hurt far more initially, we reach for the doubled doored mirrors, catching a glimpse of ourselves on the way but not stopping to look quickly opening the doors and grasping the box. Lucky for us they come in all different sizes, because every hurt takes a slightly different shape, square, circular those ones with the funny shaped sticking out bit which no one ever really knows which particular wound they bind. We select one that will cover the wound sufficiently so we can convince our selves that it will do, I no longer have to worry about it.

But eventually we do because as far as I am aware not even extra durable, waterproof Elastoplasts last forever. Soon enough they begin to peal away around the edges. The memory of why the plaster is there comes flooding back and we have two choices, face up to it or replace it.

Ripping it off hurts, sharp quick pull and its gone. Exposed the wound is painful, vulnerable but is open to the air the healing oxygen it needs to fully heal to be restored. In time it may bear a scar. A constant reminder of a lesson learned. From time to time the skin may break a painful reminder of hurt once felt but none the less is dealt with. Or we take the plaster off and replace it with a new one convincing ourselves now is not the time to see if the wound could heal to test the waters, so on goes another.

But should we even reach for the plaster? Would we be more real, more honest if the plaster were never applied and yeah we bleed openly, publicly but the wound would get air life giving oxygen that heals, and we all do it together, a community of walking wounded, instead of the walking I have a plaster on my pain so can smile back at you. 

By Ally Proudfoot

As marriage was not happening, as I’d gone as far as I wanted to in my church – I’d had free run to set up my own ministry, I’d had freedom to lead small mission teams to international destinations – I was bored and needed something new.  As the doors opened for me to do the mission school in Mozambique, this was it.  I handed over ministry, I rented out my house, I sold my car, got rid of so much stuff and off I went for 3 months to come back to what I thought would be weeks. These weeks became a year and a half – in that time was another 3 months in Mozambique, 3 weeks in India and multiple trips to the States.  So much of the Lord’s blessing was in the places I went, the miracles I got to be part of, the things I saw and the amazing people I met along the way.

However what also came along was pain – pain in the lack of directions of my life, pain in being laid aside, shame in being no one. I’d always tried to help people find a plan, find direction, after all that had been part of my ‘job’ I thought – and here I am floating…even worse than floating, so angry with God… although God is clearly saying to me He’s so jealous for me, that’s why He’s not releasing me yet, that is why He’s not just letting me loose. Deep down I know if He did send me off, release me to go I would just become task and crisis orientated and burn out and be cross with God.

So how do we deal with transition when we don’t know where we are going? How do we be real and not just feel so frustrated, laid aside and ashamed?  It’s made me see how much of me relating to God was all about who I should be, what I should do, what was validating me.  Although I talked about relationship with God, I needed a ‘direction’ to validate me.

What I’m beginning to wonder is how much of staying in this desert is down to me – down to me dealing with my pain, down to me admitting my failure, down to me avoiding me really going to God.  For nearly six months now I’ve been stuck on Psalm 27…different parts on different days and weeks…however it’s verse 4 that gets me….to seek Him in his temple all the days of my life, to gaze upon his beauty….these words can now roll off my tongue…..however what is being to sink in is that this is the whole point of everything…this is it!!!!

But how hard is it to stay in the place of doing that, how much easier is it to have ‘a plan’ and therefore feel angry and have a ‘stand off; with God for not giving me a plan, because deep down this is easier than sitting at his feet. That’s the part that involves dealing with pain, being real, being laid aside, going unnoticed, feeling ‘useless’, feeling insecure, being hidden, allowing Him to truly search my heart – and what is coming out is not pretty and part of me would rather it be hidden by ‘ministry’ if I’m being really truthful.

There is a verse in proverbs that says the heart is deceitful above all. How much of this time do I truly convince myself that in seeking a plan, I am seeking Him.

I don’t want to wait in this desert a minute longer than necessary, I don’t want to be like the Israelites and wait 40 years for what can be done in days.  I want to live up to the prayers I prayed, the prayers of search my heart, use me however you like, don’t let me walk outside your will, it’s all about you Lord, wherever, whatever, whenever Lord.

The question I’m coming to in seeking direction of what to do, where to go is what am I really seeking? And am I truly willing to pay the price of just seeking Him in His temple to gaze upon his beauty!

How much easier is it to yet again check facebook and skype and continue on in ‘pain’ than sit at his feet…talking to him about the pain? How much easier is it to talk to people about it, to try and get my friends alongside with me, to help me regulate and justify the pain than go straight to one who can make it better?  How much am I prolonging my anxiety and dissatisfaction and disillusion by my own choices!!!

My husband and I chose this chunk of scripture for our wedding.  Yes, we used this to describe our relationship to all our friends and family who shared this very special day with us.  Are you laughing?  It is okay if you are…we still laugh about it to this very day!

Please let me explain our reason for choosing this particular scripture. We focused on the fact that trials develop perseverance which leads to maturity and completeness.  Isn’t that what we all want as children of God, wives, mothers, sisters, friends?  During Greg and my dating relationship we faced many trials.  We lived 1,000 miles apart, lost jobs and loved ones, battled depression and addiction, and held our breath through my father’s illness.  We truly felt, and still feel, these trials made us more mature and complete.

Now four and a half years and two daughters later we are facing two significant trials.  We are lacking emotional intimacy and communication in our marriage.  We are also up to our eyeballs in debt. By the grace of God and the love and boldness of wonderful friends; we were smacked in the face with reality.  After coming to, we have given our marriage and financial state to the Lord.

We are seeing God work miraculously since we have put everything in His hands.  We feel closer than we have in years emotionally.  We also make time every day to connect and communicate.  The Lord has also provided ways for us to pay down our debt by a third in a matter of weeks!  Yet again, in the midst of these trials we are joyful.  We can already see the maturity and feel more complete in our relationships with God, each other, and our daughters.  Praise the Lord!

I learned a lot about living in, embracing the moment. Some 15 years ago when I was at Bible college, the lovely matron Liz said something like ” So often we are afraid to feel pain”. We were talking about my latest broken heart/brusied ego, but its one of those comments that come back to me from time to time.

Liz wasn’t talking about physical pain; but the wounds we pick up in life. The unmet expectations, bitter disappointments, the heartaches. Her advice was not to rationalize it, remove it, medicate it, avoid it – but to feel it, stay in it. That if processed properly, I’d discover that it would not be anywhere as overwhelming as a feared.

I think at time I probably didn’t take it on. I was afraid of pain, of grief. I couldn’t trust that the tears that flowed would eventually ebb. I couldn’t risk feeling so awful with no promise of an ending. My answer was to take control of the situation with my own methods of pain avoidance!

But I see the wisdom in her words. I’ve found this year that when I’ve stayed “in the moment”, I’ve learned a few important things

Pain sucks.
Pain does ebb even if the tide is high at first.
Pain is nowhere near as overwhelming as the fear of it.

Living in the moment, even the long ones – I’ve found the moving on easier as a result.
I still don’t enjoy feeling pain, cos that would be weird. Its just that such moments are another opportunity to face a broken heart,disappointments, unrealised dreams and expectations.

Writing that last post got me thinking a little more about the art of letting go. Admitting something is dead, a relationshop, a phase of life, whatever…
Since having kids I’ve become more aware of the need to travel light – emotionally, spiritually even, so I am free to do family life looking to the future rather than revisiting/reacting to the past. But I’ve also seen how hard it can be, how easily experiences and expectations can linger…

You have kids but want to act and look like you are young free and single – even though you dont have the time, money or energy. Your church and community life is nothing like it used to be. You could compare and criticise or feel disillsioned – maybe thats inevitable for awhile. For awhile.

But is it such a bad thing to say goodbye to the good times and forge a new path into the future? How will we discover life’s treasures ahead, if we are constantly referencing the past?

So it got me thinking if there are healthy rites of passage, landmarks, events, ways we can acknowledge that a season has changed, that something is gone, then its worth exploring.

How you say goodbye to the times that have shaped and defined you ? Not just the bad times which you’re glad to say goodbye to, but the good and the great times?