Flashbacks

Hi again! I stopped writing for a few months because I didn't feel compelled. This is mostly a diary for me and you get to read along. I need my diary again today.

Dear diary,

Today -- and for the last few weeks -- I've been having flashbacks of the two miserable years we spent at our last church. I've had weird little run-ins with people I associate with that time and seeing them brings back vivid episodes of dysfunction.

This morning my husband mentioned talking to some people from that church and I almost immediately became morose. By the time he'd left for work and my oldest was on the school bus, I could feel the dark mood closing in. I felt an intense urge to eat, cry, or go to bed and sleep all day.

Thank God for the mental wellness to see that and to find an alternative. I called a friend and asked to spend the morning at her house. My two younger kids and I went there and by lunchtime I was good as new. The mood had passed. The rest of the day was balanced and pleasant.

What a distressing bout of crankpot-ism. We've been gone nearly a year and I hardly think of that place or those people anymore. The shape of my life has much to do with what happened there and I've (mostly) accepted that. I have not accepted the emotional intensity those memories still hold.

Boo.

When Church Makes You Crazy, Part 2

Coping Strategy #2: Find a Lighthouse Friend. One of the tragedies of being the center of conflict in our church was that I was terrified of everyone - not because I thought everyone was out to get me, but because I had no idea who I could trust.

The church leaders who had interviewed my husband and called him to be their pastor turned so quickly when they disagreed with him that I feared everyone in the church would feel likewise if they knew me. I tried to be bland and agreeable but after a while I felt like I was disappearing. I needed the freedom to express my thoughts honestly.

I decided it would help to find one person with whom I could be honest. I was acquainted with a woman who seemed trustworthy, mature in her faith and sophisticated enough about church to handle my church politics saga. I asked her to be my lighthouse friend: to let me tell her all that was happening so that when I saw her on Sunday morning I would not feel alone.

Most Sunday mornings we did not speak beyond a pleasant greeting but seeing her and knowing she understood how hard it was for me to be at church was a light in the fog of my fear and anxiety.

Coping Strategy #3: Avoid the Building. APart form Sunday morning I completely avoided church. I didn't stop by to see my husband. I didn't drive by on my way to the grocery store. I changed my routes so I never saw the church building except on Sunday morning.

All my associations with the building were negative and it was draining for me to see it and arouse all those feelings.

When Church Makes You Crazy: 5 Strategies

We spent a couple of years at a church that literally made me crazy. The church leaders abused my husband and I felt scared every time I went in the building. The stress of that situation caused an episode of clinical depression that persisted until we moved away.

While we were there, I found a few strategies to help me cope with the situation. Mostly I wanted to never go to or think about that church, but I felt that I had a few obligations as the pastor's wife:

1. Attend worship most weeks.
2. Bring my children to Sunday school. (This one had more to do with stability for my children than obligations to the church.)
3. Speak kindly always. Speak of church politics as little as possible.

Given those parameters, I found about five things I could do that helped. I'll tell you about one of them today and describe the others during the rest of the week.

Coping Strategy #1: Worship Elsewhere. I went to our church on Sunday mornings because I believe it can be confusing and discouraging for the congregation if the pastor's wife never attends. I barely considered it "worship" in the true sense. I didn't hear the senior pastor's sermons as messages from God but as reminders of his duplicity. Every hymn and prayer was clouded by my stress and anxiety.

I visited other churches as I was able, usually on a weeknight. It was such a relief to sit in the pew and feel like I had some privacy with God. Even in a happy church I feel self-conscious about being the woman everyone can identify.

Eventually I built a relationship with a nearby church (I'll call it "Bridge Church") where I attended a weekday Bible study and made a few friends. During the months after my husband had left our last church and before he took the call to our current church, we attended Bridge Church. In retrospect, I would say that was an important part of my re-learning how to feel safe at church. I think most of our friends at Bridge Church knew something had gone terribly wrong for us. I never felt judged, no one ever pried into details. We were welcomed, hugged, made to feel loved and valued.

The pastor at Bridge Church advised me to "do nothing." He told me we needed time to heal and to receive love and care with no obligations. He was right about that and it was a precious gift.

Depression Symptoms: Substance Abuse

Several months ago I was working on a series of posts about my experience as it relates to the formally recognized symptoms of depression. There are a few still to go.

I’ve seen enough movies to know that alcoholism is associated with depression (Crazy Heart, anyone?) but have not thought much about it except in the abstract. I was surprised when, in the middle of my own depression, I discovered that drinking is an effective anesthetic.

The denomination in which I grew up is historically a tee-totaling crowd. I picked up on that undercurrent and drank little even through college. I became accustomed to social drinking during our years at the seminary. Odd, I think, and problematic, but that’s for another time.

I remember clearly the night I realized I needed to guard against excessive drinking. My family was out to dinner, celebrating a major achievement in my brother’s career, and we shared a couple bottles of particularly yummy wine. It crossed my mind that I would like to stay there and keep drinking and forget the unrelenting sadness of my life.

I told my husband about it that night. I’ve found that telling my secrets takes the power out of them. This one seemed particularly shameful to me. I don’t think I ever told it to anyone else or ever spoke about it again with my husband.

The urge to drink too much came and went throughout my depression, but I think that having spoken about it aloud helped me stay aware of how our unhappiness could have been multiplied by alcohol abuse.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.

One To Go

I've missed you! Even though I haven't been writing, I've been thinking of you and praying for you.

The end of chemo is in sight: one treatment to go. Next week. Boy am I ready to be on the other side of this. When I'm not miserably sick, I have trouble sleeping because I want to make plans about what I'm going to do when I feel well. Even if I limit the plans to my own house (I don't - I also have writing plans, reconnect-with-friends plans, travel plans, places-to-go-with-kids plans, cooking plans....), the list is long because I started chemo a week after we moved in. I could spend a week rearranging closets and bookshelves and kitchen cabinets.

I probably won't, but I could.

When this started, I didn't realize how pervasively disordering cancer would be. I was protected by naivete. I thought it would be like going to the dentist, or getting the car fixed: time-consuming, but limited in its effects.

Instead, I've been focused on just getting through the day, making it through all this treatment. When it is finally done next week, then what? There are still side effects that will limit me for a few months. And I look different. I lost so much hair that I now have a buzz cut. My son says I look like our previous neighbor, a lovely woman who is a lesbian. My son is inadvertently contributing to my little identity crisis.

And then there are all the family and friends who have walked with me through these crisis months. They've been praying for us, encouraging me, taking care of my family, counting down the weeks until I am done. When I have the last treatment it will appear that it's all over and I can go back to normal life. I don't think there will be any going back. I'm not sure how, but I feel like my life will seem different. I imagine the pace will be slower for a while, I might be a little more introverted, perhaps more cautious.

As eager as I am to be done with chemo, I am apprehensive about the transition that accompanies it. Change, even good change, is disorienting.

Talk Therapy

The last week and half has been pretty discouraging to me. I'm so tired of chemo and of hoping that things will be better in a while. Last Christmas I was so deeply depressed and I remember the effort it took to get through the holiday telling myself that "next year will not feel so miserable."

Christmas is going to be hard this year. I've already written my family to tell them I won't be able to give them gifts this year because the energy that would require is beyond me. I am, once again, looking to a holiday season through which I need to tell myself, "next year will be better."

Yesterday I spent an hour with my therapist and it was so helpful. Airing all my anxieties and griefs to someone who can give them a context and affirm that everything I feel is connected to reality was deeply reassuring.

I've discovered that, on the heels of major depression, feeling sad is frightening. If it persists for more than a day I begin to worry that I'm headed to that desperate place again. I do not EVER want to go back there, where sadness is everything. I do not yet trust my ability to judge whether my sadness is connected to my circumstances or is taking on a life of its own.

In depression, I felt sad for no apparent reason. Even if everything was going well I felt sad. Healthy sadness has a reason. Chemotherapy, a house that will not sell, lingering anger toward sr. pastor, knowing I will be sick during the holidays - these are reasons to be sad.

Today I feel better. I will try to think only about today and leave the coming unpleasantness alone until I have to deal with it.

Therapy

I have followed with interest the blog of a pastor coping with depression and coming to terms with needing a therapist. When I needed the care of a therapist, one appeared before me as if by magic. Her counseling style and personality seemed perfectly suited to my needs. It rarely occurred to me that I'd been spared the arduous process of choosing a therapist.

Then we moved. While my depression has lifted and a million things about my life seem better I am not confident enough to be apart from the care and attention of a professional counselor. The upheaval of moving, coaching kids through a move, cancer, a new congregation, approaching winter.... it seems ripe for a repeat appearance of my Great Foe, depression.

Finding a therapist is hard. On my list of considerations:

Location

Insurance coverage/cost

Therapeutic style

Christian perspective

Gender (I am more readily at ease with a woman)

It doesn't work to ask around about a good therapist the way I do about dentists and hair salons. Recommendations for mental health care require a little discretion. My husband identified a couple of good people to ask, as did I. Some of our inquiries were fruitless - generated no names or suggestions that did not suit us for various reasons. He finally found someone who referred us to a useful list.

Then I sorted through the list and eliminated most of the names off the bat. Some have specific areas of expertise - family conflict, teens, etc. Others had religious affiliations that are inappropriate for me: buddhism, new age, or branches of Christianity with which I am not comfortable. One Christian counseling office near us posts its intake form online. I browsed it and noticed this item: "Does the client consider him/herself to be born again?" I understand that question to refer to an understanding of the Christian faith with which I do not identify. I don't want to battle off theological questions in pursuit of good mental health.

During my husband's vicarage year - an internship during seminary - we visited a therapist together because we felt overwhelmed by loneliness and stress. Being far from family and friends, in an unfamiliar and challenging situation, was sometimes confusing for us. The counselor we saw was not helpful. She couldn't figure out what our problem was, so she spent half and hour talking to my husband about nurturing his inner child when he preaches. It was very weird.

I landed upon a Christian counseling practice with an office near my home. My schedule is so full of doctor visits and child-tending responsibilities that travel time could seriously limit my ability to see a therapist as often as I could need. I judged from the web site that the practice is overtly Christian but respectful of the fact that clients are looking for mental health care, not theology lessons.

I described my first appointment as "auditioning a new therapist." It was important to me to remind myself that establishing a therapeutic relationship is my decision. I felt perfectly at ease with this therapist and appreciated the questions she asked at my first appointment. I discovered that she is also married to a pastor and recognizes everything I describe about my anxieties related to that role. Her affiliation is with a different denomination, but every reference to Christian faith falls inside of what I think of as Apostles' Creed Christianity: things we all agree on. She has not asked me if I am born again.

In the course of writing this blog, I've made friends with other pastors' wives who realize they would benefit from professional counseling. For some of them, identifying a therapist who meets their criteria is an arduous process. I pray for them, that God will provide what they need and give them eyes to recognize it when they see it.

Sitting with Sadness

One of the things I've started trying to attend to as a parent is letting my kids feel sad. It's hard. I want to talk them out of feeling sad or frustrated, to move the frame so they just see the happy things. The other day my son lost two rounds of Candyland and he was despondent. He sobbed for about ten minutes. I wanted to say, "Really? Candyland? Buck up, mister. It's no big deal." But to him it was a huge deal. Losing is very sad for a competitive six-year-old. He sat on my lap and I made soothing sounds and waited. After a while he stopped crying and started talking about something else.

For most of my life I have distracted myself from things that are sad. It's much easier for me to be angry, or feel guilty, or tell myself it's not worth being sad about. That's one of the things I learned from talking to a therapist. My therapist doesn't take it personally if I feel sad. Most of the time, she'd nod her head and say something like, "Of course you're sad! Life should not be this way!"

The problem with sadness, for me, is that there is nothing to do about it. It just is. And it hurts. The only thing to do is feel it, say it, complain to God about it, expect it will end sometime, and wait.

Tempted to Be Weary

My birthday is coming up in the fall and the schedule for my chemotherapy indicates that I will spend my special day attached to the pump of toxicity. Noticing that scheduling quirk caused me to reflect on the circumstances of my last few birthdays:

• three years ago: preparing to sell our house and move as Husband took a new call
• two years ago: the week we realized Husband needed a medical leave for severe depression
• last year: at the hospital with my 3-year-old son and his ruptured appendix

A strange little tradition I've got there. I could find other formats to fill in with timelines of discouragement. Some weeks I feel like the frustrations, large and small, accumulate endlessly and I am tempted to be weary. I feel sometimes that I have suffered enough and have earned the right to throw up my hands and give in. Who can endure this? Who keeps paddling against this flow of bad mojo when the current does not slow?

God is so gentle with me. He has not once whacked me on the head for thinking these things. He reminds me that I'm not paddling, I'm sitting in the canoe and He is paddling.

The other night, while Husband was at a meeting, my youngest son vomited several times. It lasted for exactly the two hours that I was alone with the kids. I was nearly overwhelmed with the feeling that I could not continue, that life was becoming too much for me. God brought to mind the passage from Isaiah, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (40:31).

I have never understood that "they will run and not grow weary" because God strengthens them. I now think of this every day. Life is so hard right now, and every day I am tempted to think that I cannot stay in the canoe. God reminds me that He will keep me here and give me what I need today.

I expect that next year my birthday will be free of crisis. I know that it might not be. It is possible that some circumstance even more distressing than those of recent years is waiting for me there. My hope rests on knowing that God will be there either way.

Medical Woes

I've been in the hospital for the last several days. I came with pain that made me think appendicitis. I was right on that point, and had surgery to repair it. The surgeon also removed a "large" tumor nearby. Sounds like I'm headed for six months of low-level chemo in the near future.

This is what I've been telling God: "Well, look! Here's something else. Cancer. Good thing you are bigger and more powerful than this mess because it is a MESS. There are entirely too many piles of sh** around here and I cannot cope with them all. I fully expect you can and that you will hold onto me and all of it and just dole out what I need one day at a time.

"You also know that in a few days I'm going to stand up and start pointing and barking orders and trying to get a handle on all this for myself. Please forgive me. And be gentle with me. This is very, very hard."

I can see already that there are going to be some interesting comparisons between dealing with cancer and dealing with depression. People are much better prepared to support a friend with cancer.

Prayerfully Considering

A church has called Husband to be its pastor. I think that this should be very exciting to me. It is kind of exciting, but right now it seems more overwhelming. Taking a call requires a lot of energy. Staying here is unsatisfying and will eventually be financially impossible, but it's a grating kind of anxiety rather than a decisive challenge.

In the last few weeks I've finally started to believe that we need to move away from here. Proximity to our last congregation makes it difficult to feel separate from the trauma we met there.

We have, like most clergy families, moved lots. Every previous move was sad but I looked forward to discovering what I would love about our new home. I don't feel that way this time. When I imagine moving I feel exhausted about getting acquainted with a new community, new people, new schools....

Can a move still be good even if it makes me want to hide?

Low Mo

I keep hoping I can stop writing reports of being surprised by my own depressive symptoms. Not yet! I think that I can stop writing about them when they stop surprising me. I continue to be an optimist so when things look up for a week or two I'm primed to think: CURED!

The psychiatrist I've been seeing thinks I'm doing very well and approved me to gradually decrease the dose of my anti-depressant. I have no philosophical objection to medication for mental health, but it would feel good to stop taking it. It's a sign of independence and improved health.

/+/+/+/

For the first part of May I felt quite well: motivated, more energetic, even-keeled. I've been making steady progress toward some good routines - sleeping on a regular schedule, for 8 hours instead of 10; personal devotion; some exercise. I haven't really tried, I've just felt like doing those things. All very good.

Then I got moody and bored with everything. Low on motivation. That stupid episode with Voldemort threw me off. Husband is still having a difficult time and I am sad for him and I miss the man I remember. I spent a week or so feeling like life could just waddle along without me and I'd watch.

/+/+/+/

Last night I finally figured out how to explain this stuff to Husband. I want to tell him about this kind of thing but I also want to protect him from more bad mojo. Protecting is something I do as a parent for my children and I'm not his parent. I'm his partner.

As soon as I described all this moody weirdness aloud to him I felt entirely relieved. Suddenly I wanted to make some plans for the next day.

/+/+/+/

Depression is mysterious to me. Painful & tenacious.

Depression Symptoms: Sleep Disruption

Waking in the early morning hours and not being able to go back to sleep; insomnia

Excess sleep, fatigue

Sleep disruptions of both sorts have bothered me, though I’ve had more trouble with fatigue than insomnia. For the last many months I’ve discovered that when I feel apprehensive, or obliged to do something that seems overwhelmingly difficult, I get sleepy. I suppose it’s a practical defense mechanism. Understanding the connection between fatigue and anxiety is new for me. A few days ago I had counseling appointment and knew it would be helpful but dreaded it. I really wanted to stay home in bed. Understanding the fatigue is helping me fight it. Having an idea of why I feel so tired sometimes helps motivate me to fight the urge.

Periodically I’ve had trouble with waking at night and not being able to get back to sleep. For a while when I was obsessively anxious about the conflict at church I’d wake keep rehearsing the series of offenses and trying to find ways to solve them. This wasn’t ordinary lying-awake-to-solve-problems stuff. It was pointless and I felt I could not stop it.

I still wake sometimes at night fall into unhelpful patterns of thought while I lie in the quiet darkness.

Maybe I’ve done something horribly wrong.

Maybe I don’t belong in the Lutheran church.

God, am I totally missing something?

I’m swimming in an ocean of misery, mistakes, pointlessness and I can’t see the shore.

I’m just starting to learn how to deal with this. I have to open my eyes and shake my head to get out of it. I realized I also need something else to think about. At first I tried praying, but my mind wanders easily from prayer back to self-doubt. Then I tried rehearsing scripture. A phrase from Ephesians 3 came to mind, “I pray that you ... grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” I started to think of God’s love as the ocean, wider, longer, higher, and deeper than I could ever understand. I was swimming in an ocean of his love, an absolutely safe place to be. That’s a good thing to ponder in the middle of the night.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.

Depression Symptoms: Weight Loss/Gain

Significant weight loss or gain

First it was weight loss, then gain. “Loss of interest in most things” included food. Even when I was hungry I didn’t care enough to eat.

Predictably, perhaps, that phase was short-lived compared to the overeating phase. I have a long history of eating for reasons that have nothing to do with hunger, but have generally balanced it with episodes of attention to eating and exercise so that I don’t actually gain too much. Now I am at risk of not fitting into any of my clothes.

The hardest part about this has been that I feel lowest at night, after dark, when I tend to be in the house with little distraction and unlimited access to food. Some nights I have been just trying to stay awake until a reasonable bedtime. I didn’t want to sleep ten hours every night.

Along with a lot of the other symptoms, this seems to be getting better lately. I’ve had more motivation in the evening and am more often able to do something. Read, clean the kitchen, talk to my husband. It takes a lot of energy and self-talk to get started, but doing almost anything generally lifts my mood.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.

Easter Worship

I didn't make it to church this morning.

That's not a confession, it's a lament. It's a miserable irony of depression that the things I want most are the most difficult to do--sometimes they seem impossible. The good I want to do I do not do...

I absolutely planned to go this morning. I'd talked to the kids about it and checked on whether the nursery would be available. Then I woke up this morning with visions of my impatient children, overflow crowds, and all that holiday hullabaloo that can feel so lonesome.

Yuck. This is such crap. I kind of feel like I've missed out on the most important day of the year.

Depression Symptoms: Crying

I am was not a crier. Every once in a while my husband would get a shoulderful when I felt overwhelmed, but mostly I kept my emotions under control.

When husband took medical leave, I cried uncontrollably for a week. I couldn’t do anything because I was crying so much. I didn’t want to go anywhere or talk to anyone because I feared I might burst into tears. Bursting into tears is embarrassing and awkward and, I thought, inappropriate. Even my kids, who are 99% self-centered, were worried about me.

I made it through that week and regained my composure. I thought things were going to get better after that. For a couple of months, they seemed to be. Then some fresh stupidity came about at church and I realized peace was not on the horizon. The crying started again and I couldn’t stop.

The constant crying is what prompted me to see a therapist. It was such a weird feeling. I appreciate a good cry, the kind that relieves stress and afterward I can see clearly things that had seemed foggy. This crying was different. It was like a nosebleed that can’t be stopped. Just when I’d think it was over, I’d start sobbing again. I couldn’t shake it off. I didn’t feel better afterward. I just felt sad.

Taking medication and talking to Therapist both helped this symptom a lot very quickly. Sympathy and perspective were the first two things I got from therapy. I’d closed my world down to a tiny, isolated place where it was hard to not feel desperate.

I’ve learned to talk to some people about how I feel. Writing this blog is a tremendous help in dealing with feelings I don’t understand and feeling like I’m part of a community. Just knowing that people close to me understand things are hard relieves a lot of stress.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.

Telling the Truth

This has been the best week I've had in a long time. I've felt good from breakfast til lunch every day. Things go downhill after that, but maybe I'm just rebuilding stamina.

This week I finally mailed a belated "Christmas" letter to our friends and family. I wrote mostly about our fantastic kids but included news of my depression and my husband's unexpected break from ministry.

Sending that letter was hard. I want people who love us to know what is happening in our lives, but that was a lot of self-revelation in one mass mailing. Discretion has been a guiding ethic in my life so far and learning to balance that with relationship-building emotional honesty is exhausting.

Oddly Reassuring

I happened on this thoughtful article about Christian faith, ministry, and depression from a magazine called Just Between Us. No new information for me, but lots of things that I can't hear often enough.

The section on major depression helps me feel less freakish. It's good to see that everything I feel overwhelmed by is common to this disease. I'm not dealing with all of these symptoms, but enough of them at various times to feel like I'm totally losing myself. I am comforted and alarmed every time I read a list of depression symptoms and recognize myself.

Major Depression. This is severe clinical depression, an illness. Your physiology, thinking, and emotional state are disturbed. It is disabling and interferes with your ability to function and think normally. It can be experienced at one time in your life or at repeated intervals. It can go on for months or for years, if untreated. The symptoms need to be constant for two weeks or longer to be diagnosed as major depression.

The symptoms include:

• a persistent, sad, empty mood
• crying or inability to cry
• loss of interest and enjoyment in most things
• significant weight loss or gain
• waking in the early morning hours and not being able to go back to sleep; insomnia
• excess sleep, fatigue
• loss of energy
• social withdrawal
• feeling agitated
• a profound sense of worthlessness
• feelings of inadequacy or shame
• loss of sexual desire
• difficulty thinking and concentrating
• indecisiveness
• recurrent thoughts of death or dying, possibly with suicidal plans
• substance abuse

Bitter Root

A lot of things are going well. I think I said that in my last post. It’s true. I’m going to a new church where I am able to worship without layers of anger, I’m making some plans for the near future, and I’ve been trying to focus my attention on stretching out good days.

But I also had a counseling appointment this week. It took me a solid 24 hours to come down after that. It was a very agitating conversation and I left feeling like every nerve in my body was standing at full attention.

Being away from church has made a huge dent in my day-to-day anxiety level, but the intense negative feelings I have about what’s happened there did not evaporate. I bumped into a church member earlier this week and had a short conversation with him. He kindly expressed his sadness at our departure and offered to help if we need anything in the months ahead. It seemed like a perfectly appropriate and reasonable conversation but I was catapulted into deep distress, sadness, a steady mental rehearsal of every painful episode.

Therapist drew a comparison with post-traumatic stress disorder to help me understand what was going on. It sounds like a primary way of dealing with this is to talk about it. Ugh. I hate talking about it. I hate thinking about it. I hate being angry. Even writing this is making me feel agitated again.

“I will not let this bitter root grow in me • I will not let you leave that legacy • But it gets so hard when pain is all I see” (from the song “Tornado,” Sara Groves)

Baffled

Depression has turned the part of my brain that houses self-worth into mashed potatoes. I don’t recall ever having a profound problem sustaining a sense of personal value. Periodic anxieties and doubts, yes; generally overcome with logic and affirmation. Now I have whole days and weeks when I cannot come up with a clear sense of why anyone cares that I am here.

I can talk myself through this. My kids need me. My husband loves me and depends on me in many good and meaningful ways. I have friends who care for me. One friend of many years has spent 4 days in her car during the last year just to come see me when I have been at the bottom of the well. God keeps showing up when I’m about to completely lose it.

That list is an intellectual exercise that would usually light up my internal sense of value. These days the wiring is loose, and my You-Matter Lightbulb doesn’t always turn on.

I’m not clear on when the brain-mushiness will subside. It also screws with my decision-making ability. If I’m trying to decide about something and don’t trust myself, I replay something Therapist suggested, or something a friend said, and then try to weigh that against what I see. It’s weird to rely so heavily on that.

I have a dear friend who says that when she prays for me she says, “Ok, God, game on! Whatcha got? I know You’re going to do something exciting with them.” It’s really nice that she tells me this. I feel such an overwhelming sense of dread and uncertainty, and her confidence and enthusiasm about God’s work in us is a hopeful little platform for me to stand on.