My 3-year old son was attacked by a dog a couple of weeks ago. It was a friend’s dog who we had been around before, but for whatever reason when the dog came to greet us at the front door, he greeted me and my daughter with excitement and saw my son and simply saw him as a threat and attacked. It was a traumatizing moment for all of us, including the dog owner. Thankfully Luke was okay, and I think without the owner’s very quick reaction, we would have had a drastically different outcome. But obviously, this was a very scary moment for him. It took us a long time to calm him down, and in the days since, he still is processing it. Facing other dogs has been scary for him, and even though he has been potty trained for months, he has started having accidents again. He is latched to my side, is whinier than normal and extra sensitive. As a mom, I have a choice. I could tell him to get over it. That not all dogs are bad and most are good, so stop whining. I could tell him that it only happened once and how many times has he been around a dog and that HASN'T happened? I could tell him that it was weeks ago and it's time to move on. Or I can choose to comfort him. To gently remind him that I am here. I can hold him when he needs me. I can be heartbroken to see him so scared and anxious and be the strength he needs until he doesnt feel afraid anymore. I can choose compassion. I am half Guatemalan and half Mexican. I am married to a white man. We are an interracial couple. As a latina woman, I have been called a spic, illegal, a wetback. I have been asked COUNTLESS times “where are you from?” and when I respond “I was born and raised in the Tulsa area,” I get the reply “No...where are you REALLLY from.” I have been treated differently on multiple occasions just because of the color of my skin. And the worst of all and more often than the rest, I have experienced tokenism. Tokenism is defined as the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a group of people. So that is me. Your token hispanic girl. Right along with your token black and asian people to make a certain group appear to be “diverse” and feel good about it. Can I be honest with you? This is something that is not fun to type, and I know it won’t be fun to read. During this movement for racial equality over the past few months, it has not been the conversations with our black friends that have been difficult. The most difficult conversations by far have been with my white, Christian friends. They choose to see this as something political rather than a human rights issue. They choose to call the Black Lives Matter movement anti-Christian and anti-life rather than to take a moment to pause and try to understand the hurt that is being shared by the black population. I try to explain to them that my experiences pale in comparison to the experiences of my black friends, but I can understand their pain on a small level because I have experienced prejudice and racism multiple times in my life. Sadly, many of my white, Christian friends don’t want to hear my stories. They try to justify my pain and make excuses for people they've never even met. Or they simply tell me I could be exaggerating because I was so young. They try to comfort me by telling me “they see me as white.” Comfort is not you giving me a pass into your group of people. I am proud of my culture, my people, my heritage. I love that I am hispanic. These are only a few of many examples of racism that can hide in the hearts of those submersed in white culture without even realizing it. So instead of making excuses, instead of dismissing my pain, and instead of crowning me as an honorary white person, could we instead try to have a bit more compassion? In our current climate, we could certainly afford to have it. In Mark 8, Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they had been with Him 3 days and had nothing to eat. He fed them. In Matthew 9, Jesus went through all the cities and villages, teaching in synagogues, sharing the gospel and healing the sick. And when he saw crowds, it says he had compassion for them “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (verse 36). In Luke 7, Jesus had compassion on a widow who had just lost her only son and comforted her before raising him from the dead. Compassion is a GOOD thing! We have all heard the greatest commandment. “You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 22: 37-40. I genuinely believe that all the people I have had hurtful conversations with would say that they are against racism. I believe they would be shaken to their core if they saw a blatant act of racism happen right in front of them or to a friend of theirs that was a person of color. But they fail to open their eyes to all the ways that racism has been established in our minds, culture, society, etc. Systemic racism TODAY in school funding practices, employment opportunities, housing opportunities, nutrition, and the list goes on and on. JUST as I am writing this, my neighbor two doors down who is Native American had a woman roll down her window as she was driving by his home. She asked him who lives there (he was sitting out on his driveway watching his daughter play). When he responded cheerfully, “I do,” she replied “Really?” and drove off shaking her head. She ASSUMED that he did not belong by the color of his skin. It’s one thing to think it, but another to have the audacity to stop and ask. I have had this happen to a couple of friends, sadly, and in different areas of the country. Racism does exist, and whether you agree or not with the organization itself of “Black Lives Matter,” all believers should be able to biblically see example after example of Christ having compassion on the outcast, having compassion on the hurting and loving ALL people, regardless of the color of the skin or their heritage. It is beyond hurtful when a white friend reaches out and asks my thoughts, only to be slammed back with their racial opinions and ignorance in general. So here is your call to action….PLEASE have the decency to read ONE book, watch A documentary and have A conversation with a person of color about their experiences. Be open with what is going on in the world with your children and include them as much as you can. Diversify your children’s lives by diversifying YOUR life. Have an open mind, be empathetic to the experiences you can't relate to and DON’T dismiss them. This may be an intellectual conversation for you, but for them it is an emotional and vulnerable thing to reveal their pain. To dismiss them is to dismiss their experience and their humanity. In case you haven't already found a list of resources, here are a few to get started with: Books:
Shows and Documentaries:
Children’s Books:
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Depression is a silent drain on the soul. How do I fight an enemy that attacks me from my soul outward? Something my husband discovered after we got married and started living together is that when I get sleepy, I am incredibly clumsy. I literally start to walk into walls and trip over my own feet. I remember one night, I dropped my cup three times in a row just trying to take it out of the cupboard. When I’m struggling with depression, I feel like that’s how my life operates. Throughout my day there are a lot of mental bumps and crashes that slow me down. I find it so much harder to do simple things. When it used to take 20 minutes to meal plan for the week, I now sit staring at the paper for 45 minutes. Something as routine as getting my kids ready to run an errand, requires me to emotionally hype myself up and often ends with frustration and snapping at my kids. To be completely transparent, depression is an odd conversation for me. On the one hand, I no longer feel awkward about owning that it’s part of my struggle. I understand that I didn’t cause it and I think it’s important for Christians to start breaking stereotypes about mental health. However, the part of depression that I’m not as open about, the part that I still wrestle with guilt over is the lethargy that affects every part of my life. So many days, I literally have nothing to show for my time. It makes me self-conscious, ashamed, guilty. I feel like I was wasteful and a huge disappointment to my family. I didn’t do anything of value. In a world that runs on to-do lists and checklists, how do I measure up when nothing is checked off beyond the daily requirements of caring for my children? The fatigue is not limited to my physical world. My spiritual walk slows to a crawl, and in some seasons, if I’m being brutally honest, it slows to a standstill. I struggle with having quiet times regularly. I wrestle with focusing on the Scripture I’m reading, with staying awake while I am praying, with praying for anyone else but myself. Depression truly dampens my ability to think at the same level as when I’m well- even when I’m thinking about the Lord. I loathe anxiety, but in reality, depression in some areas is a harder force for me to fight because at least my anxiety has driven me to the Lord. With depression, I feel farther away from the Lord and have less of a desire to get back. It’s not as if I’m unaware of what’s happening. As my guilt reminds me so often, I know what I should be doing, but fail at following through so many times. Knowing the truth in my head doesn’t solve the depression in my DNA. Depression is a silent drain on the soul. How do I fight an enemy that attacks me from my soul outward? In 2019 with the added layer of anxiety, it’s been too much for me to pretend that I can do everything I used to. I simply can’t do all the things I normally can when my brain is healthy. For the first time, I’m finally seeing in myself the disconnect between what I know is true and what I practice. What I mean is this- I wouldn’t expect myself to do all the tasks while fighting pneumonia. I would pace myself. Rest when I needed to. Take my medicine. I would trust that God is not vindictive, and He will be with me in the rest rather than judging me for the rest. Yet, why when I’m dealing with a mental struggle, do I expect to perform at the same level as when I’m healthy? For the first time, I’m finally starting to personally apply the truth that I’ve told so many others. It’s a real struggle and a slow healing. So, in this fourth round of depression in my life, I’m letting myself take the nap. I’m finally being honest with my husband and saying “That sounds like a lot today. I don’t think I can do it.” I’m lowering the expectations for myself- even in my quiet times. In this season, I’m learning that God isn’t silently judging me for my humanity, weakness, and frailty. He’s with me now as He always is. This season of almost necessary “stillness” isn’t angering Him. He’s being still with me. Tonight as I was writing this, I’m sitting under a lap quilt I made for my grandmother when I was just a kid, and it struck me that this quilt represents a time of stillness. It was my first time trying to quilt and I wanted to give it to my favorite person- my grandma, because she spent much of her days in bed due to pain in her back and legs. I always considered it a special treat to be the grandchild that was invited back to her room to sit with her because I had all of her attention. As I reflect back, I now recognize how hard it must have been for her to be isolated from so much of the family so many times. She certainly would have preferred to bake her infamous Christmas cookies, go to Christmas Eve services, and take her grandkids on a walk in the snow, but she couldn’t. She was in bed. Despite being still for so many of her days, however, she was at peace with it. Her eyes still twinkled from her place in bed. She was content because she knew that no matter who came in and out of that room, One was always there. Always beside her. Always keeping her company. Many times while I laid on the bed across from her, she would grow excited, start to smile, and she would tell me about Jesus, how much she loved Him, and how excited she was to be with Him in heaven. I remember being surprised at how much she genuinely looked forward to heaven! Now I know why. Immanuel was her reality. Her Present. God was with her here, on this earth, in her stillness, and she cherished that more than anything. She couldn’t wait to experience His presence in her forever home for eternity. May I learn to be that kid across from my Grandma again, laying under the same blanket all these years later. May I learn to embrace Him in my stillness, just like she did. When I’m laying down because of the emotional pain or the physical exhaustion, let me be at peace because I know Christ is there. Laying across from me. Knowing my heart. Knowing my pain. Knowing my exhaustion. Not asking me to “do” but accepting my stillness. Let me then be able to accept it myself. I knew my depression was going to return. In the early spring, I told friends it was going to come back at some point in 2019. It’s triggered by major changes, and in the space of 6 months I had a baby, quit my job, we (my husband and kids and I) moved twice, bought a house and I transitioned to being a stay at home mom in a new city. A complete stranger would have been able to tell me that the depression was going to return.
What I wasn’t expecting was the anxiety. The anxiety hit first. One day in July, a thought came into my head from left field, and my brain became a broken record player. My thought process went something like this. What if I stole something from the store? What?!?! Where in the world did that come from? I’m not going to steal anything. Well how did that thought come into my head? Why did it come into my head? This is ridiculous - why am I still thinking about this? Let me think about something else. What if someone found out that I thought ‘what if I stole something?’? What kind of parent wonders what if they steal something? If I ever did steal something I would go to jail and lose my family. I don’t want to lose my family! HOLLY- you’re not going to steal anything. You’re not going to jail. It’s not like I was sitting there planning a theft, this came out of nowhere! But what if another crazy thought comes in? That day the thought wasn’t actually whether I might steal, but that is exactly what my internal conversation looked like every day, all day this summer and fall. I was bombarded by thoughts on mistakes that I could make in the future. Thoughts on mistakes I had already made in the past. Thoughts on how my family would be so disappointed and hurt. Never ending thoughts. I would literally at times go into my room while my kids were occupied with something and scream out “AH! Holly stop it!” After a few days of this, I realized that I was dealing with anxiety instead of depression so I went to the doctor and she started me on an anti-depressant that also helps with anxiety. I knew that this fight with anxiety was medical and spiritual. In other words, it’s brutal. As I mentioned previously, there is no escape from anxiety. It comes crashing in any time it pleases. To this day, if a thought or comment triggers a past mistake or conversation I’m ashamed of, it’s not uncommon for me to get flushed, sense heat rush through my body, and feel my stomach start to cramp. I’m terrified to think. I have started having “back-up topics” to focus my brain on if I catch myself starting to day dream. If I think of something that has the slightest connection to a topic that has previously caused me anxiety, I start to frantically tell myself to think about something else for fear that my brain will start the dark spiral of anxiety. Throughout these months, the anxiety has driven me to God. Not in a magnificent or holy way. But in a desperate, maybe even selfish way. I knew there was nothing else that could provide reprieve. In the past, there have been seasons when I felt like I’ve needed clear direction and guidance from the Lord, but I’ve been met with silence. Maybe you’ve been there too? But through this struggle, I learned God knows when we must hear from Him. He knows when His silence will be the best teacher and when His voice is necessary for our perseverance. God came near to me this year. Maybe the nearest He has ever been. Yet, even though I saw God meet me every day and I grew so much closer to Him, I still fought anxiety. Every time Aaron asked how I was doing, I hated that I had to tell him that it was still awful. I hated that I wasn’t past it. That for a significant amount of time each day, I wasn’t laughing with the kids, I was fighting a vicious cycle of lies in my head. I remember one specific conversation with Aaron. I had a great quiet time that day but then an awful evening. My voice cracked as I told him, “I just don’t understand why God won’t take this from me. I don’t understand why He won’t heal me. I know He can. I hate it. I hate it so much. I wouldn’t wish for anyone to have to fight this battle.” When I came across this quote by Charles Spurgeon, I couldn’t believe how perfectly it described me. He said this: There comes a time in most of our lives in which we no longer have the strength to lift ourselves out or to pretend ourselves strong. Sometimes our minds want to break because life stomped on us and God didn’t stop it. In my story, anxiety was stomping on me and God wasn’t stopping it. Although I have come to accept He isn’t taking it from me, I didn’t understand why. One day in October, I was reading passages in Isaiah, and a commentator’s note in my Bible said this, “To “put on” the armor {the armor of God that is written about in Ephesians 6} is to put on the Messiah himself.” (Note on Isaiah 11:5) After I read that, it’s as if God whispered to the deepest part of my soul that was so beaten down, defeated, and weary, if Satan can’t say it to Me, he doesn’t get to say it to you. Not only am I your armor, I’m your righteousness. I cling to this mantra so tightly. Sometimes, I have to say it 10 times in a row before I can move on with a different thought. Sometimes I only have to say it once. But every time I say it, I believe it a little more. Since this summer, our daughter Eliza, has been loving “horsey rides.” She climbs on her dad’s back and he runs her around the living room while she squeals from her perch. When I’m looking straight at them, I typically just see her tiny hands hanging onto her dad’s shoulders. Every other part of Eliza is hidden behind her dad. In a very similar way, that’s what I envision with putting on the armor. I’m simply climbing on the back of Christ and holding on to Him as He fights the enemy. Christ is my armor. He is my righteousness. Satan has go through Christ before he gets to me. I don’t know how long the fight will last. But He will be victorious. I just have to keep hanging on. The same is true for you. Climb onto Christ’s back. Let Him fight for you. |
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