Year in Review

Today is New Year's Eve, and it is most likely that I will not do anything particularly celebratory today, or as the new year turns over tonight. Still, this day does make me reflect. 2016 was some year. At the end of 2015, also a hard year, I was so hopeful that the new year would bring new hope, joy and peace. In review, 2016 brought new challenges, experiences and heartache. Still, there was hope, joy and (eventually) peace, and I am thankful that I have made it through. My obligatory reflection this year is focused on my faith, and it was prompted by a question posed to me this week...a question that really made me think. 

The magic question, which came unexpectedly from a relatively new friend, was this: "Are you afraid of death?" 

My answer was quick and sure. No. Unlike poor Mr. Scrooge, I am not afraid of death. I am a bit fearful of the process of dying, and when that comes for me and those I love, I am hopeful that it will be quick and not uncomfortable. However, even if it is painful when my time comes to cross over, I will not be afraid, because I cling to God's promise that I will spend an eternity with him. Because I have accepted his Son, Jesus, as my Lord and Savior, God will look past my unworthiness, and he will welcome me to his heavenly kingdom as a beloved daughter. There will be no more tears or pain or heartache...only praise and love and joy and peace!

In 2016, I suffered a deep depression. I experienced the tragic death of loved ones and the destruction of relationships. There has been job loss and rejection, and the threat of divorce after 29 years of marriage. I stopped knitting. I lost myself this year, and I considered suicide in a very real way. But through it all, I clung to God, and he offered me hope. Hope in his promises. Hope in new relationships and jobs. Hope in healing for my marriage. (He also brought me hope through medical and psychological treatment, which are a very important part of my recovery...but this is not a medical or psychology blog. It's a Pretty blog...)

With my hope restored and my faith renewed, I was able to love again. Faith, hope and love are restored to me, and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13). With my faith and hope in tact, I can love God and his creation. I can love the lovely and the unlovely, and I can love myself again, because God loved me first. Thanks be to God!

If I had to pick one word to sum up 2016, I'd probably say that this year has been...interesting. I have grown as a person and as a Christian, but the road has been full of nasty potholes, and there has been some damage to my suspension. Even so, I will enter 2017 as a better and stronger person than I was when 2016 rolled around a year ago, and I am thankful for that. There is much to learn from tragedy, but I am ever hopeful that there will be less tragedy in the new year.

What's your word for 2016? And what are you hoping for 2017?

My hope is the same this year as last, that the new year will bring renewed hope, joy and peace to my life and the lives of my loved ones. Oh, and more knitting. I hope there will be even more knitting!

Thanks for stopping by today, dear readers. I wish you hope, joy and peace in 2017 and beyond.

Knit in Good Health!

Quiet Weekend

The girls left our house on Tuesday, and they left town to go home on Wednesday, which means that Pop Pop the Great

Pop Pop the Adored

has once again been relegated to the mere status of Sweetie the Very Loved. (Yes, I love him. But I don't climb all over him when he comes downstairs for work every morning! lol!)

This is not a bad thing, but it is a little lonely and very quiet in our house since Wednesday...which means there has been more time for knitting! Since I have finished the Black-and-White, Black-and-White sweaters,

complete with bright buttons (buttons of my choosing, not hers...Sweet Pea just wanted to eat the buttons!) for the little one,

now I can focus on some mindless knitting for a couple of good causes! Booties for babies yet to be born were first up on my needles, and they are so cute that even Black Cat is protective of them. 

There are other things almost on my needles, too, and I'm still working through the depression stuff, but I am doing ok. I think (and some studies have confirmed my suspicions) that knitting has benefitted me, both mentally and emotionally. Knitting that is mindless gives my hands something to do while I think and pray. Knitting that I have to think about gives me a break from all the deep thinking, replacing big decisions with "Knit, knit, purl, purl, knit 2 together,  yarn over, purl, purl...," well, you get the picture. So I have plans for some lace, some socks, maybe a couple hats and some baby gifts for babies that have barely let their mommies even know that they are coming. 

My life is not perfect, but I am content. I am content to live and to knit and to get through it all with a smile and a bit of kindness for those around me who also experience the love, joy, strife and sorrow that define the human experience. We're all in this together, let's do our best to get along, and we will all get through it together! (If you'd like to learn to knit your way through, I'd be happy to teach you...the calming, centering properties of this hobby far outweigh the frustration of learning a new skill!) Are you with me?

Thanks for stopping by today, and Knit in Good Health!

Just Breathe...

Forgive me me, friends, for I have not blogged. It has been 4 weeks since my last post. You may have noticed the unintentional break, or not. I know that I am not the center of your universe, and I'm ok with that. But there has been a break, and I'm sorry if you missed me. 

First the backstory: I have a history of postponing my own emotional processes when difficulties come. I thrive on supporting others, and I am the first one in line to tell a friend (or all of blogdom) that there are no wrong feelings, and the key is to just let yourself feel it to get through the hard times, to just take a moment to breathe and feel. I get busy helping others feel their feelings while putting mine high up on a shelf, where I am not distracted by them. Later, when there is a lull in the things-to-be-done department, I retreat to a quiet place to feel...and I am pretty good at feeling both the highs and the lows. 

The highs are easy to feel right away. A new baby? Let's all celebrate together! Your last scan came back clean? Hoorayyyy! You got the house? won the lottery? became engaged? Let's have cake! and dance! and sing! Let's all share the happiness, wish each other well, hug and celebrate!!! Then we take time to breathe, and to figure out how much the baby (wedding/house/taxes) will cost in the long run. God has a plan for every life, and we are especially aware of this when we are in the high times. 

The lows are a different story. In the lows, we often don't know what to do or say, and we are prone to feel alone and perhaps abandoned by even God. Sometimes the feelings surprise us...especially when angry encroaches upon sad, which happens more often than one might expect. But it's ok to be angry as a part of the grieving process, and it's absolutely normal. Yet anger that overtakes sadness is commonly confusing. Why did he/she die now? I'm too young to have to deal with this! This is not fair, and I am angry! Where do I direct that anger? At God? At a dead person? At myself?

My defense, rather than dealing with my own low feelings right away, is to put them on that shelf and get busy doing the things that need to be done. I hand out the tissues, and I let others cry or yell, as their grief directs them...or I tackle that job that no one else can quite muster the energy for in their grief. Later, I find that quiet place, all by myself, and I weep and gnash my teeth. I cry out to God and beg him to bring back that person...that opportunity...to change the outcome somehow. I blame myself for things that are not my fault. I yell and I cry some more, and I pray. When my dad passed away suddenly, just after Christmas 1994, it took me about 4 months to get to that place. The process took some time, and it was not pretty. But when the season was over, I had felt the feelings. I was ready to move on. 

Jumping back into the present tense here, if you have noticed my absence recently around the internet, you probably know something about my current season. If not, you can look back through some of my past posts for an overview. In a nutshell, there has been much loss in my life (and in Sweetie's) over the past 18 months or so. Broken relationships, serious illnesses, deaths, family turmoil, job uncertainty, and more...it just kept coming, fast and furious. Through it all, there were things to do, balls to keep juggling, and other people also dealing with hurt, frustration, sadness and anger. If I had a nickel for every time I said, "Just take a minute, and breathe. Feel it, it's ok to feel it," with a tissue at the ready and tears in my eyes, I would have a lot of nickels! 

But, in order to do that, I kept putting my own feelings on that shelf, waiting for a quiet time to breathe. When a co-worker left our office under less-than-perfect circumstances, I listened to many who couldn't understand what had happened. I took a deep breath and encouraged them to see that God has a plan, and this must be part of it. When the senior minister was diagnosed with cancer, I took a deep breath and coached many in the church to pray and to feel, and to help us all find God's plan through Tim's cancer. When he died, I took a deep breath and did my best to comfort members of the church and pray for members of his family, looking for God's plan and encouraging them to let themselves feel. When we welcomed new staff into our office, and people came to me with concerns about changes at the church, I took a deep breath and cheered for the change, assuring them that this was all part of God's plan. When my brother-in-law took the lives of two siblings, Sweetie and I took deep breaths and grieved with the family, as we as we took on some of the details that the official next of kin were unable to deal with immediately. We grieved, and we loved the family and friends of his brother and sister who were gone too soon, and struggled to make sense of the crime.

Finally, when it became apparent that my job at the church was changing, and that I was having difficulty changing with it, I took a deep breath and accepted a job offer with a lot of promise at a new company. Unfortunately, somewhere in the first few weeks of the new job, all that inhaling ran out of places to go, and my shelf collapsed. I had failed to exhale, to find that quiet place to finally cope and deal with my growing depression. One Saturday, I started crying...and I didn't stop. I kept going to work, and I could keep it together at my desk for an hour or two before I went to the ladies' room to vent a few tears (as quietly as possible) wash my face and try again. I went to the doctor, and to a psychologist, and to the pharmacy, and I took a few days off. I set up an appointment with a therapist, and I tried to go back to work. 

Two Saturdays later, I started crying again...and I didn't stop, again. I quit my shiny, new job on May 17 with no plan. I cried on the sofa for three weeks, while binge watching Downton Abbey...I took my meds...I went to therapy...I practiced breathing techniques for relaxation and relief from the constant anxiety. In short, I let myself feel it. I recognized that I needed help to let myself feel it, and I sought out that help...then I just felt it.

About two weeks into the process, I started to feel a little more like myself. I was three seasons into Downton, I had seen the therapist twice and made plans for a day with my daughter at the zoo. As the fog of depression started to lift, I was finally able to start looking for God's plan in it all. I really cried out to him, and sought answers from his Word. I started putting pants on again, every day even, and I was happy to finally be starting the process of recovery. I am far from finished with the process, but I am glad to be starting the journey to wellness, and it feels like the time to come back to the blog. 

I am also glad for friends who have been so supportive, inviting me to lunch, to go for walks in the neighborhood, to talk, even sending small gifts of encouragement to "just keep swimming":

And I am thankful to one friend in particular, who offered me a new, new job this week. His office gal is leaving to have a baby, so it may be a temporary gig, but it feels like God has given me a little stepping stone to get back up again. I took the job, I started on Tuesday, and it is good. God is good. God has had a plan all along, even when I felt alone and abandoned, unable to reach out to anyone. I knew that he did, and I am glad that I can see a little more of the plan now. 

Thank you, friends, for your support. Thank you for walks, talks, lunches, dinners, kindness, encouragement, new jobs and for letting God use you to help me. Thank you for helping me to start feeling like Pretty again...and for your continued understanding. Recovery from depression is a process, just like recovery from the flu, or a hip replacement. I have lots of work to do still, and I will do what I need to do...I am so very grateful to know that you are there to cheer me on. 

If you ever find yourself stuck in the pit of despair, the fog of depression, please get help. Please call or email me. I promise to never tell you to "get over it" or "just deal with it," because I know it is not that easy. Depression stinks...but recovery is entirely possible. Don't do anything un-doable if you are depressed...call an 800 number if you don't have a friend or pastor to call. Go to the doctor, or call 911 before you act out of desperation. Make a plan for your recovery. You can recover, just like I can, and I will help you if you want me to.

One more thing. Seek God. I know that some of you may think that's hooey, but "I sought the Lord and He answered me. He delivered me from all my fears." (Psalm 34:4) That's from the Bible, and it's also from my life. Seek Him. He is always there. That is His promise, and He is always faithful to His promises. 

Thanks for stopping by. I should be around more often now, and I am getting back to the knitting, too. I hope that your day is good, and that you will Knit in Good (mental and physical) Health!