Five Minute Friday: Blue

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

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The very blue sky of twilight silhouetting the bare branched oak in our front yard.

Have you ever had a blue day? You know what I  mean. A day when you felt down or sad or just in some kind of a funk? I think we all have.

As you may have noticed, I write a lot about having blue days and that's because so much of what I deal with on a daily basis is depression. But depression isn't a blue day. It can be a blue mood, but depression is much more than that. For me, when my depression gets very very bad, it's much closer to inky black than blue.

The fact is that depression is far more than just a blue day. It is a diagnosis of a particular mental illness. It's much more complex than just feeling down or even feeling hormonal because it's "that time of the month." It's more than just getting angry because someone hurt your feelings. It's more than the heartbroken feeling of having a boyfriend break up with you or a friend be unkind. It's not just feeling a little less hungry or having such a rotten day that you feel like you need a slice of chocolate cake.

Depression is all of these things at once and multiplied by 100 or more. Truthfully, these symptoms are just the short list and 100 is a conservative figure. I've had days where it was so heavy that it felt like it was closer to multiplied by 1000. It's a complex and often puzzlingly arduous disease to deal with and one that I wouldn't wish on the most evil person in the world. It is a fight and a struggle -- sometimes one that is so intense and difficult that it becomes a matter of life and death.

So I say this to say this -- please remember when life gets you down and you're having a blue day that it's not the same thing as feeling depressed or struggling with depression. Please don't say that you are "so depressed" when the reality is that given a few hours' good sleep, a long chat with a good friend, or even a slice of that chocolate cake, you'll find yourself feeling much better. Blue days are blue days and exaggerating them into something they are not diminishes the real struggle of mental illness.

For more information about what depression looks like and how to help and support those you know who are struggling with it, read 10 Things To Know About Depression (part 1 and part 2).

And since today's prompt word is blue....my new pretty blue fingernail polish! Ta da!!!

It's hard to tell in this picture, but it's sparkly too! So much fun in such a tiny bottle!

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up at Kate Motaung's blog!

A Meditation on Psalm 8 and Psalm 139

 A Meditation on Psalm 8 and Psalm 139

*inspired by Michael Card's "Starkindler"

What is man that You are mindful of Him?

You have kindled my soul from Your endless imagination and unfathomable power

You knit my bones and formed my being

You counted my days before their commencing.

The stars above me bear witness to Your supreme power,

The music I hear to Your infinite creativity

When I look above me into the vast expanse of space

The sky stretching on and on towards the heavens

Strewn with stars and planets

I wonder, breathless, why You created little, tiny me.

The vast oceans roll into the shore

Shifting grains of sand beneath their waves

While breezes lift my hair

And my skin drinks deeply of the sun's warm rays.

Birds soar upon the currents

And nestle in trees

Which teem with their own life

And the myriad of life which also makes its refuge in their branches.

Each creature, from tiniest insect to the largest mammals

Were shaped in all their complexity by Your fingers

Their courses directed and needs provided for by Your hands.

Grasses, plants, flowers, and every living thing springs forth by Your command

A symphony of beauty

And a tribute to Your Eternal Majesty.

With all of this vast creation, so intricate, elegant, and beauteous,

Who am I that You, the God of the Universe,

The Starkindler

Should sculpt me to reflect Your likeness

Send Love into the world as a perfect sacrifice for me,

And enkindle within this soul You made, the fire of Your Spirit?

Who am I, that You are mindful of me?

Today's post is my first ever link up with this week's #RaRaLinkup at Kelly Balarie's blog, Purposeful Faith. I hope you enjoy it and find it uplifting! Thanks to my friend Tara for introducing me to it via her blog!

Five Minute Friday: Rise

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

 

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It is my first Christmas Eve in Pennsylvania and I am standing alongside my eventual mother in law Balinda as she makes her traditional Christmas buns. I can smell the warm yeasty dough as she pulls it from the oven in its bowl and feel a little frisson of happiness as I watch her punch it down and then pull it from the bowl to make the buns. That little action of punching down the dough and then watching it rise again is one of my favourite things about working with yeast.

A pan of Balinda's yummy buns all finished! Makes my mouth water just looking at them!

Yeast is a living organism that feeds on the sugar in the dough and gives off carbon dioxide which, of course, causes the dough to rise. The great thing about yeast is that they are insanely resilient little things. You can freeze or refrigerate them and they just go dormant until you add warm water and sugar to get them awake and ready to eat again. There is something so satisfying about watching them bloom and then the resulting rise you get once they're incorporated into the dough. And then you get to punch it down -- fwoosh! fwhiff! -- and watch it rise again, ever so slowly. I love to see the puffy rolls once they've been formed and risen a bit in the warmth of the kitchen.

I'd like to say that I have some amazing way to tie all of this into a faith related lesson, but I don't. I've had a lot of trouble this week rising high enough to function in my day to day life, but that is the nature of things for me right now in this season of my life. Some days and weeks are easier than others. So instead of a lesson, a little memory and a few thoughts on baking. Hope you enjoyed it.

Since I'm talking about baking...what is your favourite baked goodie?

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up at Kate Motaung's blog!

10 Things To Know About Depression (part 2)

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(This is part two of my post on 10 Things To Know About Depression. Click above for part one.)

6. People struggling with depression who are also suicidal do not always need hospitalisation or a trip to the ER.

A common misconception with regard to suicidal thinking is that the person who is experiencing it is suddenly in need of super intensive intervention like a trip to the ER or being admitted inpatient. True, this is sometimes necessary, but most of the time, what a person struggling with suicidal thoughts needs is someone to listen to them and show that they care. If someone you know tells you that they are struggling with suicidal thoughts, the most beneficial thing you can do for them in most cases is stay with them (or find someone else to stay with them), listen to them and encourage them to keep talking. Let them know how loved, important, and needed they are, and remain with them until such time as these thoughts pass. The thing most people do not understand about actively suicidal thinking is that, for the most part, it encompasses a rather narrow window of time and if you can help a person find their way through that window to the other side, then you give them another day to live and love and fight this illness. 

Of course, there certainly are times when intensive intervention is necessary, but it MUST be done in a way that respects the person's dignity and humanity and doesn't make the situation worse. For more information on how to help someone who is suicidal, please read my post on Understanding More About Suicide.

10 Things To Know About Depression

There is a statistic that I have heard which states that 1 out of every 4 people has struggled with depression at some point in their life. It is a very common mental illness and as such, it is likely that someone in your life has struggled with it or is currently struggling with it. 

With that in mind, here are 10 things to know about depression:

1. Depression is no respecter of persons.

Depression strikes the old, young, rich, poor, fat, thin, those who are alone, those surrounded by loved ones, famous, unknown, every race, every religion (or lack of religion), and people of every conceivable creed. No one, by virtue of his/her status in life is necessarily immune from the possibility that they may suffer with this illness. Certainly, there are particular life situations which make depression less likely, but none are a guarantee.

Five Minute Friday: Follow

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

FYI: This entry is very, very late. As in, Kate just released the next prompt! Be that as it may though, this prompt is one of my two #oneword365 words for this year, so I just had to share it with you!
 

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Follow the leader.

Follow the recipe.

Follow your heart.

Follow Me.

My personality is generally extroverted. I have almost zero problem talking to people - even strangers. My mom used to joke that I could talk to a brick wall, which isn't too far off base. I love meeting people and getting to know them. Making new friends, speaking in public, working in groups or on teams, etc are all things that come naturally to me. With all of those things, you'd think that leadership comes easy too. You'd be wrong.

I am a very natural follower.

This doesn't mean that I can't lead or that I've never been in a leadership role. I actually ran for student government in high school! What it really means is that I'm much more inclined to let others lead and just follow along for the ride. It's much more fun to follow and not have to bear the responsibilities of leading.

This fits perfectly with who we are called to be in Christ. He calls us to follow Him wherever He leads us. It's one reason I chose the word "follow" as one of my two #oneword365 words. Pretty much my entire life has been spent as a passionate follower of Christ. It is an absolutely integral part of who I am. So if this is such a huge part of me, why the focus on "follow" this year?

One big, complicated, difficult word.

Depression.

The last couple of years, I have struggled with following Him and His plan for me. To be perfectly honest, I have been so angry at God for the better part of the last two years that in have struggled with wanting to follow Him at all. When these feelings started to surface they were so intense that Gray remarked that he hadn't married me just for me to turn atheist. I've never totally turned my back on Him, but I'd be lying if I said that the thought hadn't occurred to me on more than one occasion.

So how - in the midst of depression that is sometimes so blindingly painful and debilitating that death seemed better than living - have I continued to follow Him?

One big, complicated, even more difficult word.

Obedience.

I am deeply grateful for the requirement God has placed on me to attend Mass each week on Sundays. Missing Mass on a Sunday without a good reason (illness, caregiving, long distance, etc) is a mortal sin because it's a violation of the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy. Part of keeping that day holy is coming together with the other members of the body of Christ in your community to worship together. This is the reason that the Church enjoins upon the faithful the obligation to attend Mass each Sunday. Without this obligation and left to my own devices, I would have likely ceased following or even trying to follow Him.

This continued desire to follow Him despite everything that is going on in my head is why I chose follow as one of my #oneword365 words. This desire is also why I am still here. I desire to follow His plan for my life and part of that plan is that He gets to decide when my life ends and not me, that I am not my own (thanks to my "big brother" Chez for pointing out that last thing).

So even though it sometimes hurts worse than I can really express and although I can't see or understand His plan in all of this, I continue to follow.

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up at Kate Motaung's blog!

Five Minute Friday: Meet

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

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I have to be honest, friends. I'm struggling with this week's prompt. I just feel like I've got absolutely nothing on this one. The crazy thing is that I have lots of ideas about "meet" but not a single one of them seems quite right. So I'm just writing whatever comes into my head.

I guess I could talk about the first time I met my online friend Alun in college and the eight days we spent together getting to know one another. I could talk about how much fun we had when we met and how sad I was to see him go back home to the UK. I could talk about how that first meet up cemented what has become a friendship of almost twenty years now and has grown to encompass his wife and family as well.

I could talk about my trip to Kansas City last summer for a meet up with a group of ladies I've known online for almost 10 years. I could write about how I was nervous that they might not like me as much as I already liked them and how that nervousness melted away the moment I walked into the hotel conference room and was greeted with smiles and people joyfully shouting my name.

I could write about meeting each of my beautiful girls for the first time and how I knew in an instant that I would gladly lay down my life for them without hesitation. I could talk about how Gray and I met...oh wait, I think I covered that one a little bit last week.

I could talk about meeting my new blogger friend Tara during the Write 31 Days Blog Challenge and how our similar topics (depression for me, being the daughter of a mom with mental illness, for her) instantly bonded us and we had what our fellow blogger Jen Daugherty calls a "heart click."

Speaking of Jen, I could also mention how I'm looking forward to meeting her and the other Five Minute Friday folks at the retreat this August. I really am, you know :)

I guess now that my five minutes are almost up, I've written about all of it. I have to be honest though, I'm kind of hoping to meet a prompt that I like better next week.

Alla prossima settimana!
(Until next week!)

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up your entry at Kate Motaung's blog, Heading Home!