God still talks to me

I've spent the last year treating my depression with increasing intensity. While I was teaching last year, I took several days a month for medical visits. I saw a psychiatrist for the first time, increased my counseling sessions-traveling to Denver every month. I trained for a marathon, and spent a few minutes every day writing. Things were going pretty well, and I felt like I had a handle on my mental health.

Then, I had a shattering life event that ripped the ground from beneath my feet. The news came to me on a Thursday. I couldn't get to my counselor over the weekend. Monday, I went to work. I was home before 9:00 in the morning, sobbing.

By that night, I had suicidal ideation more intensely than ever before. I'd never before had a plan, but this time I knew exactly where, and what I would do. It was terrifying. I reached out to a group of friends that I consider home. They told me they understood. They told me they would sit with me in the darkness. I was able to share with a couple of them details of what I was going through, and they responded with compassion and understanding. I put myself to bed as early as possible. In the morning,  I stayed with a friend so I wouldn't be alone while Ian was at work. We ate cottage cheese on Trisquits, went through the car wash, and walked around the block. I felt like a feather---a wind could have carried me away in a moment. Then, I was safe with myself again.

I really had to increase self care, and simplify my life. Anything non-essential was gone. I was back in the classroom. I was back to Crossfit. But, once again, I struggled with church attendance. It isn't in me to walk away. Spirituality is so important to me. Deep spiritual connection is essential to my being. Religion doesn't always meet those needs, and when I see through the lens of depression, church cuts. It is painful. I'm reminded of my weaknesses, but not in a way that brings humility and repentance, it brings hopelessness. I am reminded of a God of miracles, but not for me. Not for my pain. His love doesn't keep the darkness away. I am reminded of the joy of family, but my family feels like they would be better off without me. Better off without my tears, and my fatigue, and my worthlessness. They should have a happy mother who enjoys making casseroles, throwing birthday parties, driving them to soccer games, and plans fun vacations to Disney Land.

It was in the middle of this difficult time when God spoke to me. Have I mentioned how much I love baby blessings? Probably not. I do.

In the Mormon church when babies are born they are brought before the congregation, and their father (or grandfather, or friend) gives them their name, and a blessing. Men who have a relationship with the family are invited to participate, and together they create a circle, holding the baby in the middle with one hand underneath the new life, and the other hand on the shoulder of the man next to them. They rock the baby with their hands while the father is "the voice" and talks to the baby on behalf of God. These are my favorite. I feel like that little baby is being supported, and cradled, and God is so aware of that new life and all the potential that little life has.

My nephew Lehi was being blessed in Cortez, Colorado. My brother Bryant and his wife Audrey had this sweet baby, their sixth child. My family drove from Nebraska to be there. After the baby was blessed, Audrey took the baby out of the chapel to nurse him in the mother's lounge. Bryant sat up a row from his children. He was wearing his suit, and his left arm around a man with dark brown hair. Bryant was leaning in and whispering in his ear- Spanish. That was the language the man spoke, and my brother was translating for him- quietly-every word that was spoken from the pulpit. God told me I was like that man. Depression changed my language. Church was hard because I didn't understand the messages as they are intended. I needed a translator to understand. My counselor was a translator. My bishop was a translator. I needed to be careful about my translator---they needed to understand my language or I could get further confused. But I hadn't done anything wrong to speak another language. It wasn't my fault, and maybe one day I would speak the language everyone else spoke, and maybe I wouldn't and either way it was OK. My translators loved me and God could still talk to me, but I needed some help to understand.

Church has not been as hard. When I feel something hard, I take it to my counselor, and he helps me to think about it in a different way, and gives me something to read, or just validates my thoughts. Sometimes things are said at church that just aren't true-at least not true for me. Sometimes I get it out of context and need to re frame it, or change it a bit to relate to me and my circumstances. Sometimes I need to stay home, and talk to God in my own way. I let go of the guilt. I let go of the expectation. I let go of the way I thought it would be, and the way it was before, the life before I needed a translator.

God still talks to me. He sounds a lot like a friend. Sometimes, I can't even tell the difference.