I find it interesting that there are no other words that can quite replace the word - "overwhelming". I sometimes find myself trying to search for another word to describe the emotions that have filled me and nothing fits - I'm haven't been always sad, or angry. I'm not always happy. I certainly feel those emotions, some more than others, in waves that come and go. But not one of them can describe the state I have been in since my move to Alabama. I'm overwhelmed, and I don't think there is a better way to put it. A state of constant movement, worry, change, emotions - both good and bad, wonder and complete awe.
Downtown Mobile, Alabama at Christmas time
I'm starting to really know this and understand it. I believe that we can be called to this feeling of being overwhelmed - filled with awe for the world we find ourselves in, the joy of God working in the lives around us, the surrounding sounds of love and forgiveness and even the heartache, the struggles, the darkness and hardness of it all.
These overwhelming emotions I've been feeling are important - it tells me that I'm learning, growing and changing in the midst of the movement.
I've been in what I call a low point, or a flare, in my battle with my chronic illnesses for almost eight months now. The transition period of my new life in Alabama has challenged this more than I expected, and the transition much harder than I anticipated. I'm far from the things I have found healing and comfort in before - friends, my love, family, the pacific, and the old routines I had built after being diagnosed with Lupus two and a half years ago. And finding those new ways to heal, to build up those routines again that took time to configure aren't coming as easily as I hoped.
The intense pain I had in the summer time has subsided and I'm so thankful for that. I thought that meant I was doing much better, into a period of remission and better health. And for the first few months after my move, I told myself that I was just stressed, transitioning and adjusting to a new lifestyle. But, it isn't just stress and I think I wanted to ignore this struggle and be able to come into the year with a new start.
Months after I thought I had come out of one of the most challenging times of my life, I was told that my Lupus was still very much active and the doctors weren't sure much what else to do. Things started to add up - I became anemic almost overnight. Dizziness and nausea has become a common part of my everyday and my fatigue has become increasingly more challenging to pretend isn't there. I was told that my kidneys are in the very early stages of complications, possible diseases or failure, a common thing that happens when Lupus remains active for months at a time, and that I needed to stop a medication that was helping with some symptoms I had but was causing more damage to them. It is reversible and we are watching it closely, but I am still very much sick and have been simply ignoring it, hoping that I could escape it once I moved away. This only made things worse.
The emotions that come with all of this are not easy. And at the same time that I am managing the emotions stemming from struggling with my health, I am managing a huge life change. Far from my family, friends and hometown for the first time in my life, I moved across the country to the South - a culture so far from my own that I feel lost and living in a community with six women, working on getting to know them, having no idea how they felt about me. My work with the intellectually handicapped has brought such feelings of intensity that I didn't know existed. Happiness, grief, frustration, patience. And witnessing the work my housemates are doing - with the incarcerated, victims of domestic violence, work with immigrants and those in poverty and not to forget the intense emotions that come with our changing political climate - it has been so much to take in.
L'Arche dance party with Lucy!
Carolyn and I at the Mobile Marathon
And in the midst of the changes I have been experiencing and the emotions that accompany, I'm realizing I haven't been just overwhelmed by all of this but completely taken over by it.
I started to feel depression that I had never experienced. On top of these new experiences I am having- both overwhelmingly incredible and challenging, I have been fighting this low point in my health for months. I sometimes feel stuck. It is physically and emotionally exhausting. I started to hate myself for feeling this way. I started to truly believe that everything that was happening was my own fault for the way I was viewing things.
I always try to be strong and positive despite the challenges that chronic illness brings and I always try to face stress and new experiences head on with bravery and strength. But this time, my emotions had me feeling anything but brave and I started to feel isolated and anxious. I felt incredibly negative, starting to doubt my new environment and life here in Alabama.
In the times where the awe of life doesn't just overwhelm me, but overtakes me, I tend to be filled with doubt. Doubt about who I am, what I am doing and why.
And in those moments, where it is easier to push away the feelings that are causing tension in my life, I simply ignore the importance of acknowledging them. I deny myself the right to feel it. This turns those overwhelming feelings into feelings of self-destruction and doubt.
I'm not sure where I got the idea that strength was an essential part of who I am. I know myself to be a strong person, I've overcome many obstacles and I'm proud of myself for that - but it isn't who I am. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that I always had to be strong - that negativity, frustration and brokenness were not options.
The last few months, I started to get so down on myself for being negative, for being weak in a time where I felt like strength was the only answer. I was tired. So very tired of having to be strong all of the time. Instead of taking a look at my circumstances, at the weight of everything that had recently come into my life and just how overwhelming it really was, how easy it was for me to feel overcome by it, I looked to blame myself - not for what was happening to me but for who I am as a person.
I wasn't giving myself the space I needed to take care of myself, to accept my emotions, to mourn, to accept and to heal. The space to feel negative. The space to feel weak. Often we don't want to accept our own emotions - both good and bad, because healing and acknowledging them can be painful and vulnerable. The weakness made me feel worthless and it made me start doubting the love and acceptance of those around me.
But I'm recognizing now that my worth isn't found in my own personal strength, it is found in the strength of an everlasting God who loves without borders or reason. A God who calls me beloved no matter what.
God has never asked me or anyone else to be strong through the trials and joys of this life we have been given. He only asks us to claim the truth of our lives - that we were loved long before anyone told us any differently. He wants us to know His voice can overcome the voice that tell us we need to prove our worth - whether we think that comes from our strength or our deeds or our lifestyle. He is urging us to claim His unconditional love for ourselves, a love that exists no matter what we do or how we feel.
When I turned my attention from the voice telling me that I couldn't be weak, that there was no way out and that the overwhelmingness of everything happening around me had to overcome my life and instead turned it to the gentle voice that allows blessing to touch me in my brokenness and meet me at my weakness with love, I felt that sense of awe. I felt obligated to it. Awe for overwhelming love, for struggles, for peace, for patience, for my new home in Alabama, for those I left behind, for a God who guides me through a life of beauty and pain.
I started to read a special book during this time called Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen, and it spoke right to me,
"When we are thrown up and down by the little waves on the surface of our existence, we become easy victims of a manipulative world, but when we continue to hear the deep gentle voice that blesses us, we can walk through life with a stable sense of well-being and belonging"
I certainly have felt thrown by the waves of my life and I certainly have felt like that voice that tells I am loved beyond measure has fallen silent. A few months ago, at the height of all of these emotions - I felt God was absent. It is so easy for us to ignore the voice of Gods love when we are filled with voices, sometimes our own, telling us we are no good, worthless unless we can prove otherwise.
I came into my job at L'Arche one morning, feeling particularly low about myself for some reason or another. I had several doctor appointments in the weeks prior, had stayed back from a trip my community took to New Orleans after realizing I needed to be taking better care of myself and was feeling very homesick.
I sat with Annie Pearl, one of our core members, a community member with an intellectual disability, who I had been sitting with for the last few weeks. She is so full of love, she is chatty, she is incredibly caring and she looks out for everyone. Annie loves to tell anyone who will listen how important they are. Over and over again.
I sat with Annie Pearl, one of our core members, a community member with an intellectual disability, who I had been sitting with for the last few weeks. She is so full of love, she is chatty, she is incredibly caring and she looks out for everyone. Annie loves to tell anyone who will listen how important they are. Over and over again.
Annie Pearl hugging Wally and her sister Barbara Jean
Whenever I sit with her, I listen to her ask me again and again, "You know why I love you?"
Her answers are different with each time - "Because you're precious", "Because you're special", "Because you're good to me", "Because you're in my heart", "Because you're my friend"
She will continue to repeat this to me and she continues to ask me if I know why she loves me. Her constant voice tells me of the appreciation and value she has for me - not because of anything I ever did, but because of who I am. This goes on sometimes for hours at a time. She tells me this almost everyday, several times a day.
She will continue to repeat this to me and she continues to ask me if I know why she loves me. Her constant voice tells me of the appreciation and value she has for me - not because of anything I ever did, but because of who I am. This goes on sometimes for hours at a time. She tells me this almost everyday, several times a day.
And on this particular day, I found myself getting annoyed with her at times. Which made me laugh. Here I was, feeling like I wasn't worth anything and I was feeling annoyed at hearing how loved I was. I couldn't hide from her, I couldn't ignore her. I had no choice but to listen. There she was, loudly declaring my sacredness to the entire room and right to my heart.
Annie Pearl and I at the L'Arche Activity Center
The weight of God's love is so urgent and His invitation to feel that love is always there, always telling us, like Annie Pearls' voice in my ear, over and over again, that we have value and worth - just in simply being. The constant love God pours into our hearts is so continuous, so loud and so vibrant that it should be annoying. And when accept that love and feel it fully in everything we are, there can be greater peace and a sense of belonging in our lives.
Annie Pearl was the physical presence of a voiceless God when I needed to open my heart to listen to Him, letting me know that it didn't matter that I felt weak and that it didn't matter that the overwhelming nature of the last eight months had felt overpowering. She reminds, annoys me even, over and over again with God's truth that I am beloved and that I don't need to always be strong to feel worth something. That I am always precious in Gods eyes.
Enjoying the San Diego Botanical Garden during my trip to California last month
And when I start to forget this, when I start to close off my heart and slip into doubt, I can start to hear her voice and the voice of a God who meets me exactly where I am, telling me over and over again that I am in His heart, that I am His beloved. So much so that it's annoying. And I am in awe all over again.
