abundantly blessed....

i've done nothing to deserve the kind acts of family and friends, but still God has used many people to bless me beyond measure in the past 24 hours.

you know who you are and you know what you've done. and for each and every one of you, I AM THANKFUL. and i pray abundant blessings on your life for your selfless acts of kindness and love. because of you i have a renewed hope that things really will be okay. a renewed hope that i really will get out of the valley and rise to the top of the mountain again.

the past two weeks i've struggled to keep my head above water. i mean, really struggled. i've been more depressed than i ever thought i could be. ever. i feel like an entire lifetime of anger, pain, heartache and bitterness has all come together at once. it has completely caught me emptyhanded and with my guard down.

and the kicker to it all is.........i have no idea what happened in my life that triggered me down this long, ugly road of depression. none. i mean, i had a normal childhood with two loving parents. so it is beyond me what started me down the path of depression. but i can remember being depressed at age 14. maybe even younger. if i knew the root cause, the healing process would be so much easier. i do know that i'm the queen at stuffing it all down and burying it deep within. and now there is no more room left to stuff anything. so it's all exploding and spewing like a can of soda being opened after falling from the shelf and rolling across the floor. uncontrollably spewing everywhere.

so, for now i'll continue counseling and maybe find the answer. and maybe i won't. but at a bare minimum i'll learn some coping mechanisms. because i have been rapid cycling through the 5 stages of grieving and it has nearly sent me falling off the deep end with a one-way ticket to the looney bin.

and while i wouldn't wish the things i'm experiencing on even my worst enemy, i'm thankful that there is such a thing as being at the end of your ropes and hitting rock bottom. because for me, hitting rock bottom means laying it all on the line, falling on my face before the Lord and emptying years worth of garbage and excess baggage and realizing that i just can't do this thing called life on my own. i need help. i don't have all the answers. the pieces are scattered everywhere and i don't even know where to begin to start to put them all together.

i want the dark days gone. and i want them gone in the snap of a finger. the depression is only making every other problem in my life magnified and seem 100 times worse than it really is. i'm having a really hard time seeing the big picture right now. right now i'm living minute by minute by minute. maybe next month i'll be better equipt to face life and it will be hour by hour. but right now, this very second, i have no choice but to rest in the merciful, gracious arms of the Lord.

and the beauty in all of this monsterous chaos of a mess is that He knows the depths of my heart and He still loves me. He still loves me. (awestruck i say again) He knows every single thing about me and He.still.loves.me.

wow. that's a love that i cannot comprehend.