I showed up twelve minutes late to church service with wet hair, a gas tank almost empty, and 20% battery on my phone.
Spiritually I feel the same.
The sermon was around spiritual warfare and I swear the pastor looked right at me.
Maybe he didn’t.
It might have been because my two year old daughter walked into church like it was a ski resort night club: white dress coat lined with fake fur, snow boots, and pink sunglasses on her round face. It felt like an outfit I would have seen from that old Disney movie “Zenon.”
(Like everything else I’ve been attending for my mental health) I walked out of service early. There has been a feeling of exposure in Narcotics Anonymous meetings or church services that make me act like a bug frantically running in circles under a hot light.
Everyone sees me but I don’t want to be seen. The feeling of not being safe builds up inside the pressure cooker of my head.
I need to get back on a medication. I need to stop binge eating alone. I need to admit that dark clouds are rolling in the distance and it’s already begun to rain.
Red flags are popping up along the day like road signs on my highway commute. Exit now. Gas ahead. Breakdown next right.
There has always been a cycle of depression for me that moves in like thunderstorms; those once in a humid June storms in the Midwest that build up with noise and electricity dancing through your hair.
I am on the edge of the storm. I am very close to being drenched in it.
"I need to get back on a medication. I need to stop binge eating alone. I need to admit that dark clouds are rolling in the distance and it’s already begun to rain."
Perhaps "I need" belongs in the dustbin with "I should." After all, this could be written as a tyranny of shoulds: "I should get back on a medication. I should stop binge eating alone. I should admit that dark clouds are rolling in the distance and it’s already begun to rain."
Don't "should" on yourself. When rains come, you be a rock. No matter how the rain howls, the rock remains after they are done, and without doing much of anything. It's just itself.
Rains will come, and rains will go, and you will remain, not because of what you did, but because of what you *are.* You're Chanel Riggle. You're a daughter of GOD, the highest royalty on the planet. No amount of rain can change that nature. Ground yourself in that, and let the wind howl.
I could have written this :( I feel you.