My son is nearly two now, and the postnatal depression I was diagnosed with when he was 3 months old is largely gone. Most days are “good” days, and our relationship is not only existent, but actually pretty great most of the time. We have had our fair shares of difficulties so far this year, a lot of illness and anxiety, but we’ve also found a good groove, a great routine, and grown closer as a family.
Still, in those harder moments, on those “bad” days, it can feel overwhelming. All of the stress and pressure builds up, and my anxiety rears its ugly head. Those times can be really tough.
But something is different. Something has changed. Maybe its circumstances, maybe its my own stubborn heart, maybe its the lessening of low moods, maybe its just hope. Beautiful, sanctifying, undefinable HOPE.
You see, I am a big believer in the idea that God brings good out of everything bad. There is nothing so terrible that God cannot bring some glimmer of hope, some facet of goodness, from it. He has brought good from my experiences of cancer, unemployment, grief, even depression. It has not wiped out the bad, but it has made me who I am today. It has made me better.
For the last year and a half, however, I have struggled to understand the good that God has been shaping in and through me. It is a completely different experience dealing with that level of stress, depression, illness and anxiety when you have little ones depending on you. You don’t get to spend hours in prayer and meditation, looking after your own needs and allowing yourself to grow, hurting few too deeply in the process.
No. With children in the picture, it is very different. Anger, temper, frustration, stress, low mood, outbursts… even when they are few and far between, it still affects small children greatly. It can shape them. They are learning from you how to manage their emotions and how to cope with stress and frustration. They copy you. And it can look bad on you, but it looks downright terrible on a child.
So I have struggled. I have struggled to see how there can be any good coming from this. It is hard to feel like parenting and depression and anxiety is making you a better person when all you can see are the angry outbursts and the ugliness reflected back at you when small people hold that mirror up.
But hope. Oh, hope. Saving, glorious hope. When you have reached the end of your strength, you find you can no longer stubbornly push forward, and you instead simply surrender it to God, resting on His strength and in His arms, hope comes. And a single glimmer of it turns the darkness blindingly bright. Because you suddenly realise that your focus is wrong. Perhaps the moments when you feel like a worse person than when you began feel like they are frequent. Perhaps your children are showing you how you behave and it looks bad. But hope shines a light on the moments you are missing when your focus is off. Hope points out the moments you simply breathe out and let the anger go. Hope shows you the times when you choose to leave the room and calm down before dealing with a tough situation with a level head. Hope shows you the intimate moment between your children when they sit and read together. Hope shows you when your “big emotions” kid calmly says “sorry” or hands over a toy they snatched. Hope shows you your highly physical child running and jumping instead of hitting and biting. Hope shows you the smiles, the cuddles, the kindness, the love.
Hope adjusts your lens and re-focuses you on what you are overlooking.
It may seem like you are going nowhere, like you are being stretched beyond your limits and you are hurting those you care most about in doing so. But hope makes you see it differently. It makes you realise that sometimes you need to be stretched to breaking point in order to ask for help from He who was always offering it.
I never thought I would say this a year ago, but I am proud of how far I have come and who I am becoming. I still have a long way to go, but I have hope. Hope that all I’ve gone through will make me better and stronger. Hope that it will make me a better parent, a better spouse, a better friend, Christian and family member. Hope that as it gets easier, I don’t stop asking God for His help, His rest, His guidance. Hope that He really does always bring good out of bad.
