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So, for a couple of weeks now, I have been taking anti-anxiety medication. Since I felt like a failure and a wuss for taking medication to control something that good Christians should be able to handle with daily devotions and the prayer life of Hudson Taylor, I have not written about it on the blog; that's also mostly because I'm a little spacey because of the medication and I waste a lot of time now sleeping, enjoying my family and getting sick.

I toyed with trying the medication for about a year, but I could always come up with a good excuse to not try the medication. A couple of days before my birthday, though, I found myself in a screaming argument with my husband because he interrupted me while I was working. While I passionately defended my feelings, somebody sane hovered above me and whispered how absolutely crazy I was to be yelling at a guy who was trying to be nice. In fact, I yelled a lot for no real reason....just everything felt like the "LAST STRAW!" And a couple of weeks before that, I came home from church and cried. I stood there in Robb's arms crying, wondering why I was crying, since I'm not really much of a cryer. The only thing that I could figure out...I felt like I was going to die. Soon. Imminently.

So I talked to some friends. And I made an appointment. And the doctor wrote me a prescription. After some Matrix jokes about red and blue pills, I took the medicine. It made me sleepy and very dry in my mouth. But I also felt like the knot inside me had been untied. It no longer pulled into an impossibly tight knot every time the phone rang or I had to go to the grocery store or the mail came.

I try to remember when I felt like this last. I think it was when we first moved into our house in Michigan. I think it was when Mattie was small. I think it was sometimes in college when I was falling in love. I think it was parts of high school. It's been a long time. It's been days after day of not knowing if we would make it financially. Day after day of being disappointed, put on hold, and held up. Day after day of waking up believing that I needed to beg God to meet our needs because if I didn't worry and beg and plead, He wouldn't provide. And like grooves worn in the road by endless cars, the chemicals in my brain stopped absorbing the calm and good seratonin and only tasted the sour and sad.

Now I see with different eyes. I no longer hate morning. I don't feel dread all the time. I don't dwell on negative things. I'm much more likely to take a nap or sit with the kids or really stop what I'm doing to be with Robb. I don't drink as much coffee and I've lost a little weight since I'm not searching for a little high to get me through the drab afternoon hours. I need to exercise more but with my defenses down, I've gotten sick repeatedly...have a sore throat now. So I rest. I'm a little behind at work, but I don't worry much about it. I don't feel low lows or high highs. I haven't yelled at my kids in weeks. I laugh easily. I'm a dull conversationist. It's hard to enter into worship because I only seem to play in one octave of emotion. I often picture myself as simply sitting at God's feet just being with Him. I don't plan to take the medication forever, but it's nice for now not to be so conscious of my emotion.

So that's where I'm at. This is part of my story and I always want to tell my story.