Broken Beautiful

I love the beach.

It is one of my most favorite places on earth.

Walking barefoot, toes in the sand, looking for treasures.

It might as well be Christmas morning for me.

Best.Gifts.Ever.

 

I used to look for the whole pretty shells.

The ones completely in tact, no blemish at all.

I’d bring them home and there they would sit in a jar, or in a bag forgotten.

I never really did anything with them.

I’d admire them for a bit, and then set them aside.

I think without even realizing it I was drawn to the whole shells.

Because in my own life I wanted to be that whole shell.

Pretty. Without blemish.  Admirable.

 

I thought that was what others needed me to be.

Put together.  Happy. Without any problems.

So that’s the part I tried to play.

 

Until the birth of my first daughter.

Something erupted in me, and I had no idea at the time what was happening to me.

I began to have rapid, out of control thoughts that I couldn’t stop.

I was having trouble eating, trouble sleeping, and just feeling sick most days.

And I was SO scared.

 

‘What is wrong with me?’ I would question all the time.

And all I knew to do was lock myself in my little half bath in my apartment every morning.

I would cry out to God ‘I don’t know what this is, but whatever it is please take this from me!’

I would read my Bible, pray, and cry.  Every morning. It’s all I knew to do.

 

And it didn’t seem to do anything.

 

My health was continuing to grow worse.

But I wouldn’t dare let anyone see me like this.

No way.

My husband is a pastor.

We are leaders in our church.

I’m not supposed to struggle like this.

I don’t see anyone else struggling like this.

There must be something wrong with me.  Very wrong.

 

[enter.much.shame]

I have to hide this.

No one can see what is really going on behind closed doors.

I will force myself to show up.

I will smile.

And I will pretend.  

I can do this.

I will continue to be who I think people need me to be.

Put together.  Happy. Without any problems.

Because they look put together, happy, and without any problems.

 

So I suffered silently.

 

Only a few of my family knew at the time some of what I was going through.

Some of the thoughts I told no one, because they were so disturbing.

I began to question my salvation.

Maybe I’m not saved…

And these thoughts were most painful.

 

If I’m not saved, If I don’t have Jesus, then what?

I have nothing.

I began missing things.

Not showing up.

It became excruciating to be around people.

Trying to hide the fact that a volcano had erupted inside me…

and the lava flow was burning my insides.

Hard to talk about the weather…

And how God is good all the time…

 

And the “How are you?” question…

Don’t EVEN get me started.

 

Are you asking me because you REALLY want to know?

Or do you just want me to say ‘I’m good, how are you?’ and move on?

 

This is where I was living, and it was a painful existence.

Especially not knowing what was going on with me.

I was young and hadn’t a clue.

I just knew I was really sick, and I must have done something wrong to be feeling this way.

 

<<—————————————————->>

 

There is much to this story…  my journey with mental illness.

I would come to find out it had a name,

it was not  something I caused,

that what I was experiencing was not me,

And there was help.

 

<<—————————————————->>

 

What I can tell you now is that it was a long time coming,

and many heartaches, failures, and learning since then.

But one day walking along the vast ocean waves,

I was drawn to, no, captivated by all the broken shells.

They were everywhere.

What I had once dismissed, I now stared at, fascinated.

There were stirrings in me that at first I could not explain.

I could relate more with the broken pieces then I ever could the whole shells.

 

And even more, I had vision for what was broken.

As I began to reach down and pick them up, I saw them becoming something.

Something beautiful and whole.

 

 

And that is how this butterfly came to be.

Made out of broken shells and broken driftwood.

I call her Broken Beautiful.

Creating her was very therapeutic for me.

As I glued the broken pieces together I imagined Jesus’s love as the glue

that holds the broken pieces of my life together to make them into something beautiful.