Sometimes you don't realize you are about to enter a stormy seasons until the winds are beating against you and the rain is pouring down. Sometimes there are no watches or warnings or signs of what is coming until you are right in the middle of it.

And so it was, in hindsight.

The first domino fell, and I felt the sting of pain. I didn't recognize the ripple effect until I felt undone. I didn't realize how fragile I felt until I was talking myself into social settings, from school functions to church events. The things that were regular rhythms of life suddenly felt daunting and hard. The social anxiety that I felt was not immediately recognized for what it was -- a sign of a depression that had taken root. 

I'm sure my husband was much more in tune to the downfall, as I began to cry more often and more readily. I was filled with loneliness and battling old rejections. There was some great splashes of anger and frustration. I felt utterly lost, unsure of my identity and relationships and purpose, in the middle of that shifting season of life.

I know my family must have adored who I became during those long months, entrenched in a wrestling that I could hardly find words for and no longer felt safe enough to share with anyone besides my long suffering beloved. The dark cloud of it enveloped me.

Like a toddler being held during a temper tantrum, I fought against it. Against feeling forgotten, ignored, rejected, and uncertain. I fought against the pain, and while I retreated into days spent at home alone, I began to sit for long stretches with my Bible and prayer journal. Like Mary when her brother Lazarus had died, I threw myself at the feet of Jesus. 

And like Mary, between my tears, I saw a mind blowing truth about Jesus. 

He wept. He wept with me. 

Looking long and hard within the gospels, I, for the first time, saw the character and nuances of who Jesus was. I began to see the truest things of God. And slowly, the sobs that had wracked my soul began to quiet.

Gently, I began to see that I needed to lean into this painful process of being pruned. I needed to lean into the hard, and see this season as a birthing process. I gradually gained confidence that if I could just lean into the brutal process, like labor, then something new could be birthed within me, through me, for me.

Leaning into it, day after day, two words came to me last October. On the heels of reading the book Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst, they came to me one morning as I prayed about my one word for 2018.

But two came.

Rise up.

It was an echo of the sentence from Lysa's book that kept repeating in my brain.

"It's impossible to hold up the banners of victim and victory at the same time." 

Rise up. 

During my struggle to make sense of the angst I was feeling, I found myself in Luke 5.

Winters always lead to spring.