Count It Joy: joy

I've been married for almost eight years (seems crazy to say that!), eight years full of blessings (like three daughters and a forth on the way, plus one in heaven!), and trials alike. In movies when a character has a near-death experience, we get to see a highlight reel of all the great moments of their life flashing through their mind. I haven't had any near death experiences, but sometimes my life plays a little reel in my own mind when I'm lost in my thoughts, and I've been pondering something kind of amazing that happens in the highlight reel of mine.

I repurposed this blog and gave it a fresh start with a new name, Count it Joy, because over the years I've been learning to count everything as joy, as instructed to do in one of my favorite verses of all time:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds., because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work in you so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James1:2-4

It's a choice we make and it certainly doesn't come naturally! My natural inclination is to groan and grumble and maybe throw a little pity party when life gets hard. Well, we've been through one trial after another since we got married, so learning to count it all joy has been a crucial part of my spiritual journey. It's such an important topic to me--seeing trials as a reason to be joyful--that I dedicated a blog to it!

Ok, back to the highlight reel. My last eight-years of reel goes something like this...

Meet soul mate
Get married seven months later
Have a baby girl
Move to my home state to enjoy being close to family and the mountains
Make tons of friends at an amazing church full of young families and babies galore
Move into sweet little house near trail head with gardens, a porch swing, and a little white fence
Have another baby girl
Walk everywhere with my girls and our bright blue double stroller
Story time at the library
Playdates
Picnics
Weekend hikes with the hubby
Grilling in our cute back yard while the girls eat tomatoes and raspberries from the garden
Getting involved in our community
Leading Bible studies
Lots of coffee and lunch dates with friends
Weekend "retreats" with hubby while parents watch our girls
Have another baby girl
Live in a turn-of-the-century farmhouse on seven acres and host tons of people at our huge table
Watch the kids run wild through the fields surrounding said house
Start the homeschool journey
Cross country road trips
Taking the girls to the ocean for the first time

Those are some of my favorite moments, and of course, the detail is so much more vivid in my own head, evoking so much sweet emotion when I think about each moment. That these are the things that naturally play in my mind is an absolute spectacular GIFT from God. All those beautiful memories I just listed are like pebbles that fell around some pretty big stones in our life through those years. Things like...

Living in more houses that we can count (moving over and over and over with small children)
Enduring health issue after health issue
Surgery
Chronic Pain
Depression
Buying a meth house, losing our possessions, thus more moving and financial uncertainty
Moving cross country twice in three months
Kids being sick all winter long, seemingly in a never ending rotation

Sure, not all of these seem like big deals, but in the midst of each of them, there were weeks, sometimes months of intense stress, anxiety, or physical pain. Many times, like during repeated gallbladder attacks (more painful than childbirth, and scarier because we didn't know what was wrong at the time), or during the three months we lived in Nashville trying desperately to find a house and realizing we wouldn't be able to afford to live there (amidst other major stressors), or during the weeks following us finding out we had just sunk our entire savings into a house that was uninhabitable, I remember begging God to ease up on us. Life has felt so heavy through these things.

And yet...when I look back, the hard doesn't pop into my mind. The good does. If a simplified look at life from the outside looking in is a big glass jar, and inside the jar are lots of big rocks with pebbles and sand filling in the space in between, the big rocks being the hurdles and hardships, the pebbles and sand being everything in between (the day to day moments that actually make up the majority of our lives), then my reel naturally plays through the pebbles and sand. It's not like I'm refusing to think about the hard stuff, but rather that my mind remembers SO much good in the midst of the hard. It's this very thing that motivates me to go do fun things, to get out and really live life to the fullest, even in the midst of ongoing physical pain. I just keep on making memories (for my sake and more importantly, my kid's sake), knowing that while sometimes it's hard in the moment, the payoff is infinitely worthwhile. A lifetime of memories made.

I remember my cousin telling me once (after she had had five or six kids...she now has eight!), "If I remembered the pain of labor and childbirth, I would have stopped after one. But God is gracious and let's those memories fade away so that I can be unafraid of having more." Isn't that the truth?! If I dwelled on all the hard things, I'd be paralyzed at the unknowns in our future, afraid of what tomorrow might hold. Instead, the Lord enables me to more readily remember the baby snuggles, the date nights holding hands, the seasons of health where I lead boot camps, the gardens planted and the beauty of the historic homes we've lived in. And all the hard things in between? Well, those have only served to grow me spiritually, to strengthen my relationship with my Father, and so I count it ALL joy, not just the pebbles and the sand, but the heavy stones too.

I'll end with a quote from Ann Voskamp that resonates with me so deeply...

"The trials [are] but stones on the way, and all the stones but steps higher up and deeper into God." (p. 108, The Broken Way)

That is my prayer for me and for you...that we would see the stones not as curses, but as blessings that move us closer to the heart of God. And that as we look back over our lives, no matter what we've been through, that we would see all the beauty that grew out of jagged places.

xoxo, Crystal

Winter 2018: I can recall a few excruciatingly hard times over my 36 years of life, and this winter is near the top of the list. To most people, things probably looked fine from their viewpoint. We had moved back from our three month stint in Nashville, into a beautiful house on a quiet street near downtown. Brad had low paying but steady work, I was homeschooling the girls and in my first trimester of pregnancy with our forth little girl. Brad jumped back into life in Helena full force, getting more involved than ever in church, school and community. Meanwhile, I struggled with severe morning sickness, so no one ever thought twice about my lack of involvement or no-shows to Sunday services all winter. Normal first trimester stuff of course.

The reality was, I felt dead. Like the walking, talking, sometimes forced-smiling dead.

I've already posted about my bout with depression here, so I won't go into detail again, but as Spring slowly reappears and my soul with it, I look back at the past four months and my stomach hardens a bit, tightening at the mere remembrance of the difficulty I faced in trying to raise my three little loves in the midst of such darkness of mind. The memory of it is still fresh, though thankfully fading bit by bit each day that the sun shines warmer and the grass greens and new life appears both outdoors and in my very soul.

It's late April in western Montana, and I feel normal again, but feeling "normal" is such a stark contrast to what I felt all winter long that normal feels exhilarating. I feel so...alive! You know how we tend to appreciate each new season because we start to tire of the current one just a bit? We anticipate Fall as we grow tired of the relentless Summer heat; a glorious Fall gently ushers us into the slow and peaceful Winter; and Spring's appearance is always sweet as we grow tired of bundling up and shoveling snow. I think most of us wake up and get a little more 'pep' in our step when the snow melts and the birds start singing, when tulips start to emerge from the thawing earth and frost is replaced by dew. Well, magnify that feeling a hundred times; imagine feeling that after having felt nothing for four months, and that's how I'm feeling right now. The contrast is stark. And while I'm basking in it, trying to make up for lost time in so many areas of life, the intensity of my dark winter is still so fresh in my memory, it makes me shudder. The thought of going through it again truly scares me.

When I'm at my best (in a healthy mental state the other eight to nine months of the year), I'm social, I eat well, I feel good, and I'm motivated and energetic. Though I make plenty of parenting mistakes, I've got my A-game on in that realm, I take the girls to parks and hiking and to friend's houses, and I'm involved in serving in my community and church. When SAD hits hard, none of those things exist anymore. It's not a simple "pull myself up and out" or "get it together" or "fake it till I make it". Reading the Bible extra and dwelling on uplifting scripture and listening to praise music doesn't just fix it. It's a chemical shift that I can't control. Call it weakness, judge me, I truly don't mind. Weakness of any sort is looked down upon in our culture, but the apostle Paul says to boast in our weaknesses. I don't love doing that, ok? But I fully admit, I am weak in the winter, and nothing has been able to fix it. Do I lean on Christ? Absolutely! He sustains me; He is my everything and the only reason I make it through the dark months. Yet...

If there's a solution, you better believe I'm chasing after it! And so is my husband. I've dropped the ball big time throughout the course of my life. I've made huge, life altering mistakes. While obviously, I know I'll make mistakes as a mama, motherhood is one area I do NOT want to drop the ball. I don't want to look back after more than two decades of parenting and see that I was an absent parent for months every single year. I don't want my girls to always remember having to fend for themselves every January through March. That thought makes me sick. To the best of my ability, I need to be my best for my kids and for my husband. That is my full time job, my full time ministry, the gift that's been entrusted to me that I desperately want to be diligent with.

Today is supposed to be 70. Bikes have been dusted off, pansies planted, the patio table set up. Though still chilly in the mornings, flip flops are the shoe of choice around here, and the strawberries I bought this week actually tasted like strawberries! The long winter has finally made it's exit, and my own dark night is over. Morning has come. And I don't want to go back. I can't. Feeling so alive makes me know that so far as it depends on me, I can't go back.

Extreme as it might seem, a major move may be on the horizon. I'm not a fan of running from problems, but this is different. This is literally about my family's well being. When I'm well, the family is happy, things function as they should. Even my physical health is impacted greatly by my mental health. My back pain and headaches subside and my stomach seems to work better--not perfect, but noticeably better. The thought of another cross country move at seven months pregnant is nerve-wracking; the thought of winter after winter in MT is more nerve-wracking. As much as I hate the thought of leaving family here behind again, it seems like the best thing for us to do right now. I'm learning to separate emotions and feelings from facts. The reality is, staying in Montana, for now, is probably not the best scenario for our family. Besides the cold long winters, cost of living is crushing us and we haven't met a single one of our financial goals in seven years. I'd love to end up in Boise someday...close to family, neat city and mild weather...but they'll have to work on paying teachers a fair wage before that can happen for us.

Of course, more than anything, we want God's perfect will for us. I'm praying toward the move working out, but I'm also praying for him to give me peace and contentment and joy if we stay here. I know he works all things for good, and I know if he chooses to keep us here, I have to trust that he will get me through and that somehow, it's for my good and even for my family's good.

We find ourselves in limbo once again. Someday we will settle, but in all reality? This world is not our home anyway, which helps calm my heart when I start feeling anxious about not knowing what tomorrow holds (though even the most "stable" people don't actually know what tomorrow holds either). I don't know where my husband will get a job or where we'll be in a few months. But today? Today I'm going to pack picnic lunches and take my girls to the park and walk barefoot through the grass and dig in the dirt a little, planting a few more flowers while the girls play and get dirty and sun kissed. And if it actually reaches 70? We'll drop everything and go to our favorite local ice cream shop, as is tradition in the Knox family. It's going to be a good day. The fog has lifted and being alive never felt so real. Hope you're enjoying Spring wherever you are!

One of God's Spectacular Gifts

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Out of the Fog: Coming to Life

Friday, April 27, 2018