SheLoves Magazine

You Will Be Well

On bringing home baby no. four, a little white pill and purpose and joy on the other side.

By Patsy Wilding | Twitter: @groupgrrl

I left the pyschiatrist’s office clutching my newborn, my prescription and this reminder of hope, “You will be well.”

It is true, I am. Ultimately I thank God for my recovery, the details of which were realized by a little white tablet and tools to change my thinking traps.

Tobias Ronnie entered our lives in October 2009.  Like his three siblings before, we spent a few hours getting to know him prior to committing to a name.  His name is a reminder to me that our faith is greater than experience. Tobias means “The Lord is good.”  Though I believed it, I still didn’t know it in my heart at the moment of naming. My outlook was still altered by the 180 degree shift from life as I knew it, to being back in diapers.

 I had struggled throughout my fourth pregnancy with depression. An unexpected pregnancy, compounded by a virtually cold turkey withdrawal from Celexa, sent me under the covers literally and figuratively. In that place I couldn’t see the joy I now know with my little surprise straggler.

I had chuckled many times at news of “unexpected” arrivals, wondering to myself how it could possibly happen. My fall came. Shame accompanied the news of my pending babe. How could I tell people? It was quite obvious we were not planning any more children–our twins were already almost eight!  My M. Ed. graduation was hardly in the shadows of yesterday and I felt I was beginning to find a sense of myself again after years of giving and caring for young ones. I felt all memories of challenges, the chaos, financial strain and struggles of having three under two-and-a-half returning to me, magnified by the fact that my own sister was longing for her first, while I was unable to accept my fourth.

Many days I couldn’t face getting out of bed. When I did begin to share the news, I could not do so without tears.

Adopted as an infant, I knew I could never consider terminating a pregnancy, regardless of the distress that accompanied it. I am sure my own birth mother knew the same feelings to some degree, though she faced the situation alone. Although I didn’t want the pregnancy my own life and faith trapped me.  So time passed.

As the pregnancy progressed, little change in my outlook was apparent and eventually my doctor referred me to the Reproductive Mental Health Clinic at BC Women’s Hospital. Although I wasn’t seen until after Toby’s birth, I did receive the help I needed. My psychiatrist told me I should never have come off the anti-depressant to begin with and likened it to taking a person with high blood pressure off medication to keep their pressure down.

Relief flooded over me walking out of the doctor’s office that day. I fully believed her that I would be well and I finally accepted it wasn’t something I could overcome on my own. Looking back I realize now that even my own thinking that I might be able to come off the meds for the pregnancy was skewed by not really understanding my depression. Depression, post-partum or other is not an imagined illness. It is real in symptoms and treatments. Some might feel that a life on medication is not a final solution or the divine healing they seek. While I can’t pretend to understand how or why it is possible to experience depression inside faith, I look forward to a day when my healing will be complete.  For in this world it is what it is, I am well and my life is once again worth living.

I am thankful for my recovery and over time I have come to see the work ahead of me as to utilize my training to support other mothers as they transition to motherhood. Every mother will not experience the degree of difficulty I did. It is true that Motherhood is an adjustment and the way in which we experience it is as unique as each individual. Along the way there will be shared stories of similarity. If I have privilege of contributing to some of these stories with encouragement, light, hope and an outstretched hand, what more could I ask.

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Editor’s note: Patsy is participating in the Aviva Community Fund competition with an idea called MotherCare, to support mothers and enrich lives after birth. After reading her story, I know I would have loved to participate in a program like this after the shock and joy of my first babe. Please vote for her idea here. –idelette xoxo

About Patsy:

I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and woman of faith. I am also a helper. My life has been full of rich relationships and gifts, from my parents choosing me at ten weeks, to my husband and four children, including an unexpected late arrival, Toby, just two years old.

For as long as I can remember I have had a desire to help. As a child I thought that this would take shape into a career as a doctor, but as life unfolded my direction changed. Although I am not an MD., as a Counsellor I am a helper for matters of the heart which are equally, if not at times more important than physical health. Over time I have come to see this is a truer match to my desires, passions and gifts and for this I am thankful.

My professional experience as a helper began as an Early Childhood Educator. From there, I returned to school to pursue my education degree, yet even at that time I had counselling on my horizons. After five years of teaching, I knew that my calling was to support students and others as they navigated the transitions of life and as a result I returned to UBC to pursue a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology. In 2007 I started my first position as a high school counsellor and knew at once I had found my niche; working with individuals to address concerns of the heart. While I am relatively young in my counselling career, I have a wealth of life and helping experience which greatly enhances my practice.

Recent experience with my transition back to mothering an infant, as well as caring for aging in-laws has inspired a desire to help clientele outside the school system. Patsy’s counselling practice was born to accommodate this desire to support families, adolescents & children, mothers, and elders in their navigation of life’s transitions.

Image credit: Vivid Expressions Photography

ShePonders: Finishing Well

“My body vibrated with a deep awareness of having finished this task well, of walking in faith and accepting God’s outlandish invitation. ”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha

<<<Finishing Welll>>>

Click on the link above to hear Kelley sharing this month’s ShePonders: Finishing Well
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It was August 2005. I sat buckled in my seat with my not-yet-two-year-old daughter sleeping in my arms. We were tired. This was our final of four flights from Africa to Arizona, after all. I remember clearly the sound of the chime announcing the beginning of our descent into Phoenix … and with it the torrent of tears that began to run down my face uncontrollably.

“I did it, I did what I promised. I did it, I did what I promised.” I kept repeating these words, like a mantra, an affirmation that I kept speaking to my daughter as she slept in my arms. “I said I would bring you home–and today I am keeping that promise.”

This was the culmination of a year-long process of our international adoption. It was a year I had held her in my heart, caressed her picture with my fingertips, prayed for her and believed for her healing and homecoming.  As any international adoption, it was fraught with complication but also a time pregnant with promise. Many people did not think I would bring her home, that for one reason or another I would not be able to do it. But here she was, in my arms, and descending into Phoenix.

And I knew at that moment that I did this, I did what I promised her I would do; I did what God asked me to do. I did not do it perfectly–but I did it. Once sick, now she was healthy; once an orphan, now she was my daughter; once a picture on my nightstand, now a lovely girl in my very arms. I did it …

When I reflect on this moment, the sensation is as fresh and as potent. But with time, I have pondered what this deep eruption of emotion was. This week I have returned to this moment and have found a name for the sensation–finishing well. My body vibrated with a deep awareness of having finished this task well, of walking in faith and accepting God’s outlandish invitation. I knew I did it, and I sensed to my very bone that even God was proud of me in that moment. To take liberties with a Biblical phrase, I felt like I was “overshadowed by the proud-ness of the Almighty.”

Celebrating

I don’t hear much about this in the circles I move in these days–that God expresses pride in us and our accomplishments, that He celebrates when we finish well. But what I sensed that day was not a mere human boasting, it somehow felt holy. And when I remember it, when I feel the emotions afresh all these years later, it is like returning to a high place, an altar in my heart where I savor that moment when I finished well and felt God’s pleasure.

But upon some Biblical digging, I think I see hints of this in Scripture. I had to hunt a bit, because I think even the saints that have gone before don’t (1) brag about this and (2) know how quite to say it. But think about Moses. He did some amazing things at God’s invitation–contending with Pharaoh for the release of the Hebrew slaves, navigating the wilderness for forty years and bringing the people to the edge of the Promised Land.

—>>Moses

In Deuteronomy we are told that God brought Moses to the border of the land and showed it to him. “This is the land–I have let you see it with your own eyes,” God says. The story continues, saying that even though Moses was 120 years old, his sight was unimpaired. The story-teller is making a point–it was God’s great grace to allow Moses to see the land, to see that he did what he set out to do, which was move the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan. Moses did not do it perfectly, but he did do what God asked of him. I imagine that walking toward the land, reaching the divine look-out point, he felt a swell of emotion. He did it … and God wanted him to see it … and they shared that moment of finishing well.

—>>Sarah

What about Sarah? How old was Sarah when the angels told her she would finally bear a son? She laughed when the angels first told her the news, but she was not laughing when Isaac was born and she held him in her arms. In Genesis it says she was more stunned than anything, or at least that’s how I read it. The storyteller says that she said something along the lines of “who would have ever thought it … “ She did it! She carried that boy to term in her advanced age. She delivered him into the world. She finished well.

Both Moses and Sarah had these threshold moments, finishing well near the end of their lives. And what a great grace that God allowed them to see it, because it does not always work out that way for us. But they did see the fruit of their labors and felt the deep satisfaction and awe of finishing well. There are others who experienced this moment earlier in their lives.

—>>Abraham

Recall Abraham. He took that longed-for and waited-for son and walked him up the mountain to sacrifice him, as God required.  (I am not sure that this is the best rendering of the story, but it is one tradition we have been handed down, so we will let it lie there, for now.) He bound him, foisted him up on that pile of rocks and firewood, he drew his knife high in the air and began the heart-rending plunge … Until God stopped the insanity and provided a lamb. But Abraham, in effect, did it. He did what God asked. He did one of the hardest things ever. And then Genesis says God told him, “Because you have done this …” because you have finished well, “I will make your off-spring so numerous that even the stars in the sky cannot match their number.” God was strutting his pride in Abraham, rewarding him for finishing well against all the odds.

—>>Mary

But the most near to my heart is Mary’s experience.  Mary was visited by the Holy Spirit and impregnated with God. Luke tells about her visit to her cousin and how, overcome with awe, Elizabeth says: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Then she continues, in a less quoted phrase, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Reading this sentence took my breath away today, as if reading it for the first time. It named my own experience … believing that there would be fulfillment! And there is a great blessing in that–and then living it out to the end. Mary believed in that fulfillment–she became pregnant, experienced the swelling in her belly and then delivered a child into this world. What a sensation there must have been that overshadowed her–she did it! She collaborated with God and experienced in her very body His working. She did it–she finished well! And, we read later in the story, that she pondered all these things in her heart. A woman after my own heart … pondering that moment again and again, returning to that special place of feeling God’s pride at finishing well.

Runners

This all came back to me on Sunday morning, as I thought of our SheLoves tribe running their Half-Marathon. I thought of them crossing the finish line. Well, more specifically, I imagined them cresting the final hill and catching that first glimpse of the finish line. As if triggered by a chime, emotions streaming down their faces as they ran that last bit, descending toward the end of their run. They would know that they did it. They did it–not perfectly–but they did what they said they would do for their sisters in Uganda. They would finish well and know the swelling satisfaction that comes from finishing well. They, too, would be overshadowed by the proud-ness of the Almighty.

How wonderful that God shares in the celebration of our successes!  What great grace that we get to see it, feel it and experience His deep pride and pleasure with us in those moments. It is nothing to be ashamed of, not at all. These are high places we can ponder in our hearts for years to come. We finished well …  We will do it again, by God’s grace!

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Questions:

• When have you felt God’s pleasure in finishing something He’d asked you to do?

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

Go to Uganda? Now I Understand Why

On orphans, feeling orphaned and hearing God speak.

By Ashley Mandanici | Twitter: @ashleymandanici
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I’d like to preface what I’m going to say with this: I tend to think it’s awfully audacious when someone claims God commanded them to do something. Not because it’s untrue–I do believe God speaks to people. I just think the phrase has been abused and people use it too often, either as a mode for getting their own way and/or to excuse behavior that wouldn’t otherwise be acceptable (Example: God told me you’re the one I’m going to marry. So, how’s next spring?)

I say all this to say: God told me to go to Uganda.

I have many reasons as to why I believe it was God who told me to go to Uganda, but the one that seems the most palpable to me is: I would never tell myself to go to Uganda. I do not come from a “missionary” family; in fact I don’t even come from an adventurous, grab-life-by-the-cojones kind of family. My parents’ idea of camping was staying at a hotel with no pool and inadequate room service. I also have never considered myself an “Africa” person. I know that may sound terribly offensive but you know what I mean, right? You know, people who wear leopard-print shirts, have calendars with cute little black babies on them and read National Geographic magazines? To my uncultured mind those traits would characterize a person likely to travel to Uganda—and I was not that person.

Yet there I was meticulously packing my bags to head off on a missions trip to Kampala, Uganda.

Slight change of plans

I must confess that once I said “yes” to going to Uganda, a part of me was really excited about getting away from my “normal life” for a while. I had had a big year and a lot of change and I was eager to have some self-inflicted change as opposed to that which had been thrust upon me.

When we arrived in Uganda–or more specifically–at Watoto Childcare Ministry our plans changed … a lot. Our original plan was to help with infrastructure projects (building, painting—that sort of thing), and what we ended up doing was helping at Watoto Kids Camp with about 400 kids. It turned out that though I was thousands of miles away from “real life,” God hadn’t changed my job description all that much.

Not only that, but the vehicle in which God used to communicate with me hadn’t changed much either. I still hold true that most of what I learn and remember is taught to me through children and musicals.

I was panicked that I would get to Uganda, and nothing would change; that I would learn nothing. My prayers sounded like someone who had just jumped on a roller coaster and realized halfway up the hill that she didn’t really think roller coasters were her “thing.” Despite my panic, I did learn some things, and God spoke to me in the only way I would have listened.

So, here’s what I learned once I chilled out:

God is enough

The theme for Watoto Kids Camp was, “God is enough.” There are no words that I can use to frame this experience other than to tell you that each night I would sit surrounded by over 400-orphaned Ugandan children singing their camp theme song:

“Hey everybody take a look at me,

Like a bird in the sky I’m so happy and free.

Don’t worry ‘bout today or what tomorrow will be,

‘Cause I know that my Father watches over me.

He is enough—God is enough for me!”

Have you ever been a room with a bunch of really smart people, and felt like you really shouldn’t say anything because nothing you could say would be nearly as profound as what they were saying? Yeah, well that’s how I felt in that room of 8-12-year-olds.

Wisdom of a Mother

These are a few clips from our team’s visit to one of the Watoto villages named Suubi (meaning “Hope”). We had the honor of meeting four of the women that our women’s group from church–Life Women–sponsors. To be honest, I wasn’t that excited about going there–I really wanted to go to another village and spend our last day with the kids. That day, however, turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip.

Love

“When you have love, when you do something with love, there is nothing you can’t do.”- Mama Kevin

On the last day of our visit to Watoto, we were invited to share in a traditional lunch with some of the Watoto moms. Our group was split into groups of two, and we were sent off to different homes.

I had lunch with Mama Esther and Mama Miriam. I must admit I was slightly intimidated by the situation. I didn’t want to talk too much, or too little; I didn’t want to say something too stupid or too pretentious.

My Story

I sat quietly as Mama Esther shared her story with us: how she got to Watoto, about the children she’d lost and then gained. When she was through, Helen Balzer, one of my pastors who accompanied us on the trip, said, “Ashley, why don’t you tell the ladies your story?”

If I had been sitting closer to her I would have given her one of those swift “under the table” kicks but she was too far off, so I had no choice but to put some words together.

I didn’t know what to say other than that my dad died last June and I was still kind of a mess about it … which made me feel like an idiot.

Then Mama Esther turned to me and said, “You know, my dad died two months after your dad. When he died I was very mad at God. I asked him, ‘Why?’ and you know what He said? He said, ‘You’ve been telling these children you understand, but now you really understand how these kids you care for feel.’ And I do understand now, and so do you, dear.”

In that moment, my heart became tethered to Mama Esther’s, and a little piece of me was healed.

Oh, I get it now.

Mama Esther is right–I do understand. I understand now that I have compassion that I didn’t have before my dad died. I understand that no matter how audacious it may sound, God did tell me to go to Uganda. And I understand now that Uganda wasn’t really about Uganda at all—it was about God! It was about how whether you’re an orphan in Uganda, or an orphan in Canada, God is enough.

About Ashley:

My name is Ashley and I am the Children’s Ministry Coordinator at Relate Church in Surrey, B.C. My mission is to develop the God-given potential in every child who crosses my path *Insert Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” here*. I love all things jazzy, particularly music, and I tend to break into song throughout the day for no apparent reason. I blog here and tweet @AshleyMandanici

I am: Adopted and Chosen.

“Being adopted equaled rejection to my seven-year-old brain. Being adopted means being chosen to my adult brain.”

By Natasha Files | Twitter: @natashafiles

My colleagues and I share a love for coffee and cupcakes. We have become rather skilled at finding excuses to incorporate both into our weekly schedule. Today’s reason for cupcakes? It’s payday in four days. (Yes, we are quite creative.) As we sampled the cupcake flavours from the town’s local shop (creamy chai, strawberry shortcake, banana split, gluten-free fudge and more), I noticed myself smile as the conversation shifted from tattoos to one that has recently been big on my heart: adoption.

I can remember an assignment during my time at Mercy Ministries where my written response could have been equated to a temper tantrum. After a teaching about God adopting us as His children, I was mad, because, as I scribbled on my page: “I would rather just already be His child than have to be adopted. I want to be His from the start and think it’s stupid that He adopts us.” It was during that assignment I realized I potentially struggled with some abandonment issues from my earthly adoption. That was the beginning of a long journey.

Some of my current colleagues lovingly call me an “academic snob,” because I have a slight obsession with going to school and learning as much as possible. Point? I had this same drive while at Mercy; so study and learn I did. I pretty much lived in the library during the week following that tantrum and I am grateful for the cognitive shift that followed. This bitter girl who despised the word “adoption” learned that adoption is a high act of acceptance and love.

The transformation process looked a bit like this:

I believe God hates me because I was born to a mom who didn’t want me and God had to adopt me too, so no one wanted me from the start → The Greek word for adoption means “the placing as a son” (gotta love Strong’s Concordance) and is explained as an individual being brought into a new home and given a new name so the past life is wiped away and the new life includes benefits from the family who adopted the individual. → So if God adopted me, then that means He chose to take me despite my past. Great, but what about my mom? →

Just as God chose me, I was not a mistake to my adoptive parents because they also chose me and even paid money to secure me as their daughter. → So if adoption is a choice, then both God and my parents had to take action before I was securely theirs which kind of proves my belief wrong that I am rejected, if people had to get off their butts to ensure I was in their lives.

Accepted

I noticed how my actions changed as I began to believe I am accepted rather than abandoned. Prior to this revelation, I pushed my friends away to test if they actually loved me. (We categorize this as a personality issue at mental health.) But soon after I noticed myself acting out of the belief that I am worthy of being loved, I embraced my relationships and learned to have healthy, rather than fragmented, interactions.

As I have previously experienced, it can be easy to feel alone and deserted with the right ingredients of loss and negative experiences. My personal circumstances affected my beliefs, which impacted my mood and translated into a bundle of unhealthy coping that wrapped my relationships up in sheets. I believe that I can only be as strong as the foundation on which this temple is built, so until I sought Truth and cemented it as the reality on which I acted, I only had so much room to grow.

Eklektos

I now have a tattoo on my foot that reads “eklektos” which is Greek for “chosen; picked out; taken in preference; predestined.” I feel empowered every time I glance at it. We each have unique experiences that impact and define our lives. Not everyone’s issue is adoption, but (as my colleague so eloquently explained today) sometimes we have past childhood experiences that were interpreted and cemented into our seven-year-old brains and then carried into our adult lives. We are no longer seven, so we need to challenge those seven-year-old beliefs with our adult wisdom and insight. Being adopted equaled rejection to my seven-year-old brain. Now, to my adult brain, being adopted means being chosen.

About Natasha:
Natasha Files is Case Manager with a Mental Health and Addictions Team. She has experience working with youth and adults struggling with a variety of life-controlling issues and she specializes in eating disorders. Natasha’s passion for mental wellness began when she personally experienced the impact of a genuinely caring professional. That passion is paired with a love of espresso, only to be overshadowed by her desire to see women set free from life-controlling issues.