The Road We Walk

I remember when we walked hand in hand and had the most profound talks. I would look in Your eyes longing to know You more, and knowing I would because You wanted it too. I hung on Your every Word, loving all You said and how You said it. Every once in a while we would stop walking and just survey all that was around us, how it spoke of Your glory, and testified to Your love. I would sit at Your feet and look up at You in adoration, listening to every story and seeing You weave perfection in Your divine will. While we walked, for just a moment I let go of Your hand and looked at another road traveling in a different direction than You and I were heading. I asked You about it, and You told me there were things yet to see on the road we traveled together. But I wanted to go down and just take a peek of where the other road headed and what was on it, but You stayed on the smaller, narrower path. I wasn’t planning on going far, just around the corner, and all of a sudden I couldn’t see You anymore. I could hear Your voice calling my name in the distance, but turning that corner brought me to a maze and I couldn’t find my way back to You. It was dark and lonely. A haze descended and the fog enveloped me and I couldn’t see where I was or where I was headed. I knew You would want me to move, but I was too scared to take another step without You by my side. Murkiness swirled around me and I could no longer see the sun, I could no longer see the Son. A storm was brewing, my heart heavy with tears and my arms yearning to find You, and then the flood of emotions burst forth. I couldn’t hear Your voice anymore and I longed to have You by my side, holding hands again. I was lost and I didn’t know how to be found. I sat and cried in my maze in the valley because You weren’t there to carry me, like You had so many times on Your road, when I grew tired. How long I stayed I could not say, but however long, it was too long. My head was hung in shame because You asked me to stay and I looked the other way. As I sat there in my brokenness I felt hands gently clasp my face and lift it up. There You were and I looked in Your eyes and knew it would all be ok. I asked how You had found me, when I didn’t know how to be found. You said that while I had taken my eyes off of you, Your eyes still saw me because You never looked away from me. I asked how long I had been here and You said it didn’t matter because You were taking me back to where I belonged. You lifted me in Your arms and carried me all the way back. I thought I had disappointed You but You were so happy to have me back. You set me down, but took my hand and asked if I’d like to continue along with You. I was in awe of what You would do just to have me walking with You again. You told me about how much You missed me and how You would have walked any distance just to get me back. I blinked back my tears. Me? The one that left You behind? You tried to explain to me the depths of Your love, but knowing I could never understand it’s vastness You wrapped Your arms around me instead. You told me of the journey we had ahead of us, one with unexpected twists and turns, but the constant of You, forever being by my side. There will be many other roads that we will pass along our way, but none can offer me anything that I could truly want. For all I truly desire is to walk hand in hand with You, to sit at Your feet as You tell me of Your ways. The only path worth traveling is the one You paved for me and knowing I’ll never travel it alone.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Finding Answers

Today I’m attempting to take the principles that I learn at church and apply them to my life today. Although I think it is easier said than done, it’s the fact I’m making an attempt to do anything. Tonight we will be going out to dinner with Megan for Danny’s late Father’s Day dinner. This should be a time of joy to get to see her again and I know Danny misses seeing her. There is joy to be found in the fact I serve an All-Powerful Mighty God who loves me and takes care of my every need. There is joy found in having a wonderful husband that is so giving and so loving to me. There is joy in having Ciara home and loving on her. There is joy to be found and after talking with the counselor today she did say it is a choice you make in your mind to be joyful and then practicing it in your life. I’m not sure how you practice joy, but I’m willing to give it a try in hopes of finding the answer. Finding answers seems to be a common theme in my life right now. Finding answers to all the “why’s” and “how comes” that have plagued me for so long now. My only problem is I don’t know that I’m any closer to finding these out and if I do find them out will I be satisfied with the answer? It seems as though I would be better not searching, but just simply accepting life as it is and moving forward. Again I’m not sure how you just say, “Whatever, so be it” and move on, but if someone could tell me how I would be willing to try. I know I travel on a journey and I’m not sure how long it will take or where it will end, but I know I’m hoping to find some answers, joy, peace, and grace along the way.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Flightless

I’m sitting here taking a break from cleaning the house and thinking over today’s message at church. It didn’t start out as the best day there, due to a past member showing up that gives me great anxiety. The serves were starting and the panic attach was almost overwhelming. The urge to get up and leave was so strong that I had to keep telling myself that it would all be ok and that God wouldn’t let anything happen as my mind ran away with all the “what ifs”. I shouldn’t be surprised that as Don is teaching on graciousness today’s sermon would be about peace and grace during difficult times. He was quoting out of Philippians 4 and how God’s peace surpasses our understanding. Pray in everything, rejoice in everything, have joy, God’s peace, etc. As I sat there I began to wonder how I have peace and rejoice during this depression. I do not doubt that God’s promises are true (well maybe that’s not entirely true), I do know it’s true, but how do I experience in this dark time? Is peace and joy a decision? Is it merely trusting that God to do everything He has promised and just holding on tighter to Him during this time? One thing that Don pointed out is this can’t be obtained without growing closer to God. God was really talking to my spirit today as Don was talking about joy in hard times yet not having His peace during other times. I do remember a time when things were going so bad and times were so hard, yet God seemed to be ever-present and we were riding high on a mountain top. Now everything in my world is better than it was during that time, yet it is now that I am struggling so hard with His peace, joy, and trying to understand His will in my life. I want to be in that place of joy again and I do pray constantly that this depression will be healed. If I ask it in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and am praying for the Father’s will to be done, then shouldn’t I trust that He will heal me? Simply put, yes. But it doesn’t seem that easy. You see, I want to be better now. I don’t want to have to wait and take medicine to make me “normal”. I just want to be a rejoicing child of God now and have that uncontainable joy and a peace that it is all going to be ok. I’m trying hard in my day to day life to live normally, think soundly, and rely on Him, but it doesn’t get me back to where I belong. I know there has to be an ending point so it makes me wonder, what am I holding on to that is holding me back from what is rightfully mine? I feel like a flightless bird watching all the other birds soaring high over head and wanting to join them, but feeling like my wings have been clipped. I watch, I long, and I try to flap my wings, but I make no headway. I’m stuck on the ground watching everyone fly on without me. Yes, right now I feel flightless, but desiring to fly to all new heights with Him. He is more than capable to pick me up and carry me where I need to go or heal me so I can fly to Him, but I’m not sure which He is going to do. So what do I do? Where do I go? How do I get there? The doctor would say keeping taking my medicine and things will look better. And I will keep taking them; I just don’t want that to be the answer. So now I wonder what I must do to receive all He would give me and all He wants me to have. I am His child and He will see me to the end of this. But this flightless bird wonders how long it will take to get there.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Another Day

It seems with each passing day things improve a little more. Yet there are still days that it seems I’m barely doing better at all. The dreams that come to me in the night seem to press me down during the day. How I wish I could control them and then I wouldn’t dream about them at all. Since I can’t I wear the weight of them during the day and it seems to make the day a little darker than it should be. I pray continually that things will get better, that I will be better and finally come out on the other side of this depression. Looking around me this should be a time of great joy for me because things in life are pretty good. I really don’t have anything to complain about in daily life, so what keeps me from the joy I should be experiencing is beyond me. I look at Job and see how faithful he was and he lost everything in a day and I wonder why I can’t be the same. I know He is always faithful and He has a reason for this right now and I just can’t see the bigger picture. He knows what’s best for me; I just struggle seeing how such a great depression can be the right thing. Yet when I’m in this mind set I am questioning His will for my life and I know that’s not what I should do. He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it; these are the promises I cling to. The other thing that makes my day livable is Danny. I just don’t know how he puts up with me. I often fear he will give up on me and I don’t know what I would do without him. I know he deserves so much more and there was a time I was able to give that to him, but right now he’s the one doing all the giving. I love him more than words can say and I pray that it is enough. He holds me up when I can’t do it myself and is strong for me when I have no strength. I love my family, my girls, I just hope at the end of day I can be what they need me to be. Right now I sit here talking with my grandmother and I can feel the anxiety rising up in me. Things just aren’t the same. My heart beats fast. Ciara still wants to talk to them and I can’t make her understand that as long as they reject Danny and me we can’t have a relationship. This makes the day harder and it will take me a while to not be upset. They say it is a choice, but it seems overwhelming to me. I’m just not there yet. Another day to live better, another day to try and enjoy, it’s just another day.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

The Plea of a Weary Child

There are days the weariness begins before your feet ever touch the floor. Those days the dawn’s soft glow invades that peace, and you shield your face from the light of a new day. If given a chance right then you would choose to pull the covers back over your head and let the world continue it’s centrifugal pace without you. You know the world could make it without you for just one day. The weariness may start out with slightness, but as the day progresses and you push yourself forward, it weighs down on you all the harder. Not the weary feeling of being tired, no it’s the ache in the soul that puts a shadow on the brightest day. It’s the cloud that drizzles on you so lightly, yet enough for it to seep in. You see it in you countenance as you see yourself in the reflection of mirror. The eyes are hollow, empty, sad; the face drawn that even a fake smile can’t hide. One could see it if they would care to look into the depths of my eyes. However, most don’t want to see that deeply, but are content with all that is superficial. I can give you superficial; I have become an expert in it. Who really wants to involve themselves with what lies beneath? The tragedy is it only lies beneath because no one cares enough to look just under the surface of superficiality. The sun rises higher and so does the desire to just get away; to find that quiet place that is calling out to your soul. Yet today has already been determined that it will have its way, and quietness will not be found. In the absence of quiet you find, frustration, impatience, annoyance, sudden unexpected anger, and just the urge to turn inward and push everything and everyone else away. I don’t need a nap, not a longer nights sleep, no sweeter dreams than those of last night; just peace. My soul, in its weariness, longs for tranquility, serenity, anything but what darkens the harmony that could be found, if just given the chance. I need the soothing gentleness of a touch that can’t be found here. I need a heavenly touch to calm all the frayed edges, to smooth away the worry lines, and an embrace that tells me that everything will be ok. I need the One who always sees past the superficial and cares enough to look beneath what I would choose to remain unseen. I need the One who eases the rages, even the rages that only scream on the inside. I need grace for the weariness that troubles my soul and the Light that can chase away the shadow that would try to stay. I need mercy for my selfishness of wanting to hide, and thinking I know what’s best in assuming the world could do without me for one day. I mean after all, who am I in the grand scheme of things? One important enough to be knitted together in His image, important enough to know the numbers of hairs on my head, special enough to be called friend, precious enough to be saved. Today maybe I need to be saved from myself and my own self absorbed inclinations. But I do know that the yoke of the world is too heavy for me, the yoke is too heavy to be me, in all my frailties’, in all my insecurities, in my abundant imperfections, in my failings without end. You have promised Your yoke is light, so where might I exchange my yoke for Yours? Where can I trade my weariness for Your joy? Where can I be the beloved and come to the Beloved, spotless, beautiful, pure, and whole? Where can I come to find Your heavenly touch that cleanses me from all the shame that makes the emptiness in me cry out? When can I come sit at Your feet and have my tears wiped by those beautiful nail scarred hands? Can’t You see I want to be rescued and freed, reconciled to You? How can I be filled with You so this emptiness is shed and the weights of the chain of sin no longer bind me? This child of Yours’ longs to nestle inside Your wings, to be held on Your lap, sit around Your throne, just praising You with the heart that You have made new. I know my soul will be restored and the weariness will but a faint memory as I am surrounded in the brilliance of Your glory. I don’t need gates of pearls, streets of gold, a crystal sea, a tree that bears twelve different fruits in all seasons. Heaven is found dwelling in Your presence, being embraced in Your love. Until You can give me the desires of my heart of running into Your arms, can You hold me tonight and restore me? Melt the weariness that has darkened the heart of the one that adores You and let my heart only be found rejoicing in You. Don’t let me become anything but the one You would say is after Your very heart. So if my eyes aren’t lifted up, seeking Your face, if my hands aren’t raised, my knees aren’t bowed in prayer, come refine what You will. And in the end may my soul be a reflection of Your beauty; and may I find my contentment in being Your future bride, the love of Your heart, as You are my Bridegroom and my forever Beloved. May I remember that I will always be the precious, cherished child who’s blessed with a Father’s love that always reaches down and finds me where ever I may be. The One longing to fulfill my wishes and refresh this weary child.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Searching for Peace

What is this thing that many call by the name of peace? What does peace entail and what does it take to get it? Is it something to be earned or gained by a merited act? Does it have a price and if it does what exactly will it cost me? You see, I know that whatever this peace is, it’s something I don’t have. I have no claim to it and what it is costing me is beyond anything I can measure. What must be present for peace to come? Is it something I can hold, something I can cling to in the dark of the night? Will it hold me afloat when the tempest blows and waters swell over my head? Can it bring the sun back to a life that’s been lived in the shadows for too long? Will it break me out of the prison walls that surround me, even though I couldn’t tell you how I got here? Can I feel warmth again even if the sun isn’t shining on me? Will a faint smile return in the quiet moments, knowing they are my moments to do with what I will? If I have it, can I breathe again? Will I still want to hide from the shame of the past, the pain of today, and the uncertainty of tomorrow? Does this peace that is spoken of equal to that of freedom? How far would peace free me? Where would I still be bound? I hear those who boast of the peace they have found and I wonder why it eludes me. What must I do to obtain it? Many speak as though it is so easy to have, but if it’s so easy, what holds me from it? I just long for more; more than what has been offered to me from this hard life. Surely it is within my grasp, since so many others have it. Frustration is overwhelming, knowing that it’s just beyond my reach. It’s always moving away from my fingertips, never taking a hold of it for myself. Where is the path to peace and is there one who will walk me along the way, holding my hand? Because I know that while I walk toward that place of peace, snares will be waiting for me on every side. Jagged thorns will be waiting to snatch me and keep me from the journey I so long to take. I can’t make it on my own, so if you’re there, if you can hear me, can you take my hand and start guiding me down the path? Can you be my light in the dark of the night? Will you hold me afloat when life threatens to pull me under in the tempest that rages on? Will you be the sun to shine upon me, casting all the shadows aside? Will you break the walls that block the way to the place that you lead me to? Will you provide me warmth where the cold has invaded so deep within my soul? Will you be my smile in the quiet moments that we travel together, knowing they are our moments to do with what we will? Will you breathe for me when I can’t breathe for myself? And if my chance I fall along the way will you carry me when I don’t have the strength to walk another step? I want this peace that so many songs are sung about. I want to lift my voice with those who you have already led there. So if I promise to follow, will you promise to guide and never leave me a step behind? I’ll hold your hand, though it drips with blood, and never pull away. I’ll follow the footprints that are marked with blood with each step you take. Step for step, hand in hand; lead me to peace with you eternally.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Overall...

Overall it was a better. It was nice having Pastor Don and Jean over for lunch and I think they will be great friends. I told them about me going through the depression today, but not much in details. Danny and Ciara were a huge help last night as they helped me clean the house. I feel better with the house being clean on the outside, but step inside one of the rooms and you’ll see what I really feel on the inside. I’m a mess. I feel like my family is at such a disadvantage having me being the way I am right now. I am so blessed to have my family, yet many times I don’t feel like they are so lucky. I know the days are getting better than what they were but it seems to be taking so long. Each day that passes that I am paralyzed in this depression is a day I never get back. I’m losing time out of my life and I can never make it up. My family misses me and so do I. I miss the ability to carry on a meaningful conversation without struggling for words. I feel so awkward like I’m trying to learn how to do it all over again. It feels like there is so much I have to relearn how to do. I just pray God gives me the grace to get through this time and when I come out on the other side closer to God, my family, and a better understanding of myself.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Just Visiting

I have found I am traveling down a road I do not recognize. This place I’m in is not my home, if it were I would know, but my heart tells me I have not yet arrived. There are sites I see that amaze me, yet I was never meant to stay and neither were you. We are just fellow sojourners only passing through and we won’t be staying long. I have chosen the narrow path. It is up hill the whole way with snares and stumbling blocks, and unsteady rocks all along the way. I am told not to worry about what I encounter along this path because this life is but a breath, and I am just visiting. I have fallen so many times that I have lost count. I’ve slid backwards and skinned my hands and knees in the places I’ve been forced to crawl. My heart has had to be broken in order that He might mold it into something with less pride and more humility. There have been fires I had to walk through, and will have too again, He tells me for my refinement, to reflect His beauty and love. There are still moments I cry out to be carried because I have no strength left, as I lie there waiting to be lifted up and cradled, and He is always faithful to pick me up. As I view the road I’ve chose to walk, I see that it is the hardest, and is not one I can travel alone. This life was never meant to be journeyed solely on your own. I will never finish in first place at the roads end in this world’s race; really last place is my only goal. This place that is so far from home comes with a companion if you so chose, but He only joins you on the narrow path. While I can’t see what lies ahead, I’ve been guaranteed that at end of this journey is eternal freedom that right now my mind can not grasp. I will never be satisfied by what this life offers me because I was destined for so much more. For what is this life compared to eternity? I can enjoy the fragrance of the flowers along the way, as long as I am a fragrance of sweet mercy to those whom I pass. I can take pleasure in the melodies that I hear and lift my voice in song, as long as my melody speaks of His grace that washes away all wrong. My eyes can absorb all the beauty that surrounds me, as long as my eyes mirror the beauty of His love that knows no bounds. The sweetness of fruit lingers on my lips; yet let my lips speak of the sweetness of deliverance. My hunger can be sated with food aplenty; yet my soul can only be sustained with the Bread of Life. My thirst can be quenched with any drink; yet for my spirit to never thirst again I must drink deeply the Living Water. The longer I travel, the more I see that the Bread of Life and Living Water are the only things that satisfy, the only things I need. I have looked in so many different places and tried so many different ways, yet nothing fills the true desires of my heart; only He is the One that can quench all that I yearn for. In the darkest valleys, it is only the light of salvation that guides me each step of the way. In the cold that goes so deep, it’s only the warmth of grace that is my faithful embrace. My heart meditates on Your promises, for I can’t begin to comprehend forever in Heaven for who can begin to conceive You in all Your glory and holiness? Eternity with You resonates in my very essence, so I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, knowing each step I take is bringing me closer to You. I will keep my eyes turned up, eagerly awaiting to see You coming for me, beholding You face to face. My ears will be open to hear Your call, that I might fly from this path and meet You in the air. There were visitors before me, and now my fellow sojourners, the ones that will join me along the way, and the ones that will come after, yet the only one that matters is the One we travel with along the way. So to the world; know while I ‘m here now, it’s only temporary, for I am just visiting and longing just to go home.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

What will today consist of?

What will today consist of? I feel antsy, jittery, unsettled, and I’m not sure why. There are things that need to be done, but per usual I have no desire to do anything. I wonder how long this depression is going to last, how long can it go on? How long must I suffer it’s affect on my life and affect my family’s life too? I’m not content where I am, where I’ve been, and I have no idea where I’m going. All I can do is pray that in some way each day I have is better than the day before. I don’t know how to do this, I feel so lost in this great big world. I long to be found and carried to a place of peace, joy, and contentment. I just long to be the me I use to be.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

I am a Wretch and You call me Your treasure...

I am a wretch and You call me Your treasure. I am nothing in life’s grand scheme, yet You call everything glorious, so where does that leave me. This world threaten’s is to steal any peace I may try to obtain. Yet Your mercies are new every day, Your great love pouring over me. As great as Your love is and how vast it is, one would think my life would be easy but it’s not. Moment by moment I struggle with so many things. Some things I have control over and some I don’t, but You control everything and by Your will everything is done. There are things I would fight You for, yet You keep them from me knowing they aren’t what I think they are and where I see joy, You see the sorrow of sin that could come if I only had my way. I can’t see Your great picture and I cannot fathom the vastness of Your plan, but I know You beaconed me to You long ago wanting to call me Your beloved. For so long I was an orphan looking for a father’s love, yet only knowing the perversion of men. Then You Abba came to me, picked me up and wiped me clean, promising everything would be ok. I needed a father to avenge me my loss and You great Father came riding in saving me from the nightmares of what was and You fought me from destroying myself. In Your battle to win me You had to fight me, forgive me, I know not what I do. As a wayward child I longed to sit in Your lap and snuggle close, but balked when You said it was time to mind. How could I understand that You know my mind and heart better than I ever could? As I grew up, I longed for someone to complete me, for I was missing so very much. I needed a beloved and needed to be cherished by them. Soon I would learn that no matter how great the love is a beloved here would always fall. So I called on You to be by Beloved and You told me in return I would be Yours. I am amazed that You really did come after me, me of no worth, no value. And this is why I love You with all my heart. This is why I would choose to be Your beloved time and time again, for the way You gave Your life for me. So many scorn me and try to bring me down, but You just turn me around. You have washed me clean from any of my wrong doings and before You I stand radiant, holy, pure, and white. There I will stand covered in Your blood, through the power of Your blood. And for Your great love, what can I bring to You? What offering would be worthy for the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Prince of my Peace? I can only offer what I have and all of what I have I offer to You with a joyful heart. My hands to do Your work, my mouth to speak Your words, my legs to carry Your message all the places You would have me go, and my life that I lay at Your feet. I lay all of me before You, for it is all I have to offer. So make this wretch Your treasure. And though I feel like I am nothing in life’s grand scheme, You call me glorious, so it must be. This even though this world’s threat will continue to steal any peace I may try to obtain, Your mercies will still be new every day, Your great love will always be pouring over me. Because of Your great and vast love You could never be any other way, and that’s just another reason of why I love You so much, forever my Beloved.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Broken Road

What peace may be found
In a heart that weeps in deep despair?
What condolence can be gained
When there is no strength for prayer?
How can I comprehend
This broken road You lay before me?
It feels as though my faith has fled
Leaving me so empty.
Where is Your mercy
That You spoke of so many times?
Where is the freedom in the injustice
That so tightly confines?
Humbly I sought Your will
That Your way might be my own.
Surly there must be some mistake
With the results that have been sown.
I have told You time and again
That I can not take it anymore.
Yet everything continues to pile on
Higher than it was before.
I need some respite from the valley
Through which I travel now.
I want to be the portrait of amazing grace
But I don’t know how.
I want to be a pillar of strength
Standing through the test and the trials,
But as the journey tarries on
I grow weary from the never ceasing miles.
How much longer will injustice reign,
Touting high all of its lies?
When shall truth be the conquering way
And then deception finally dies?
I need my faith to find me now
So that at last I may truly believe
Though I can’t see tomorrow
You have destined what remains unseen.
Even though I wish to be beyond the valley
And awaken from this dark night
It is here that You can hold me tight
Drawing me ever closer to Your light.
Surly soon this broken road I travel
Will turn into a glory filled path
Leading me always only to You,
Where the truth shall reign at last.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Be still my quaking heart...

Can you feel the beats as they pound in a furious steady motion? Can you feel the unwanted rush and hear it as it pulses through, the loud drum echoing? Is it so loud that others can hear it too? Oh how it quakes and shudders. How it trembles with fear. I can feel and hear each pounding beat, like a gong resounding in my ear. Now the shakes will start, first on the inside and moving to the outside. I feel it, but can anyone see it. Can you feel how the room rises in heat so fast that you feel it creeping into the top of your head? Can you feel the room grow cold, so very soul chilling cold that nothing of nothing can get you warm? Do you dare feel the emotions? So strong, so powerful, they will bring you face down to the floor in utter despair? So powerful that the rage turns you into a person you would never recognize, and one you would flee from if you met her? Do you feel the exhaustion that never leaves and the pains that seem here to stay? It’s just another day. Bad days consist of these exhausting breakdowns one after another with no apparent reason. Good days are well, not good but better than bad. Just how deep does this dark hole plunge? And how in the world do you get out? Did I fall in suddenly by a simple misstep or start the decline without even realizing it. It has now paralyzed me. Life goes on around me but not with me. I disengage, slipping into some unknown space where reality is right there, but I am in my safe spot. Safe from what? What do I need to withdraw from or whom? What am I trying so desperately to escape that has such a tight crushing grip on me? I can feel it squeezing life right out of me, leaving a useless shell in its place. When my heart is not pounding, the silence almost screams in my ears, but noise bothers me. It’s almost like wanting just enough light to see around you, but not enough to find your way out because it’s too bright for your eyes. In so many ways it seems as though the whole thing is some made up oxymoron. But made up this is not. This is my life, the life I have lived for some time now. I abandoned my family a while ago, and I see how they miss me. Friends have stopped calling because they know I have no intention of returning their calls. Nothing personal, it’s just don’t do people because I don’t do anything. No dishes or clothes washed, nothing out of place put in its place, one thing starting a new pile when the pile beside has become too big, stuff strewn about in utter chaos. There are dirty pots on the stove from a dinner my husband cooked because I stopped cooking long ago. Now dinners are fast food or whatever they can fix for themselves. I hope one day when I look back and read this I can cry like I know I should be right now, but for the moment there are no tears, no rage, no emotion. What a wretched way to live, but to be honest I have seen more of my fleshly self than I thought I had. My sinful-self sickens me to the point I no longer like what I see or who I am. I have seen my sins and tucked them away, thinking if others didn’t know then I would be ok. This was not so. I thought if I said the past was really in the past, it would be and wouldn’t terrorize me in my dreams. But my dreams are no place I go to seek solace or rest. I long for rest but dread the dreams. I long for someone to really understand and show me the easy way out, but I’m told that is not so. I rejoice in the day where a tears and rages don’t control my days and racing hearts and nightmares don’t control my nights. I want just a normal day, one that brings a deep smile to my heart resting in a peace. I understand life will happen and things will always come our way, but when will the day come when at last I will feel secure within the shelter of my Savior? What must He do, that He hasn’t already done, to prove Himself strong enough and safe enough for me to trust? My flesh knows so many loved ones have left me and with me the way I am now, why would He even want me? What would keep Him from turning His back on me now? I know many would cry, “May it never be,” but the truth is my heart is still searching for a resting place, a safe shelter in which to hide. I cry, “Could this never be,” but yet here am I still, searching and waiting to be found.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

There is a peace today...

There is a peace today. I am at home with Danny just relaxing. While I still don’t feel well enough to be out and about, it’s a better day. The day seems a little brighter and it seems like the medicines are slowly beginning to work. I made him a brunch consisting of noodles and you could tell he really enjoyed it. I did something I would’ve done when I was well, yet I’m still not there yet. There is a happiness knowing he is content to have me at home with him and we having nothing pressing to do. The medicine’s side effects are still weighing heavy on me, and I’m beginning to wonder if they will go away or it’s something I’m going to have to learn to live with. The thought of being well with no meds is something I covet, but it doesn’t seem that God is going to heal me outright at the moment. I haven’t given up my prayer that this major depression just disappears and I get back to living a joyful life, but I must learn to be content where God has me right now. Maybe not content, but a peace knowing He knows what’s best for me and He wouldn’t purpose this for nothing, He means it for my good. Of course I cannot see how this is good for me right now, but I’m trying so hard to have that faith that if He brought me to it, He’ll bring me through it. It’s going on a full year of this great depression and it seems I have been in the dark for so long know and I long to be surrounded by the bright and warm Son. I know He has been here but He has felt so far away for so long. It’s been a dry dark valley in the desert that I’ve walked through and I wonder what will wait me when I get to a place where I can breathe freely the fresh air again? I long to be refreshed by the Fountain of Living Water and revived in the Spirit. But for now I will live in the portion of peace He has given me for today and bask in the grace that is new. And I will pray that my healing may be complete and I will live another day filled with His joy once again.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

Just another day....

Just another day in the life of someone truly depressed. It’s a beautiful day and I try and thank God for another opportunity to live a little better today. That’s what the counselor says to do. Baby steps. Make today a little better than yesterday, do one thing you didn’t do yesterday. Today I get Ciara back and I know I have to try and be better for her, but I need to be better for me. I started the day out productive by getting a shower. People don’t understand that the simplest things, like showering, are overwhelming when you’re depressed. I put dishes away, though there weren’t many, it was still one more accomplishment. I’ve washed a load of clothes for Danny, but now they need to be dried and folded and that sounds like so much. Today I hurt. Deep aches over my body that make me want to curl up and just sleep. I have so little energy. What really hurts is today should be a blessed day because it’s my anniversary, and while I find happiness in my wonderful husband, the hurt comes from the lack of complete joy. Does he make me happy? Yes! Do I regret anything? Nothing. Yet there is also pain that I am not the wife he needs me to be and he deserves it. I wonder how to be that wife today and I’m at a loss. Yes I’ll wash and fold his clothes for work tonight, but what else can I do to show him just how much he means to me? Today I will try to be thankful for another day and do a little something extra, though I’m not sure what. I will praise God for bringing Danny into my life and for God’s strength to live through another day of depression.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

What do you do....

What do you do when you feel like you are paralyzed my major depression? When you feel like no one can really understand? What is so amazingly frustrating is I don’t have a reason to be depressed. I have the best husband in the whole wide world and four beautiful daughters, yet I’m living life on the outside looking in. This isn’t a choice you wake up and make. There’s not a day that comes along when you decide to not feel joy anymore. What I wouldn’t give to feel an overwhelming joy, a sense of peace and security. My days are dictated my medicines I’d rather not take, yet have no choice if I really long to get back to living. My family is affected by this just as much as I am. If anyone would have told me this is the way things would be going for me a year ago I would have told them they were crazy, yet here I sit with the weight of so much on my shoulders. There are times it is so hard to catch my breath because I feel like my chest is frozen in fear. I pray so hard for the Lord to take this from me, to just heal me, but it hasn’t happened yet. I will not stop praying that He makes me better and not just like I was but even more joyful than that. I want to be the reason for someone’s smile, laughter, and joy, not feel like I am bringing others down with me. How I wish I could put into words the totality of what I feel and help others understand how much I love them and don’t wish to continue on this way. But all I have is prayer, and maybe it’s all I need.

Melissa Fitzwilliam

I'm Trying

I’m trying. I’m trying so hard, but I don’t feel like I am making any headway. The depression has sucked me so low that I often wonder if there is any hope out. I want to be better and feel like smiling again, but at times it seems like I have forgot how. I don’t show my sadness on purpose, but I have forgotten how to act, how to hold a regular conversation. The easy things aren’t easy anymore and I wonder how long I will fight this battle. I cry out to God for mercy, mercy from this pain, but so far I don’t feel as there has been an answer. I cry out to God to love me, to let me feel His Almighty presence surrounding me, but all I feel so alone in this dark hole. Everyone says to pray and that it will all be ok, but will it? I pray daily, asking for healing from this and I wait for Him to answer. I fight the thoughts that try to consume me and fight the lies that the evil one would have me believe. All I can do is repeat His promises that I know are true even if I don’t feel it right now. As much as everyone else wants me well and happy, I long for it so much more. I miss the me who was free to smile and laugh and find the joy life had to offer. There is still much to be thankful for and joy that happens around me, but it’s as if some mean joke is being played and I am not allowed to join. I miss everyone, but I can’t imagine that they miss me with how unhappy I am right now. I find it hard to believe others can love me like I am, because I don’t even love myself in my depression. I’m trying to be better, but it’s so much harder than it appears. I just keep praying that I will be healed of this and find myself in the sunlight, happy again. Pray for me….

Melissa Fitzwilliam

I Run

I run away, far away, from your mistakes, away from memories that can’t be erased. I can find no healing in the scars left behind, tainting anything that would have given me a beauty in purity, anything that would have given me the mercy of wholeness. Instead I run, away from you and from my memories, but I know not where I run to, yet the memories follow me everywhere I go, deep and far they find me in this forever night. Locked in the past, frozen in the present, and fear of what is to come. What if nothing comes of this and this is what I must deal with everyday, day in day out, forevermore? Death is something I know too intimately. I know the death of my innocence, death of wholeness, purity, death of a normal childhood, of a normal life. I know the death of whatever other me could have been. I know the death of dreams of a life that could have been that will never be. Every memory that haunts the halls of my mind kill a little more of me every time it walks, dragging imprisoning chains that keep me bound in a past I want to be freed from. You shamed me and the scars will never go away. I cut my hair; I rip the arms of my dress, and cover my head with ash. Bitterness from a deep sorrow keeps me choking on uncried tears, gasping for a breath of freshness, rather than this stale air of the past. Why I am so locked in a past I have no desire to remember? Why do I remember a little more in the dreams of the night, of times that wake me up retching, and pleading it’s only a bad dream and not a new reality that is remembered from somewhere locked deep inside? If all if it was locked away would it gain me the freedom I long for? Could the oil of gladness pour over me and my ashes be put away and could a veil of white cover me once more without the memories to taint that which I would want to believe? You’ve made a mess for me to live in, a hell that imprisons me and holds me captive from all that I long to do and all I long to be. I long for the me that had this all packaged in a neat box, packed far away and ready to meet whatever day came my way. Right now I am so far away and I don’t even know when I began to stray. Can I find arms that will wrap me tight, banishing the memories for all time and give me the fresh start that I long for? Is there a beauty I can find in a forgivable grace that might be bestowed on me? Is it possible that I can be found even where I stand right now, so I don’t have to travel down another wrong road? Tell me that I’m not too far way, that there’s freedom from these scars, from this mess that was made, that all can be forgiven and the memories will be erased and I can find the beauty of Your grace.

Melissa Fitwilliam

Broken Pieces

Broken pieces, shattered frailty, tiny shards is the only thing left
Smaller than grains of sand that slip from you grasp
Is there any resemblance to the person I thought I was?
Or was I destined to awake from a dream that could never last?
Slivers of hope fall away in my brokenness leaving a raw bareness
I yearn to feel nothing as I drown in my despair
I am plunged deeper in a darkness I hate yet with no strength to fight
Here in this night do I even have a prayer?
The tears have slowed, as the energy I have rolls down my cheeks
I am a limp shell with no courage to face the new day
All my reserves have been stripped bare
Now I am left stumbling to make my own way
My hopes, my dreams slip through my hands as though they are water
Yet the reality is they are my tears that speak of what can never be
The tighter I hold on to them the quicker they fly away
With my hopes crushed what is to become of me?
How can my brokenness be mended when I am shattered so small?
I can not meet tomorrow enfolded in my frailty
If I could just be held for tonight and find comfort in Your embrace
Maybe being rocked in Your mercy I can find a peace in reality
Yet here I sit all alone growing colder with each moment that passes
The sun has set on more than just today
I have reached the end of me, left with no dreams
The new dawn will find me in despair with only a prayer to find my way.

Melissa Fitzwilliam