The Wave

~ Cati Grape ~ 2 Comments

There I was, standing in the library, blinking back the tears while reading a picture book. I mean, when I tell you Jesus meets me in the most unexpected places, I’m not kidding. A picture book? For real?

The Wave by Tyler Charlton1 put into pictures and (simple, straightforward) words an experience I have had over and over again in my life. Several years ago, I heard someone describe episodes of depression as waves, and it felt so fitting at the time. Seeing another writer put it into words—for young hearts and older ones—really hit home.

Something important I have learned over the last few years is to pay attention to and be curious about what I am thinking and feeling (ignoring and trying to run doesn’t help and is actually quite counter-productive). I have found that seasons of anxiety and depression tend to come in waves, which may last but a day or a week, sometimes several weeks, though I’m learning how to find my way out of the waves more quickly these days, I think.

I’m not entirely sure what brings this about, it’s just the pattern I’ve noticed.

The challenge is that I’m not talking about gentle, lapping waves that tickle your toes. I’m talking about the massive, astonishing waves of an incoming hurricane, the ones that pound the shore all the way up the beach.

In Charlton’s book, the story goes, “I don’t see [the Wave] coming. I never do. And here I go . . . again. It makes me mad and sad all at the same time and I want to run away . . . but you can’t outrun a wave.”

And that’s exactly it—I never see the Wave coming. No matter how many times the Wave comes, I seem to be as shocked as ever. And I’m most definitely mad and sad that I wasn’t prepared and that here I am again, Lord. And even if I were becoming more adept at expecting the Wave, the impact is no less brutal. If anything, with each one, the waves feel more and more exhausting as I wonder, how long can I keep doing this?

Honestly, I’ve always been quite uncomfortable with the ocean. It is beautiful, no doubt. But it is formidable and unpredictable. I’d rather watch the waves from a very safe distance than risk putting my toes in the water and being pulled under. I’m not a great swimmer and know that I wouldn’t stand a chance in a wave of any significance.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem so easy to keep a safe distance from the waves of anxiety and depression. They come, regularly and unwanted, formidable and unpredictable in all of their wild glory. “Sometimes, I feel all alone. I miss my joy.”

I used to hope that maybe the waves would just disappear. Maybe my life could just become a walk along the calm and quiet of a lake. (Lord, why couldn’t I just be a lake person? Or a stream person? Or maybe just a puddle person?! Puddles are fun to splash in.) But the reality I’m facing is that these waves come and may very well continue to come, and it has become my responsibility to learn how to ride the waves, to remember what I’ve learned: “that the water will eventually calm . . . I will feel better eventually.”

Following the story, Charlton makes a note of some of the things he has learned over the years, things I work hard to remember myself. He encourages readers to “have a soft heart.” This is perhaps the newest skill I am learning because shutting down and isolating or being angry while I’m in the wave may feel good at the moment but ultimately hurts other people and hurts myself. Instead, I’m learning to tell people that “I’m in the Wave and I’m stuck. I’ve found that people care and will help or wait patiently for me to feel better. We are not alone.”

Another book I am reading echoes this point: “Our King has been pleased to have you walk together in our struggles. That is the way he designed his kingdom. So continue your protest against shame. Shame says, ‘You are alone; don’t tell anyone.’ In protest, believe that the King is with you and that he brings you into community. As one expression of your newfound radiance, you could say to a friend, ‘Help. Could you pray for me?’”2

I don’t like the Wave. Actually, I really really really hate it. I despise it. Sometimes, I’m scared of it—still. But, I have found and continue to find that, God’s “grace abounds in deepest waters// Your sovereign hand will be my guide // Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me // You’ve never failed and You won’t start now.”3

As I notice the waves and keep a soft heart, I also continue to “look for the shore” and “keep moving.” For those of us who experience the Wave more than a few times, we can remind ourselves that “it’s happened before and didn’t last forever.” Through the process, I trust that Jesus is the one who stills the storm to a murmur and hushes the waves of the sea4; that He is the one who “rules over the surging seas5;” that when I pass through the waters, He will be with me . . . and the waters will not sweep over me6; that He will lead me beside still waters.7

Footnotes
  1. Charlton, Tyler. The Wave. Roaring Brook Press, 2023. ↩︎
  2. Welch, Edward T. Shame Interrupted-How God Lifts the Pain of Worthlessness and Rejection. New Growth Press, 2012. ↩︎
  3. Hillsong UNITED. “Oceans.” Zion, 2013. ↩︎
  4. Psalm 107:29 ↩︎
  5. Psalm 89:9 ↩︎
  6. Isaiah 43:2 ↩︎
  7. Psalm 23:2 ↩︎

Showing Up

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

Lore Wilbert1 is one of my new favorite authors, and not because I always agree with what she writes about. In fact, her work is very challenging to me, in both good ways and ways that are much harder to handle. What I love about her work, though, is that she writes with a gut level of honesty that brings the case for humanity to the table while pushing back against mainstream arguments.

I’m not sure how or when I stumbled across her work. It was a few years ago and somehow, I found myself on her website which, at the time, had a free book of hers available for download. I read that little pdf in a single night and was hooked. Someone who wasn’t afraid to put into words real emotions and experiences without trying to sugarcoat them with Christian platitudes? Yes, please.

In one of her recent pieces2 discussing the launch of her newest book, she concluded with the following.

“Releasing a book into the world is a huge act of vulnerability. Maybe some people do it and feel like patting themselves on the back for it, but I mostly feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head for the foreseeable future. To show up and continue to show up takes almost every ounce of my energy. I want to believe that my showing up matters not just to you and you and you, but also to me and to God because it is how I grow and mature and change and become more of who I am actually created to be.”

And honestly, it’s so good to hear someone else say that. I feel every bit of this, and not just in my writing. I’ve found that most of my life has really been a daily war between wanting to hide under the covers and needing to show up.

I guess I kind of thought that the older I got, the more energized I’d be about life. Instead, getting older has felt a bit more like grief, because while other people seem to be excited about what lies ahead, I have to choose each day to keep showing up. Sometimes it’s rather wearying to think about doing this for another few decades. (Not to say that there isn’t also goodness and mercy and blessing with each passing year; I’m finding eyes to see that much more clearly too.) But I’m finding that showing up for life takes a serious amount of defiance.

And if you’re a person like me for whom depression has been a near constant acquaintance, one of the most important things you can do is to show up every single day and defiantly refuse to give the Enemy the opportunity to let you quit. If we can be honest, showing up for life and seeking the good, the true, and the beautiful is “hard as hell sometimes,” as Sarah Clarkson recently put it, “because it is precisely a pressing back agaisnt the gates of Hell itself.”3 We don’t need to sugarcoat the reality that we are in a war “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”4

The unfortunate part of all of this is that when showing up is hard, either one of two extremes seems to be favored. The one approach is to say, “get it together.” This approach insists that depression is a sin and that real Christians are tough and always smiling (because Jesus, of course). This approach assumes the underlying perspective that tough times indicate that you are doing something wrong, and if only you’d do XYZ, you’d be happy, energized, and motivated. You definitely wouldn’t be struggling.

The other approach is the extreme opposite in which feelings dictate our every move, and we are permitted to be victims of our emotions. Hiding under the covers becomes totally acceptable as is spewing our inner chaos all over everyone because “I’m just being real.”

I like to think that honest, mature showing up lies somewhere in the middle, that God invites us to bring Him all of our humanity, including doubts, uncertainties, grief, tiredness, even anger, while also kindly but persistently leading us into hope and perseverance.

It takes courage to show up every day for a life that you didn’t expect. We don’t need to sugarcoat that either. What does that look like for you? Maybe it’s an unexpected disease; maybe it’s watching a spouse or child suffer; maybe it’s heartache and betrayal by people you trusted; maybe it’s pain in important relationships; maybe it’s the fact that this parenting gig is way harder than you ever thought; maybe it’s not anything ‘major’ but just the fact that some seasons of life are more exhausting than others; maybe, as for me, it’s facing down the reality of depression, anxiety, and physical pain as possible lifelong foes. It takes courage to show up for reality, for this messy thing called humanity in a broken world.

The beautiful thing I’m finding is that when I show up, God shows up. And yes, God fights for us, but not in the sense that we get to lie in bed while He does all the work. We have to join Him in that work. When we do, victories are won; territories are reclaimed; growth happens, even if it seems small. But let’s be honest. Sometimes, we show up and it seems like nothing happens, which means showing up is going to take courage. It’s going to take defiance. It’s going to be hard as hell. Why do we insist otherwise?!

Showing up means you take care of yourself, even when it’s hard, when you don’t want to, when you don’t enjoy it, when you’re embarrassed or ashamed that it feels so hard. (I saw a remarkable post by Elyse Myers5 this morning which really struck me. She talks about how taking care of yourself doesn’t always feel good and might not even always be something you are immediately glad you did; but we can still take care of ourselves to help ourselves feel a little more human and “get back to the starting line.” So many things to unpack there, woah.)

Showing up means calling your people and asking them to pray for and encourage you, no matter how uncomfortable that makes you or how much you think that you shouldn’t need to ask or how ashamed asking for help makes you feel. (This is a really tough one for me for so many reasons, but I also realize that asking for help is, first and foremost, my responsibility. I can appreciate when people offer help unasked, but ultimately, if I don’t ask for help, I can’t blame anyone else when I don’t receive it.)

Showing up means accepting emotions as a part of humanity and learning how to process those emotions in a healthy way. (Let’s start with this: emotions such as anger, frustration, or fear are not BAD, they are part of being human. But our thoughts are what drive our emotions, and we don’t have to be a victim to emotions. It takes practice-like a LOT of practice-but we can learn to pay attention to what we think about in order to walk in a healthier emotional state, and we can learn how to experience and process “negative” emotions without them overtaking our lives.)

Showing up means learning how to rest, surrendering the belief that we are on our own, that the burden is all on our shoulders. It means learning what actual rest is, i.e. not necessarily just a nap. (This may be my least favorite one, I have to admit. Avoiding rest for me has, over time, become a means of self-preservation. That’s also a whole other post to unpack.)

Showing up means doing what God has given you to do, faithfully, daily, when you’re tired and when you’re not, when the tears sting your eyes or when you feel on top of the world. It means, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.” It means that we “bless God in the sanctuary, . . . in the fields of plenty, . . . in the darkest valley, . . . when my hands are empty, . . . with a praise that costs me, . . . when nobody’s watching, . . . when the weapon’s forming, . . . when the walls are falling.”6

I grow in hope and perseverance as I show up because when my foundation is Jesus, I know that my house stands7, that with the Lord, I can “attack a barrier and . . . leap over a wall.”8 I have courage to participate in the battle because I have “the promise that heaven is waiting for me.”9 Some days, that’s all that keeps me moving forward, and that’s okay too.

Footnotes
  1. Sayable, https://lorewilbert.com/. ↩︎
  2. Wilbert, Lore. “The Impossible Work of Being Here.” Sayable, 1 May 2024, https://lorewilbert.com/p/the-impossible-work-of-being-here. ↩︎
  3. Clarkson, Sarah. Facebook Post, 9 May 2024, https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=882427800562911&set=a.176543481151350. ↩︎
  4. Ephesians 6:12, King James Version. ↩︎
  5. Myers, Elyse. Facebook Post. 20 May 2024, https://fb.watch/sbi5WBD8qz/. ↩︎
  6. Ligertwood, Brooke. “Bless God.” Eight, 20 October 2023. ↩︎
  7. Matthew 7:24-25. ↩︎
  8. Psalm 18:29, Holman Christian Standard Bible. ↩︎
  9. Wickham, Phil. “Reason I Sing.” Hymn of Heaven, 25 June 2021. ↩︎

I’ve Got a Testimony

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

“Your testimony isn’t dramatic enough.”

I’ll never forget being told that as a 17-year-old on a mission trip. Our team had written and rehearsed our testimonies before the trip, but when we got there and met up with other teams from around the country and the organization, mine apparently didn’t make the cut.

Looking back, I guess most of our testimonies probably didn’t measure up. In reality, the majority of us were church kids with relatively uneventful backstories, and more still, we were all teenagers . . . we hadn’t exactly lived a whole lot of life.

But I got the point: they were looking for miraculous transformation stories that brought home the point that Jesus can change anything. One day, you’re living one way, and the next, your life is radically transformed and totally different.

We all love those stories. I get it.

And, if I’m being honest, I really wish that were my story. I like to think about looking someone in the face or writing here and saying, “I experienced anxiety and depression, but I’ve been set free and it’s gone forever.”

Instead, my story goes more like this . . . “I grew up in the church. I had a lovely childhood. I gave my life to Jesus when I was nine years old. Still, I’ve experienced anxiety and depression for almost 30 years. Almost on the daily, my mind is plagued by all manner of chaotic, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts. Some periods of my life have been extremely dark, and I’ve experienced suicidal ideation more than once.

BUT GOD HAS SHOWN UP EVERY SINGLE TIME. God has kept me and continues to keep me when I can’t keep myself.”

So far, that’s my testimony. Maybe it’s not powerfully convincing, maybe it’s not the overnight miracle we all want, but it’s the story of my path.

Immediate miracles are incredible and very real. I can’t deny that. But what about when our miracle looks like bread from heaven every day for 40 years in the wilderness (Exodus 16)? What about when our miracle looks like showing up every morning to gather and receive that bread from heaven rather than being angry that God hasn’t shown up in the big way (the one time and it’s over way?) we’d hoped He would have?

I think that when we only look for the momentous, single-time, swift miracles, we rob God of the honor He’s due, for being the faithful God who shows up every single day in the wilderness and meets all of our needs (even when we complain).

I think saying that God is a God of miracles while placing Him in a box that defines miracles as only astonishing one-time transformations also diminishes our ability to see God’s movement in our lives and the world around us. The stories He is writing are not often black-and-white, yet such stories are no less valuable because the journey seems a lot more like faithfulness and obedience and trust than a miracle.

Recently, I was talking to a woman who is very dear to me,  and she said, “When I read your work, I always think that people are being healed little by little by your words.” That idea of little-by-little healing struck me. It’s not that I show up once to work or write, and call it good. My obedience to walk in the path God has called me (whether that is teaching or writing or being a mom or any number of other things) requires daily and long-haul obedience, and He can use that to work out the little-by-little healing of people’s souls.

The whole idea got me to thinking. (That’s what we writers do best: think and then think some more and then overthink everything. Yay.) I have experienced this very thing myself, quite tangibly in the last year.

For one, my journey picked up with a visit to the chiropractor last February. And although I had desperately hoped it would be a one-time adjustment, reality hit hard. My body needed a lot of attention. I would even have been okay with going for three months and having success. The process, rather, has been a slow, every-three-weeks plus every-day-at-home kind of healing with plenty of setbacks in between.

Not long after this visit to the chiropractor when the need for wide sweeping healing became evidently apparent, we set foot in church for the first time in five years. I was bitter and bruised, angry and cynical, full of doubts and surrounded in emotional armor. I can still vividly recall walking in the door with a deer-in-the-headlights look and totally unable to breathe and being rescued by a complete stranger who helped us figure out how to check the kids into their classrooms.

This stranger-turned-friend? I have never met anyone like her. Every interaction with her makes me feel like the most important, valued, and loved person in the entire world, and that says absolutely nothing about me and everything about the way this woman loves people. God has given her an incredible heart for people, and I know I’m not the only person who has been touched by the level of love that pours out of her.

But I was thinking the other day that I didn’t become a new person overnight simply by meeting her. Instead, over the course of the last year, every interaction I’ve had with her (whether through a text message, a hug in the church lobby, or sitting across from her over coffee) has brought healing to my soul. (Honestly, it’s a healing I didn’t go looking for and haven’t asked for, a healing that has surprised me and undone me.) It is this woman’s day-in and day-out faithfulness to the gifts God has given her and the call He has placed on her life, not a single transformational moment, that God has used to touch deep and painful parts of my heart.

Couldn’t this, just maybe, be what actually makes up our testimonies? Meeting Jesus is a monumental, life-changing thing, but it is really just the start. It is then, the meeting with Him day after day that transforms us and restores our souls. What if we began to see all the places and spaces God shows up in our lives, all of the (seemingly little) ways He meets us and loves us and heals us day after day, year after year? (And the ways He uses us to do the same in the lives of other people?) And then tell those stories?

I do think that as we follow Jesus, we will get to experience and receive one-time miracles that are powerfully transformational. But I pray that we’d also have the eyes to see all of the little miracles we are given each day, all of the daily gifts of healing and wholeness God delivers straight from heaven morning by morning. If we have decided to follow Jesus, our testimonies will never only be a single moment. They will be made up of a lifetime of showing up, more importantly a lifetime of seeing God show up, a lifetime of choosing faithfulness and receiving God’s faithfulness in spite of all of our lack. And maybe this doesn’t seem dramatic or powerful or transformative enough, but it’s still a testimony and one worth sharing.

Deep Gladness

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

By default, I tend to pick up this burden that everything I do must turn into a business, a stream of income. And while I fully acknowledge the importance of having an income and being able to pay the bills, I wonder if sometimes we ignore God’s call on our lives because it doesn’t look like a career.

I have spent the better part of the last fifteen years wrestling through God’s purposes for me, and while I don’t think this is something that is necessarily easily answered nor defined, there’s something to this wrestling. I have never been one satisfied with the idea that we are merely here to take up space on the earth, and—for better or worse—I have never been satisfied with the idea that my purpose is simply to lead an ordinary life and then die.

For some, that is okay. I have talked to many people for whom that is okay. I just have never been one of those people. The need for inspiration and meaning and a larger thread weaving through my ordinary days has always been a part of me.

I guess this is what thinkers call vocation, though I have been one to assume that vocation is merely what you do to pay the bills. And while I believe that God can use me and is using me for His purposes while I wash dishes or teach students how to write five-page essays, I find myself always asking for more—not in the sense that I want an award or accolades. But in the sense that there has always been something stirring in my soul, this need to reach down deeper for something that goes beyond merely existing. And I am beginning to think it is a need for vocation, that is a calling, mission, and purpose . . .

My coach recently shared this quote by author, minister, and theologian Frederick Buechner with me: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Woah. Deep gladness.

I think part of the wrestling I have experienced over the last decade is due to the fact that I thought I would find that meeting of deep gladness and deep hunger in particular areas. Maybe it would be marriage or motherhood. Maybe it would be in homeschooling or running a business. Maybe it would be in music or cooking or art. And while all of those things are very good and very much shape the person that I am . . . well, how do I put this without sounding ungrateful? They are not where gladness and hunger meet in my world.

Do you ever make a list of the people you know and their skill sets, so that, when you need something, you can reach out to the right person? If I have a serious medical question—like my kid just tripped into the corner of the coffee table and busted his lip (real life, y’all)—I call my aunt, the nurse. “Do you think he needs stitches?” I ask, while texting her a picture. On the other hand, if my computer is giving me all sorts of attitude, I call my dad, the computer guru, who spent hours over his Christmas vacation bringing our desktop computer back to life after a tragic “corrupted file” error. If I’ve got a question about the best new board games or toys, my sister-in-law is wonderfully resourceful. One of my friends is particularly knowledgeable about good places to eat; another about the best chapter books for elementary students; another about how to parent with a clear head and right outlook.

You know what I mean, right? It isn’t that I look for people in my life based on what they can provide me, but we each have something (or things) that we are deeply interested in and knowledgeable about, and since we can’t all be devoted to and passionate about everything, we need other people in our lives—for help with practical needs, for different perspectives, for filling the inevitable gaps of being one, limited person.

I follow a fair number of writers, curriculum developers, and other creatives on the internet—and how lovely it would be, I think, if I could be one of them. Perhaps my vocation could simply be teaching other people to write. Maybe it could be teaching other people how to become successful with their writing. Maybe I could create courses that teach people how to begin and run a small business. How nice it would be if my passion were homeschooling and raising kids, and I could write deeply about the impact of morning time and certain educational methods and spending inordinate amounts of time outdoors. Or maybe I could develop gentle pre-school curriculum. Maybe I could just make cakes or sew something or be a photographer.

I guess I had kind of hoped that I could be the person on your list to call if you just wanted some new recipes (I mean, I do love to cook, so I won’t turn down the chance to talk about what’s happening in my kitchen). Or maybe, if you had a random question about the different figure skating jumps, you would know that I know (I’m guessing that’s not really a question you’d ever have; I’m just dreaming). Maybe even, you’d know me for being a book connoisseur or grammar nerd and reach out to me with your most pressing questions about MLA format.

Yet again, as much as I had thought I’d find the convergence of gladness and hunger in those places, they have never fit right on me. When I have dipped my toes into those pools, it has more been in an attempt to fit a mold that I created for myself, more an attempt to quiet the ever-present questions of vocation in my mind. I don’t discount any of those things and fully believe that each person has their own lane—it’s just that those lanes are not mine.

The road of my life has been one laced with questions and doubts, often overwhelming waves of darkness, a journey that has involved staring sorrow and brokenness dead in the face. But maybe it’s not all for nothing. Maybe, my deep gladness could be found in being able to make space for conversations of sorrow and weariness that are so difficult, so rare, and often so filled with shame. Maybe my deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger could meet in making a space for people who feel shattered, for questions that are almost too preposterous to pose, for places that feel dark and hopeless. I have found that it is in those conversations, in those places and spaces, that God is stirring something in my soul, and although I realize such topics basically put a plaque on my forehead shouting “I am not the fun friend,” I’m here for all of it. Yes, I’ll still take your questions about whatever is a roux or how to cite a website any day, but if you find yourself asking other—harder—questions you never thought you would, I just want you to know that I am listening.

This Is Faith

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

I have sat down to write so many times this week and grown incredibly frustrated—because I can’t give solid answers. Because everything I write comes out making no sense, like the swirling mass of thoughts in my brain. Because I can’t tie everything together nicely in the end.

As an English teacher for the better part of the last fifteen years, I have gotten really good at understanding the mechanics of a sound academic paper: there is a beginning with a clearly stated main idea (the ubiquitous thesis, anyone?); the middle portion of support and defense; and the end, in which all things are brought together in a way that creates a cohesive whole.

Exploratory writing about challenging topics seems to be quite the opposite, however, and I find myself spilling thousands of words onto the page and coming up, somehow still, with literally nothing.

I find that the best words and ideas also like to leap into my brain at 11 PM when I am supposed to be going to sleep—most definitely not helpful. And somehow, those wonderfully worded sentences I worked out on my pillow are nowhere to be found when I sit at my laptop the following day. Then, my brain is blank. My fingers fly but very little of it makes sense, nothing works together in a way that screams “blog post” or “book chapter,” and I’ve got no nice sentiment to top the whole thing off.

It just feels like a mess . . .

I think there is this very weird thing about walking out healing in real time. I am not writing from a place that I can say, “This is all in the past, and I don’t struggle anymore. If you follow my twelve-step program, you too can be free.” I am writing from a place of war and a place of deep faith.

But that brings up a whole other point, this whole topic of faith. There seems to be this idea that real faith is something that eliminates struggle, grief, tiredness . . . and most definitely doubt. I can’t count the number of times I have been informed that depression is a lack of faith, that anxiety means I don’t trust God enough. Au contraire, faith is defined as trust, hope, reliance, dependence—and those are all things I actually need to stare depression and anxiety in the face on the daily.

I guess I wish I could say that I had this permanently optimistic type of faith that says, “I believe God can do anything, and I am so happy all the time, and I never struggle.” Conversely, my faith is more like a “death grip until my hands are raw and bleeding.” (So lovely, right?) It is the kind of faith that produces desperate reliance on God because He is my literal only hope, and I am counting on Him to come through because I’ve got nothing else.

Is it just me or is that type of faith not very marketable? That type of faith doesn’t sell books or programs or churches. That type of faith sounds hard and really, rather, quite uncomfortable. We like to talk about the kind of faith that gives us energy and motivation; we like to talk about faith in terms of “positive vibes.” We don’t like to talk about the kind of faith we must have when there is no energy or motivation left, when all the positive thinking in the world doesn’t make a difference in the reality of suffering or grief, in the ache of longing for how God intended life to be.

But if this isn’t faith, then what is? Is faith only this idea that if we trust God, we won’t suffer? Is faith, “I trust God, so of course, I don’t struggle”? Or is faith, “I trust God even when I do struggle.” I am finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts on the subject, but let me say this: I trust God that no matter how much my brain screams at me about my worthlessness that His Word says that He is for me, that He loves me, that He sings over me. I trust God that no matter how dark the day or how hard I find it to breathe that He promises He will never leave me nor forsake me. I trust God that at the end of this road of humanity, heaven is waiting for me, and that one day, I will be made whole—body, mind, and soul.

But this trust, this faith—it doesn’t come easily. It’s a daily war, of reminding myself of what is true. It is being willing to get up every day and fight. I think if we are all willing to be honest, following God in the long haul requires a deep sense of faith, and not the kind that sells t-shirts and coffee mugs.

My confidence is in a God who shows up in the literal trenches, not in the absence of trenches. My faith is in a God who shows up when things are a mess not once I’ve cleaned up all of the mess. My hope is in a God who is bigger than the brokenness of the world, of your body, of my mind, not in a God who we can only say is bigger when everything is going well.

Like I said, there’s no way to tie this up because this is an ongoing process for me. I realize that part of the reason I have ignored writing for so long is because I have known how messy the process is and how much I cannot offer pithy answers. I cannot pretend like I have it all figured out. For a long time, ignoring has been easier than writing, easier than digging, easier than feeling anything, easier than staring sorrow in the face. But I feel this urge, this need to write—for myself, and for the people who wake up each day to a battle and are convinced that it is because they lack faith.

If you’re in the trenches, for whatever reasons that is, know that I am there too. And more, know that God is there with you. He sees you. He doesn’t condemn you. He doesn’t belittle you. He doesn’t call you weak or worthless or faithless. In fact, He meets you there. He fights for you. He gives strength when you have nothing left. He binds your wounds. He heals your soul. He covers you, protects you, comforts you.

He is for you. He is with you. He goes before you and behind you. He surrounds you. He is faithful. He is good. He is kind. His promises are yes and amen.

I’m preaching to myself. This is faith.

Why I’m Writing About Anxiety & Depression

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

Nothing like re-entering the writing world talking about what seems to be a very taboo topic. Why am I writing about anxiety and depression, brain-based strongholds that aren’t usually favorable topics in most circles of conversation?

I know some people will think it’s for attention or maybe sympathy or pity. Maybe you’ll think that I just need to get a grip. Maybe you’ll label me crazy or weak or generally altogether not enough and too much, if you haven’t already. But here’s the deal: I don’t need you to understand, and I’m not really writing for you.

I’m writing for myself because this is how I process and part of how I’m becoming a healthier person who knows how to show up better for others. Of course, I could keep that writing to myself and save y’all the trouble from reading thoughts that probably sound irrational.

But I won’t be doing that because I believe that God is setting me free to help other people get free. (And by free, I don’t necessarily know if that will look like the wild chaos of my brain disappearing altogether or never having to experience anxiety and depression again. I’ve never actually believed before that that could be possible, so I’ll be honest, these are new waters I’m walking into.) But by free, I mean God is breaking chains off of me in the forms of shame, control, self-preservation, isolation, desperation, and victimhood. By free, I mean that God is opening pathways for me to learn to LIVE no matter what happens in my mind, and although that’s not the freedom I originally thought it would be, it is freedom nonetheless.

A few years ago, I picked up a book: This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson. I bought a copy because I enjoyed Sarah’s writing on Instagram and thought the subtitle sounded lovely. I didn’t expect the book to begin my journey of asking for more. In the book, Sarah bravely narrates her own struggles with mental illness – and I was stunned. First of all, had she been inside my mind? Because I’d never heard anyone articulate my lifelong experiences before. I truly thought I was crazy, and in reality, completely alone until I read this book.

Second, here was a girl, raised in a Christian home with loving parents who are pinnacles in Christian parenting and homeschooling. And say what you may about either of those, that’s not the point. The point is this: struggles of the mind are not just experienced by kids who have a poor upbringing or people who experience abuse. What seems most crushing, rather, is that a person like me, who in all respects had a lovely, safe childhood, should NOT struggle. I don’t have a valid reason for this and therefore my struggle is not valid.

Sarah’s honesty validated my experience, my frustration, my disappointment, my confusion, my pain. . . But more importantly pointed me to the hope of possibility, that there can be something more to me than this, that life is still worth living and living well. I know, of course, that Sarah Clarkson didn’t write that book for me; she has no idea who I am other than a huge fan of her work, and I know that her work has reached far more hearts than mine alone. But her words have shaped my path, and if she (and others) can rise above the stigma attached to this topic and explore bravely what it means to be a person of faith who wrestles with an exhausting, confusing tornado of a mind, then I believe I can to.

And so, I also write for the people I know who struggle, for those who have surprised me with their struggle, and for those who struggle in silence because it would be impossible to share that struggle with anyone. I write for my children and for yours, so that maybe one day, there will be resources that aren’t just bandaids. I write to create the content that I don’t see in this field, especially in Christian circles, so that more people can walk in freedom rather than allowing their minds to constantly be sabotaged in a way that leads to nothing more than mere survival.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could just be a cute mom who keeps a blog about the meals I cook or the crafts I do with my kids? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could keep a blog about the best books I am reading or our latest vacation. But I cannot. My words have always been an important way to explore, to grow, to choose life – words have been a lifeline in my darkest moments. But these words can’t just be for me; I throw them out as a lifeline for those who need to know or be reminded that hope is possible.

(So, if this conversation isn’t your cup of tea, I give you full permission to skip my work. I won’t be offended, I promise!)

Feature Photo by Sebastian Arie Voortman: https://www.pexels.com/photo/body-of-water-during-golden-hour-189349/

Try These On

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

The central focus of what I’ve learned through coaching this past year is that it is my thoughts which dictate my feelings. Such an idea is revolutionary when I had operated for most of my life under the assumption that feelings just happened to me and I was a victim to them.

Of course, feelings do at times come on us unaware. Anxiety and depression do this to me regularly, blindsiding me even when things seem to be going just fine. And although I’ve yet to discover a 12-step program that will make anxiety and depression disappear forever, I now know how to take them as the opportunity to assess my thoughts. For example, what thoughts have I been thinking (even unknowingly) that might have contributed to this? How can I take care of myself right now instead of shaming myself for being human? How can I access the peace of God that He has already provided me? What abundant thoughts can I begin to try on rather than allowing my thoughts of lack spiral out of control?

Operating under this new approach to thoughts and feelings is empowering and liberating.

Encouraged by such freedom, I have decided to begin to pursue some of the “way too hard” things I’ve been putting off for years. I started creating digital products for my company. I launched a store. I opened an Instagram account. I started writing an advanced American literature class that I’ve had notes for sitting in a file two years running. I started blogging again. I started writing a book.

I think what I’ve realized is that there’s never a perfect time to start all the things to want to do, and you’ll never ever feel “ready.” You’re brain will jump in to criticize and sow seeds of doubt no matter when you start. Your brain will belittle the small beginnings. Your brain will provide all of the reasoning as to why you can’t start that thing now.

But if I’m never going to feel ready, I may as well start now anyway and work on my thoughts instead.

Some thoughts that have been lifelong companions but that have been popping up more often recently:

  • If only I’d learned this sooner.
  • It’s too late to start something new.
  • Learning new things is too hard and I’m too tired.
  • Everyone else is so far ahead.
  • I don’t have enough time.
  • My ideas are not valuable.

These thoughts squash creativity, motivation, faith, and hope. I’m learning to dream again, and not in some mystical “I hope I’ll wake up in a fairy tale land with a mansion where everything will be perfect” but in a realistic way: my thoughts direct my feelings which direct my actions which direct the patterns and trajectory of my life. I’m liberated to dream about what I can create when I believe the best.

Some new thoughts I’m trying on:

  • I’m so grateful to be able to learn this now.
  • Now is the perfect time to learn this because I’m ready now.
  • I can learn new things.
  • I didn’t need to learn everything and have my whole life figured out by 18. Life is a process of learning, and I’m learning just what I need right now.
  • I have everything I need to learn and grow.
  • It’s okay to take small steps.
  • I can enjoy the process of learning and changing.
  • I can learn new things and rest when I need to.
  • It’s not a race. It’s not a competition.
  • I don’t have to push myself with unrealistic and impossible expectations.
  • I don’t have to compare myself with anyone else. I can let them run their race and give myself permission to run my own.
  • The ideas I have are valuable because God gave me a creative mind and He wants me to partner with Him to create good and beautiful things.
  • An idea doesn’t have to earn money or be part of a business to be valuable.
  • God has given me many ideas so that I can delight in His goodness and all of the beauty He has made in so many different areas. 

Trying on new thoughts feels a little bit like trying on swimsuits or jeans. Perhaps we head to the store because we have an upcoming vacation and we will want to go to the beach; or maybe all of our jeans have holes and need replaced. Sometimes, we try on new clothes because we have to. Trying on new thoughts feels a little bit the same way: like nothing else has worked and I’m pretty desperate, otherwise I wouldn’t be here at all because this is really uncomfortable and HARD. However, unlike trying on swimsuits or jeans, trying on new thoughts becomes more natural over time, and if we can push past the uncomfortableness of the process, we might discover that these new thoughts feel GOOD. They’re a little like breathing a new type of air and you wonder where they have been all your life. (Kind of like when you finally find a brand and style of jean that fits so perfectly that you write a review and tell all your friends. Still, the company will probably discontinue those jeans one day, and you’ll cry actual tears about having to start over on the jean hunt. The good news is that these new thoughts never have to be discontinued, and you can add more and more new thoughts to your wheelhouse without breaking the bank!).

Feature Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-scrabble-boards-with-letters-278887/

When Healing Looks Like Work

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

The topic of healing is a big one in the Church, and why should it not be? Scripture shows us countless instances in which people who were sick were healed. When people we love face injuries or diagnoses, we ask for prayer from the community, we ask for healing from God—even if we don’t talk to Him on a regular basis otherwise. Prayer for those who need healing is an idea most any of us can get behind. As creations of God marred by a broken world, we all naturally long to be whole, to experience life in its fullness.

But I think praying for a miracle is the easy part. And, even if we aren’t willing to utter the words aloud or are afraid to believe that miracles still happen, I think at some point or another we all deeply feel the desire for a miracle in our lives. Life has a way of throwing at us things we never saw coming, things we never asked for, and in the hardest hours, we want those things to go away. We want our marriage to be better; we want our child to be healed; we want the financial troubles to be eased; we want the family tension to dissipate. We want a prayer and an answer, life to be easier. And God is God, so why shouldn’t we believe that one prayer could change everything?

It could. We see in Scripture many times over how one prayer or one encounter with Jesus changed everything for a person. I believe in a God of miracles, a God of healing. But sometimes I think that our desire for a miracle is wrongly placed—we build our hope on receiving the outcome we desire, not on the miracle-working God Himself. (Maybe that’s just me?) I think too often we also count on the miracle, hope for the miracle, because we don’t want hard work. We don’t want to be uncomfortable. We don’t want to face what might be challenging to us, to our belief systems, to our lifestyle.

This is a human problem. I mean, it’s quite natural for us to not want things to be hard or challenging. We seek the easy road, the most efficient method, the least-painful process. I get it. That’s very normal. But in doing so, perhaps we miss out on many of the miracles God wants to do in our lives because we sit in the chair at church or stand in our kitchen or hide in our closet asking God for a miracle though we are simultaneously unwilling to do any work on our end to walk that miracle out in real time. And when we don’t see anything happen, we question God and blame Him for not showing up.

Of course, there are situations in our lives, in the world, that are fully out of our control. Situations that, no matter what we do or say, nothing is going to change as a result of our actions. I fully acknowledge that. Seeing a miracle isn’t always about us doing something or anything at all.

But when it comes to us—and our own desires for healing and wholeness —sometimes we are sitting around waiting for God to do something while He is waiting for us to get up and join Him in the process, no matter how difficult, painful, or uncomfortable that will be.

I don’t know where you sit today, but I know for myself that I have asked God for a myriad of healing throughout my life. The outcome I hoped for was an instant one. But if I am being honest, I was hopeful that healing meant the process would be quick, painless, and very easy. Then I’d emerge as a totally new person, free from the baggage and frustrations of being human. Struggle would be gone, and I’d love life. I’d shout from the mountaintops about how good God was and what a miracle He had done. I prayed and prayed for healing—mental, emotional, and physical. And I grew more and more weary with each passing year that I found myself still here, still me, still the same.

Last year, the inner turmoil of years and years began to show up in a debilitating physical way. Desperation set in. I think physical pain has a way of getting our attention—often, we can only ignore it so long before we can no longer practically function in life. I have found it far to easy to ignore my thoughts or emotions but it is impossible to ignore migraines, especially when they hit you every three days and you can’t even catch your breath before the next one begins.

Those migraines were a wake up call. I could keep praying for the God of Miracles to show up and make the pain go away. Or I could get out of the chair, make a phone call, and take some steps toward alleviating this pain. A few weeks into 2023, I began seeing a chiropractor. And I never would have thought that seeing her would change the trajectory of my life. My first visit with her set me on a path of healing I didn’t ask for, I didn’t want, and I didn’t think was possible. I needed a lot more than a neck adjustment.

Sometimes healing is instant and praise God for those miracles that sweep us off our feet and blow us away in an instant. Those are real and true and good. But too often, I think healing is actually hard work. When an athlete suffers a major injury, they don’t sleep for a few days and return to the gym in full force. No—the process of healing is long. It is grueling, mentally and physically. Often it takes months or years, with two steps forward and ten steps back, to return to the pre-injury state. The process takes persistence and courage, sweat and tears.

Sometimes, healing takes time. Healing is hard. I wish it were one and done. I wish it were easy. I wish it felt more exciting, more energizing. I have found the process exhausting and confusing. Hopeful, yes—but challenging. I want to quit. Sometimes I find myself looking back at “Egypt,” to bondage, believing that back there I “sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread [I] wanted” (Exodus 16.3). And although “I know the place I was wasn’t perfect . . . I had found a way to live” (Groves). I’ve been living in survival mode for so long, that kind of started to feel comfortable. In the moment, maybe not . . . but now, it seems like that was a lot more comfortable that getting out of it. Really, there are many days when living in bondage to anxiety and depression and overwhelm and perfectionism and control feels a LOT easier than walking into the wilderness, where God makes water flow from a rock and bread to rain from heaven. That’s really not the miracle I asked for anyway.

I was okay with You setting me free, God—if it came all shiny and exciting, fun and fast—definitely fast. I was okay with the miracle, as long as it was quick and painless, and maybe a bit romantic, like a movie. But an uncomfortable process? That requires me to choose to show up each morning? That requires me to do work? Hard work? To listen to You? To deal with my pain?

Far too often, I think we miss out on the healing we desire because we aren’t willing to do the hard work of healing. The commitment is daunting. The time it takes might require that we give up other things, even if just for a season but maybe altogether. Facing the problem, whether that be mental or physical, is painful. It feels easier just to keep going on with what we are doing and praying for that miracle instead of facing what’s really going on. Often, we think if we just ignore the problem, it will go away on its own, or at the very least, it really won’t cause that much damage. Often, it’s easier just to numb the pain with whatever coping mechanisms we have developed. All of this certainly feels good to an extent but doesn’t deal with the root of the issue. It creates a false sense of peace which ultimately leaves us continually grasping for a miracle that we will probably never see.

The process of healing is not for the faint of heart. Honestly, though? I am faint of heart. Most days, I am too tired to care. I’d rather just stay in bed, figuratively. I’d rather just cope. Rather just survive. But when I take God’s outstretched hand and let Him lead me on this journey, He gives me courage to keep going. He opens my eyes to daily glimmers of hope and promise. He reminds me where the path ultimately leads—which is an eternity where He wipes away every tear from my eyes. So I keep showing up for this work of healing, even though it doesn’t look at all like I thought it would.

Sources:

Groves, Sara. “Painting Pictures of Egypt.” Conversations, INO Records, 2001.

The Bible. Holman Christian Standard Bible, Holman Christian Bible Publishers, 2004.

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That Was Fun

~ Cati Grape ~ 1 Comment

The other night, I stood outside under a star-studded sky with several hundred children and their families. We surveyed a field ablaze with 20,000 plastic Easter eggs, each one equipped with a blinking LED light. I have never seen anything quite like it-and whether or not you agree with the idea of plastic eggs stuffed with corn-syrup and dye-filled candy, the beauty of the scene was truly undeniable.

As one of the people who helped install 2,000 of those blinking lights, I felt a certain sense of reward, of course. The 15 hours I spent with my hot glue gun became immensely worth it. But then, a voice sounded in the back of my mind, one that I am not very used to hearing. The shock of it caught me off guard.

“This is so fun.”

Somewhere about the time I experienced the loss of a dear friend and I woke up to the reality of hurt, confusion, and pain, I gave up on the idea of fun.

I was eleven years old.

Which is to say that for the better part of the last twenty plus years, I have struggled to have fun. My life hasn’t been miserable, and I can certainly recall fun times (some of the ridiculous games we used to play in youth group or the time I ran through the rain with friends in Romania or one of the many trips I have taken with my husband or the time we sat around the campfire with his family and I laughed until I cried over a story his aunt told). But, overall, I have tucked that part of life into a dark corner of my existence because fun is frivolous and completely unnecessary. And most definitely not safe.

Who has time for fun when you have to spend all of your time protecting yourself from further potential loss? Who has time for fun when you have to spend all of your time proving your worth to yourself, to God, and to everyone around you?

Besides, when a better portion of everything you do is clouded by anxiety and confusing dark thoughts that you don’t know what to do with, even fun things stop being fun.

Maybe what I am realizing is that I have built up a form of emotional armor—it felt easier, and definitely safer, to avoid fun, and to surround myself with discipline and responsibility, a cold edge of never being too invested or too excited about anything. I think having fun feels unsafe because opening myself up to fun and enjoyment means risking disappointment. If I open myself up the possibility that something could be fun, that I could actually enjoy something, I risk the possibility of being disappointed. It is far easier to go into everything preparing for a letdown (preparing for the worst, actually?) because then with disappointment happens, I won’t be surprised—or hurt.

So when something is fun, or I find myself blinking back tears because of how beautiful a field of glowing eggs is, I am genuinely shocked.

Shocked that God is so good to me that He makes it possible for me to have fun here on earth.

Recently, I have been praying and asking God to show me what He means by “life more abundantly.” I think I’ve got the “life” part down at least a little, but the “more abundantly?” I don’t understand that. That sounds really really too good to be true. Does He mean that it’s possible to live a life that isn’t just survival mode? That isn’t just “get through this and die”?

One of my goals for this month is to ask God for more – which before has felt so selfish and wrong, and honestly, very very dangerous.

But if we can’t ask Him for more, what else do we have? (And no, I’m not talking about being rich or asking for a bigger house or a fancier car because I know we all like to talk about how we shouldn’t ask God for material blessings and that following Jesus isn’t about health and wealth. I get that, but we’re off on a tangent now.)

I’m talking a much bigger picture . . . more knowing of Him, more knowing of His presence, more knowing of His voice, more knowing of His care, more knowing of the ways He hears me, more knowing of His goodness, more knowing of His love. More joy. And yes, even more fun.

Life more abundantly. I think the other night, I caught a small glimpse of what this could mean. Maybe that seems utterly frivolous, but somehow, that field glowing with 20,000 eggs felt fun . . . and so so abundant. Like HE IS SO GOOD, and I have a reason to celebrate being alive abundant.

I want more of THAT in my life.

Feature Photo by Min An: https://www.pexels.com/photo/full-moon-illustration-713664/

Lesson Learned . . .

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

Although it was nearly seventeen years ago, I can still remember the repeated questioning of family, friends, and strangers alike during my senior year of high school. Some people phrased this with more gentleness and genuine curiosity. “What do you want to be?” Others were more direct. “What are you going to do with your life?”

In such questioning, I think that we—by which I mean I—have a tendency to want to make ‘purpose’ into this single, controlling concept—this one thing that I do, this one thing that I am inherently gifted at, this thing that becomes the passion and fire of my soul so that I don’t do anything else. And the problem with this viewpoint is that I discount anything which doesn’t fit into that ‘purpose.’ (Now, that’s a whole other discussion because purpose and I are regularly, still, having arguments. Wrestling with what purpose is continues to be an ongoing area of growth in my life.)

Last year, I began working with a life coach, which is also another discussion for another time—that could fill up a dozen posts by itself—and this year, because of my conversations with her, I dipped my toes into the world of dreaming again. One of the questions I have been working through is “How could my current—or past—circumstances be the biggest gift in the future?”

This is not a question I appreciate. Because I want to compartmentalize the idea of purpose, and say that everything I have done or am doing means nothing. (I don’t know why I seem to enjoy sabotaging myself in this way, but I do, and we are working on that.) This question left me wrestling, in many ways, with my vocation in the education industry. Really, I never saw myself as a writing teacher or a curriculum developer. While I home educate my children and have enjoyed teaching in a variety of settings in my life, growing a business in this field is not something I am passionate about and not something I ever set out to do. Which, for some people, that might not matter one iota, but I am one of those people who needs to feel inspired by her work (creative brains, anyone?). I have struggled with this year after year because although I love words and I am very good at writing, grammar, etc., I just don’t really have a deep love of teaching MLA format or academic paper formatting.

But as I have been thinking through this question, I have been able to discover so many ways in which my current vocation—which is not to say my ‘purpose,’ just my current paying job—has the potential to shape my future as a writer. As a business owner and as one who owns the type of company that I do, I have learned some incredibly valuable skills, of which I will only cover a few for now, over the last sixteen years.

  • First, I have learned how to show up even when I don’t feel like it or am discouraged: I have watched so many people over the years start a business and be really excited about running their own thing, then quit within a year or two because the work is too hard or no longer exciting. I would normally fall into that category, but there is something to be said about the need to pay bills and put food on the table. I went full time with this business because we had a baby on the way and a very quickly diminishing bank account. When you just need to pay rent, quitting when you don’t feel like doing the work isn’t an option any more. Quitting when the process is discouraging is really out of the question. You get up and you work every single day, whether you feel like it or not and even if you don’t see the results. For a creative person like me, this lesson has been the most valuable of any because my habit has been to quit the minute inspiration leaves the room. For the first several years of running this business, though, quitting was not an option no matter how uninspired I felt. We had a mortgage to pay. We had children to feed and clothe. So I kept working, and as much as this is a job I never envisioned myself having, to look back and know that I have stuck with something for sixteen years and created something meaningful makes me so grateful and so proud. And it helps me to see that I can stick to things and be faithful and press through even when my emotions don’t line up.

  • I have learned how to write anything I put my mind to. If there is one thing that I believe that I am good at, it is writing. But, for a long time, I really didn’t think I could write content that was meaningful. Sure, I could write about sledding with my friends or what my family did on vacation, but could I write content that made sense to people? That could educate? That could inform? That could help someone? But then I sat down to write my first class, and somehow, I was able to put into words nine lessons about the parts of an essay and how to put those parts together every single time to write something that made sense. That class sold and has become our most popular class, though revised and rewritten probably a dozen times over since 2008, but that was the fuel for me to keep writing. I have genuinely surprised myself year after year at what I have been able to write about. Every time I dream up a new class or new concept, I feel that doubt and hesitation. Where do I begin? I can’t do this. But then I sit down with a cup of coffee and a blank page, my mind kicks into gear, and off we head to the races. And before I know it, I have 80 pages of material about ancient literature or how to write persuasive compositions or what the United States was like in 1824. I’m not afraid of writing anymore.

  • Inevitably, though, there is that companion known as writer’s block. This job has taught me how to push through writer’s block. I just sit down and write. I have heard authors give advice about writing: they write every day, even if just a little something, even if they erase all of it. They get something on to the page. They write to a certain word count or set a timer and write until the timer rings. No matter what, they write. For a long time, I chose to believe, instead, that I would only write when I was inspired. Turns out, inspiration doesn’t always feel like it’s there. But, ironically, the thoughts are there and the inspiration flows when I just keep writing. Every single day, or every little itty bitty moment of spare time, which is more like it for me in this season, I write, I write, I write. Sometimes the content makes sense. Sometimes, I go back and rewrite it and rewrite it again. Sometimes, I delete it altogether. But those authors were correct—to be a writer is to write, block or no block.

  • I have learned how to write effectively. When I began my company, I don’t think I really knew what made writing effective. I was pretty good at writing papers, but I hadn’t really thought about the components of effective writing until I began trying to teach them to other people. Writing lesson material about writing has helped me to see and understand what makes good writing good and what makes writing engaging. The process has also helped me to learn how to organize concepts in a way that is beneficial and informative for other people which is important if you are going to write a book.

  • I have learned how to create something that doesn’t fit the mold. Interestingly, the reason I started my company is that I had applied to several other companies offering similar services and was turned down because I did not have a college degree in English. This frustrated me. They wouldn’t even let me show them what I knew about writing or grammar. No degree, no conversation. So I started my own company. And now, I am exploring the world of being a writer who doesn’t fit the mold. I don’t have a massive social media following, and I am not sure I want to be published by any mainstream company in the industry. Still, the world of being a writer today has so many opportunities for those who don’t want to follow the normal path, and I have learned enough about doing that—and grown confident enough in all of the not-very-normal paths I have chosen in my life—to realize that I can be a successful writer even if I don’t fit the mold.

  • Finally for today, I have learned the importance of pushing through imposter syndrome. About that college degree—when I started my company, and for many years after, I was terrified that parents would find out I didn’t have higher education, pull their kids from classes, and blast my deficiencies all over the web for everyone to see. Still, there’s a bit of that fear niggling in the back of my mind even to this day. But, it has been sixteen years since I began this journey—sixteen years of teaching writing—and I have enough experience now after having worked with thousands of families and students to know that I and my company have something to offer. Imposter syndrome, though—it’s real. I don’t always advocate for this mindset, but in many places, I think “fake it until you make it” is as true as it gets. When you start something, you will be new at it. Duh? You will feel totally unqualified, completely out of your element. You will be Googling late at night things like “how to write a proper privacy policy for your website” and “how do I know if my website has cookies”? You will call people with questions about tax forms; read stacks of books about writing essays—written by other people, just to make sure that what you are teaching isn’t totally off-center from what all the other children in the world are being taught; and learn from all manner of mistakes and challenges. You will be, as my children love to call it, a newb. But, isn’t that reality? We all have to start somewhere. Even the most talented and successful people in the world were once new at this thing. So, although I feel very much like an imposter in the writing industry, and how dare I think I have something of value to say to the world, I at least know how to recognize imposter syndrome and push through it.

So, maybe this is something you could think about in your own life. Rather than discount your present or past circumstances, how have those things already become a gift to you, or how might they be a gift in your future?

Feature Photo by Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ball-point-pen-on-opened-notebook-606541/