Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
~Psalm 43:5 NIV
These days I feel as if am being doggedly pursued by an old acquaintance of mine. He's not particularly a welcome friend, but somehow I just don't know how to shake him. He does leave me alone for a few days, and then, when I'm feeling pretty good about myself, he reappears.
Let me start over. A month or two ago, a person named Jan wrote a comment on this blog to say that she loves my posts and values my blog. That comment made my day, nay, my month and I stored it up in the treasury of my heart to revisit time and again. Yesterday, as I walked home in the rain, an old weather-beaten man tinged with a patina made of the smoke and alcohol which had encircled him for years pulled up beside me in his battered car. With a kind face lined in wrinkles, and an over-round belly protruding from his unbuttoned shirt, he leaned out his window and asked, "Elise, would you like a ride?" Then, at work today, on the set of QVC, Mary Beth, a host whose face I remember seeing on the tv screen even as child (my grandmother was a QVC devotee), greeted me by name and asked how I was. It's a strange thing to think that these small kindnesses-- strangers knowing my name, other strangers telling me that I mean something to them-- touch me very deeply. These days, they mean almost the world to me.
That old acquaintance that I was telling you about? His name is depression and he haunts me. I left QVC today feeling utterly exhausted (I was on the air modeling from 10pm-11pm, 4am-6pm, and again from 1pm-3pm), but came home feeling a different sort of lethargy. My soul felt downtrodden (does anyone else but me think it's fun that the past participle of tread is trodden? Tread, trod, trodden. I do love English so.) and I was at a loss for how to pull myself out of that funk. I changed into my workout gear, and it seems a small miracle that I managed to lace up my shoes and step out the door. At first I walked slowly, and then, with a miniature pinscher eagerly dragging me along, I began to run. The steps were small and I limited my effort, but then with the cool rain-laden air fanning my cheek, I ran faster. By the end of it, I felt wonderfully blessed.
I would that I could hold on to that feeling of well-being, but ah, he, my old acquaintance (for surely he is no friend), will not be deterred. It is a never-ending battle, and I must take up again my weapons of self-defense.
I am thankful today for the kindness of strangers. Let my prayer be like that of St. Francis:
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
~Psalm 43:5 NIV
These days I feel as if am being doggedly pursued by an old acquaintance of mine. He's not particularly a welcome friend, but somehow I just don't know how to shake him. He does leave me alone for a few days, and then, when I'm feeling pretty good about myself, he reappears.
Let me start over. A month or two ago, a person named Jan wrote a comment on this blog to say that she loves my posts and values my blog. That comment made my day, nay, my month and I stored it up in the treasury of my heart to revisit time and again. Yesterday, as I walked home in the rain, an old weather-beaten man tinged with a patina made of the smoke and alcohol which had encircled him for years pulled up beside me in his battered car. With a kind face lined in wrinkles, and an over-round belly protruding from his unbuttoned shirt, he leaned out his window and asked, "Elise, would you like a ride?" Then, at work today, on the set of QVC, Mary Beth, a host whose face I remember seeing on the tv screen even as child (my grandmother was a QVC devotee), greeted me by name and asked how I was. It's a strange thing to think that these small kindnesses-- strangers knowing my name, other strangers telling me that I mean something to them-- touch me very deeply. These days, they mean almost the world to me.
That old acquaintance that I was telling you about? His name is depression and he haunts me. I left QVC today feeling utterly exhausted (I was on the air modeling from 10pm-11pm, 4am-6pm, and again from 1pm-3pm), but came home feeling a different sort of lethargy. My soul felt downtrodden (does anyone else but me think it's fun that the past participle of tread is trodden? Tread, trod, trodden. I do love English so.) and I was at a loss for how to pull myself out of that funk. I changed into my workout gear, and it seems a small miracle that I managed to lace up my shoes and step out the door. At first I walked slowly, and then, with a miniature pinscher eagerly dragging me along, I began to run. The steps were small and I limited my effort, but then with the cool rain-laden air fanning my cheek, I ran faster. By the end of it, I felt wonderfully blessed.
I would that I could hold on to that feeling of well-being, but ah, he, my old acquaintance (for surely he is no friend), will not be deterred. It is a never-ending battle, and I must take up again my weapons of self-defense.
I am thankful today for the kindness of strangers. Let my prayer be like that of St. Francis:
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
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