Sorrow and Her Twin Sister: Suffering

and Much-Afraid, Mikayla

Words aren’t coming to me naturally in this season.
I have to fight for them.
I have to dig, and dig, and dig. And still, the right ones seem to evade me.

And it’s not ideal.
In this season, I need them to come to me- and come to me quickly. Because I don’t have the time to look for them.

And the relief it brings me to shape the muck of my mind into words- and thrust them on paper (or screen rather)- is a relief I need desperately need right now. Where few reliefs exist.

I would say ‘soil of my mind’- but my mind doesn’t feel like a garden or soil these days. It’s more of a swamp.
Or a torn trash bag leaking it’s contents while being drug on the pavement on the way to the dumpster.

I am finding that the version of this type of woman I want to be- is not as easy as the online aesthetic reels make it seem.

Or maybe it comes more naturally to other personalities than mine. Maybe those women had examples to emulate. Maybe their mothers were soft, safe, and selfless. Maybe they don’t have to work- so all their efforts can be poured out onto their children and content creation.

That’s what my insecurity tells me at least.

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Valor’s anniversary is in 5 days.
I miss him. So much.
I could say so much more. But I’ll save those words for the time I’ll surely dedicate to grief that day.

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I think I may be battling a bit of postpartum depression amidst trying to do all of…. this.
Whatever ‘this’ is.

So far all ‘this’ is- is chaos, overstimulation, sleep deprivation, and my failures on full display like a broadway performance that my children all have front row seats to. Lucky them.

I was googling signs of postpartum depression last night. And laughed as I realized I had almost all of them- but there simply isn’t room for depression when you have 5 children looking to you, needing you, every hour of every day.

‘If you find yourself unable to get out of bed’
’If you find it hard to enjoy the things you once enjoyed.’

Words from google.

‘What if I find that I would like to be unable to get out of bed- but that option doesn’t exist?’ I thought.

Does the fact that I managed to get out of the bed I wish I didn’t have to- mean I don’t have it?

What if I don’t even know what I enjoy anymore because it’s been so long since I did anything I really enjoyed. Or had time to discover it.
Aside from writing. And as I said before- I’m finding that even in the attempt to write- the words seem to play hide-and-go-seek.
In a labyrinth. In the dark.

Sometimes I long for heaven so much, I wish I could fall into a deep enough sleep that I simply don’t wake up.

The burdens of this life finally shed, along with this worn, creaky body, and molasses sticky sin-
to finally be in the presence of my savior.

Sometimes I’d rather be a worm in heaven, than who I am now- on earth.

My mother in law and I were laughing about that this week.
She’s having to file bankruptcy and life has been comically overwhelming and grief-ridden these last few years.

We decided we aren’t ‘suicidal’, but we are ‘sleepicidal’.

We have a dark sense of humor.
Loss will do that to ya.

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I started reading my favorite book of all time aloud to the kids at night, the allegorical story called Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard.

We’re to the part where The Chief Shepherd has planted the seed of Love in the main character, Much Afraid’s heart. and has now brought her to the foothills of the mountains, to begin her journey of ascent up toward the high places to start to develop her hinds feet. When she reaches the High Places, there she will receive a new name.

He has just gifted her two companions to make the journey with her: Sorrow and her twin sister: Suffering.

The book describes them as tall, strong, quiet, veiled figures.
She cries out and begs The Chief Shepherd to send her with Joy and Peace instead.
And He asks her to trust Him, as she promised she would.

I had to choke back tears as I read aloud to them. Identifying as much as I did the first time I read it- with poor little Much-Afraid.

The first time I read it was right after Valor died. Before I had Reverie. Before I had Rune.

So I feel like I should be further along the journey than I am.
That I should have my hinds feet by now. That I’ve walked with Sorrow and Suffering for long enough.

…

In the last chapter we read, before she meets these veiled guardians that will accompany her, The Shepherd and Much-Afraid are walking toward the foothills and Much-Afraid notices that streams of water all seem to sing the same song. And since the seed of Love had just recently been planted in her, she seems to suddenly for some reason, be able to understand and hear the lyrics:

Come oh come! Let us away—
Lower, lower everyday.
Oh what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This the dearest law we know-
It is happy to go low.
Sweetest urge, and sweetest will.
Let us go down lower still.
Hear the summons night and day
Calling us to come away
From the heights we leap and flow
to the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call.
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain.
to go low and rise again.

“That is very puzzling.” said Much-Afraid, after she had listened for a little and found that this was the refrain repeated over and over again.

”Let us go down lower still,” the water seems to be singing so gladly, because it is hurrying to go down to the lowest place, and yet you are calling me to the Highest Places. What does it mean?”

“The High Places,” answered the Shepherd, “are the starting places for the journey down to the lowest place in the world. When you have hinds’ feet and can go leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills, you will be able, as I am, to run down from the heights in gladdest self-giving and then go up to the mountains again. You will be able to mount to the High Places swifter than eagles, for it is only up on the High Places of Love that anyone can receive the power to pour themselves down in an utter abandonment of self-giving.”

I’m beginning to have my own ears to hear these things, too.
But this journey is long, and hard.
And so far I’m still little Much-Afraid, (Much-Stupid, Much-Whiney, Much-Thick-skull), Mikayla.

I’m so looking forward to my own hinds feet, the high places,
and my new name, too.