It’s been probably one of the more difficult months that I, Mandy, have had in a long time. Which I think everyone can safely assume that speaks volumes. We have truly been blessed to have had a pretty good 2020 even though buying a house in the current housing market was crazy. But I truly haven’t had anything to complain about. My health has kinda gotten worse but still I typically am doing fine. This month though has proven me completely wrong.
It started with Memorial Day weekend. I had taken my kids back to PA to visit family and of course my health took a down turn the night we get there. So starting on a Friday and it went until Tuesday that I started to feel better. Two days later on Thursday, June 3rd, my son started a week long sick episode. Then we had two birthdays in our family, my mother came to visit, a birthday party for my daughter and a few other friends birthdays. Now the birthdays were obviously not bad in any way. But surrounding everything was kinda rough.
As everyone knows theres a point where you just kind of feel like you cant take much more on but it always seems that’s when the worst storms follow. My storm came last week. Yet again it started with a bad episode of my medical health. I was sick Sunday till Friday with some random nausea. Wednesday I spent the day frantically packing my family for their weekend trip to Williamsburg VA. I had said I would stay at the homestead to watch over the animals. We also have a pregnant goat that’s due any day now and I wanted to be close incase this weekend was her time. So I went into Thursday on my own with lots of projects in mind and so many goals that I wanted to accomplish. But sadly not much ended up getting done.
Thursday after I hit my limit with the heat I had noticed some remarks being made that felt geared towards myself and later confirmed these feelings. This transpired over to Friday as well. I was truly struggling and we are honestly not going into details for that. That’s actually not the point of this blog post. Don’t worry I am getting there! But what ended up happening was I turned all of this motivation and goals into “It can be done a different day.” I got into this depressed state where I just felt like there was a spiritual warfare going on so strongly around me. I felt like the evil side was telling me to be rude and to stay in this extremely dark place. Yet God was saying to get up and rely on him. I spent both Thursday and Friday night falling asleep while in a long prayer to God. It felt like the only way I was going to get through would be to pray.
Saturday arrived and I was determined that I would take and push myself to get something done. The perfect idea at that time would be to go pick up groceries so my kids would have a lot of fun snacks when they got home. Well sadly I had to deal with some more very very rude behaviors that at that point truly just cut even deeper. I parked my truck at home and just started to cry. In my opinion I tried so hard to push myself to get out of this struggle spot yet I kept getting knocked back down. Here I am at home on my own, taking care of a homestead, trying not to elude to my husband how bad it all was, and just trying to take care of it on my own. But the Lord sent the person he knew would get through my struggle and knew would help set me on the right track.
I walked over to my neighbor and just unleashed my tears. I just couldn’t hold anything back at this point. I started to tell her everything that was going on and she said everything I didn’t know I needed to hear. I would go into details but this is another moment where the details of that conversation are not needed. What’s needed is that God literally had me speak out that I did not want to respond to the negativity because my faith tells me different.
You see all of Friday The Lord was speaking to me and I heard it. But it just didn’t seem to feel like I could actually get myself to point where it felt like it was sticking. I felt The Lord saying “protect your happiness” but couldn’t manage to actually do so. I tried so hard but sitting here now I realize it was also a matter of The Lords timing. I wanted so bad to have everything done on Thursday but The Lord wasn’t having that happen yet. He wanted me to truly rely on him. He wanted to sit back and watch how I would respond in that situation. The Lord was saying
“child of mine, will you listen to what I have said and not retaliate?” Oh the conversation I had in my head that I wanted to unleash but I just had this feeling of needing to hold my tongue. The Lord wanted me to wait until Saturday to make the decisions after talking to another believer so that I would literally say the words out loud “I choose not to respond as I feel that is what The Lord wants from me right now.” I had to physically say those words before I started to have peace.
This neighbor ended up coming over to my house again Saturday night to check in and make sure that I was still doing alright. I told her that I cracked up the worship music and I got myself to do a few things around the house. I ended up having the chance to share some of my current favorite songs with her later that evening. But I sat there Saturday evening out in the complete dark on my back deck, more so to make sure my animals were ok with the fireworks, but also thinking about this all. It kind of hit me that I have been feeling this strong calling to be in the homestead world. I have felt that this was such a way to connect with my faith in a different way. Yet in a matter of one weekend someone took the happy away from my life. This weekend made me realize that I need to check if I am tapping into my faith or am I just going through the motions with this homestead. I am so happy to have everything we do but am I thankful. Thankful for the animals and thankful for the Lord that provided these animals to us. Where is my mindset with this all? I thought with my health starting to struggle that I would be way more thankful but I truly may not actually be as much as I thought. This weekend made me rethink a lot!
I have come to the conclusion that I truly feel I need to work a little more on my faith and being thankful for what The Lord has provided in this homestead. I also realized that I need to protect my happiness. Jeremy and I love to help others and we will always do so, but I need to work on remembering not everyone will enjoy the things I do. I need to protect that happiness sparked inside of myself on these things and not let someone destroy that feeling. Lastly I took the time to realize that it is in The Lords timing, always. The hard times, he went through this for me already, he knows what I will be feeling. Yet that’s how he has us rely on him.
To be completely honest, I am sadly not out of that depressed state. My mental health took a toll. I myself do not have any motivation to do anything at all right now. But the beauty in this is that I can rely on my faith to get my out of this state. I am in a better spot now than what I was just a few days ago but it took a lot. I will be pushing myself a little every day and setting up a few things to help but it wont happen unless I rely on The Lord. This may not be our typical homestead post but it is vital for us to be open and honest about this all.