Blog - Page 8 of 13 - COME SO ALIVE

Punching a hole in the darkness

On 01/28/2022

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), Light and Dark

Live where you are planted.

That was my takeaway from a Bible study called Stepping Up that I started almost 12 years ago. It actually took me almost four years just to finish the study! When I first started it, Cody was a few weeks old and I didn’t get very far – shocking, I know. But one of the things I underlined was “The psalmist meant that he was a long way from home and from where he wished to be – that he felt like an alien. Can you relate?”

YES! I could relate. We lived among mostly families with much older children than Cody and didn’t have any close friends in our own town. Within two years, we decided to move to my hometown to at least be near family…a decision we tried to make a reality for another two years until we finally accepted it just wasn’t going to happen.

I started the Bible study again, randomly it seemed, and wrote words of the same theme:

“I am living in the wrong place.”

Yet within a few months, I wrote,

“I am where God wants me. He wants to prosper me here. My part is to live and serve where He has put me.”

Fast forward almost eight years and “Live where you are planted” has regularly popped into my head, not as a reminder of what to do but as I’ve seen the outcome of choosing to live that way.

Sitting with sadness

By Carrie

On 01/14/2022

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy)

I realized, a long time ago, that I was depressed – once someone pointed out to me that I was depressed, that is. I talked to my therapist about medications, but she called it “situational” depression as opposed to clinical (chronic) depression. She believed that, once the situation resolved, the depression would too. I continued talk therapy and, over time, the situation changed and I pulled out of the depression.

Years later though, I still closely monitor where I am at when depressing hardships come. But while depression is a reality, so is sadness. And the two are not the same thing. Too much grief can lead to depression but sitting in your grief does not mean you are depressed. It does not mean there is something wrong with you, something that needs to be addressed and fixed immediately.

Grief means you are suffering.

And suffering just needs to be experienced.

Grief needs to be sat with for however long it sticks around and again during those times when it suddenly returns for a visit.

Fighting it, ignoring it, trying to rush it along – those things only make it more determined to stay and pop out when you least expect it.

I had hoped to write a new blog post this week, but a three-day migraine put the kibosh on that. Then, I decided to write a short Lifeline Friday post about the various resources on Come So Alive but I wanted to update the Music page first. Two years ago, Mike Marcotte, a Twin Cities TV personality who also has epilepsy, asked to write about our life and how we’ve learned to live with adversity. I went to our story on his website today to copy part of what I said there to add to the Music page and instead realized his article was my post for the week.

I didn’t think I would ever share this story on Come So Alive because it feels really weird “promoting” my family, but as I reread the article, written at the start of the pandemic, I realized, sadly, we are still dealing with so many of the same fears and challenges. The start of 2022 doesn’t feel as hopeful as a new year used to because we don’t see an end in sight yet.

So, if you are feeling the weight of what we are living through pressing down on you instead of the hope of a new year lifting you up, maybe something in this article will help:

When adversity hits: how one family copes with a child’s health concerns

By Carrie

On 01/07/2022

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy)

Learning to fly with broken wings

By Carrie

On 12/17/2021

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy)

“Nature is much more disorder than order.”
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Twenty years ago, I went through something really painful. It was dark and depressing and it took me quite a while to realize it had been like falling into a six-foot hole. Just a hole only slightly wider than my body so right in front of my face was a wall of dark dirt – but I was too depressed to realize that’s where I was, that if I just looked up there was sun and life.

As I started to come out of the really painful time, maybe even as I grew into something more than I had been before the painful thing, a friend gave me a little figurine. She said it reminded her of me when she first saw it, because that was how I seemed to be as I recovered.

On the bottom of the figure is the word HAPPINESS.

Arms outstretched. Head tilted slightly back and face looking up. There are no eyes but you get a sense that that is where she would be looking.

There are also three little bluebirds perched on her arms. Bluebirds signify happiness, in case you didn’t know. Her face turned up, three little birds with wings outstretched resting on her outstretched arms.

Happiness.

Until the birds’ wings, one by one, started breaking off.

LIFELINE FRIDAY – Sing

By Carrie

On 12/10/2021

In Lifelines

What are you waiting for? I’m not saying that in a “get up and do something” way, but truly am wondering, is there something for which you are waiting? A diagnosis or treatment, a job, a renewed relationship?

I’m waiting, for several things actually.

I recently noticed daily Instagram posts from someone I don’t follow, but I liked them. It turns out they are quotes from this man’s podcast called The Place We Find Ourselves. There are 100 episodes in the series, and it struck me that in 100 days this season in which I find myself may be over, this waiting. Life will look different – or at least we’ll have a better idea of how it’s going to look.

I felt God telling me to create a music playlist called 100 Days and then wait for Him to tell me what songs to add to it each day. After seven days, I have 16 songs on it, many of which I had never even heard of a week ago. One of them was actually sent to me by the singer after I commented on Instagram that I liked a quote of his because it was exactly what God was asking me to do:

“When you haven’t a song left to sing, sing still.” ~The War Within

He said that became the basis for one of their new songs and sent me the link to How You Love Me.

Even if I haven’t a song left to sing
I’ll sing still
How You love me
Even if I lose every earthly thing
I’ll know still
That You’ve got me

I found that quote the day I started the 100 Days playlist.

Sing still.

Sing in the next 100 days of waiting and anxiety. In the unknown.

I’ve created this playlist on Spotify and YouTube and I hope you’ll sing along with me in your waiting too.

Who you see

By Carrie

On 12/03/2021

In "Come So Alive" Origins, Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy)

I have been pondering two different things recently. One is that I wrote my first blog post one year ago. When the thought “start a blog” first popped into my head, my response was, “No!”

As I wrestled with that idea, I didn’t believe I’d attract many followers but at the same time thought maybe something I shared about my life would resonate with someone else. Probably just one “someone else.” So, I resolved to write for the one person who may read what I would write each week.

I have also been thinking about purple hair – because I currently have purple hair. More accurately, I have 3-4 inches of purple tips as a result of my incredible friends donating to a Facebook fundraiser for the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota. If donations totaled $1000, I would semi-permanently dye the ends of my hair purple. They raised $1101!

I have since actually dyed my hair three times. The first showed up only as a light burgundy color and didn’t really stand out enough to embarrass me, which, of course, is part of the reason people donated in the first place! The second time (with bleach) turned my hair purple but faded to pink in less than two weeks, and I had promised to sport purple the whole month of November. I took a picture after dyeing my hair for the third time to assure everyone that I was, in fact, staying a very obvious purple for the whole month (which is Epilepsy Awareness Month by the way).

So, I had these two separate thoughts floating around in my head until one day when they became one thought. I scrolled past this photo in my camera roll last week and realized she is the one person I’ve been writing for this last year. She’s the one person who has read everything I’ve posted, to the website, to Facebook, and to Instagram.

Silence with God

By Carrie

On 11/29/2021

In Peace

Thanksgiving. Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Christmas rush starting. On top of our ongoing trials.

Are you a finding yourself a little fried today? Stressed, anxious, worn out? Me too.

I found this meditation this morning after a very frustrating search on my phone’s apps and then YouTube to just find something calm, something to help me hear God.

Then she said I may not hear God!

She said, “He wants to hold still with us in silence.”

And my phone died.

I looked up at the ceiling.

I laughed.

And I sat in silence with God.

Check out the meditation here.

The things I would have missed

By Carrie

On 11/21/2021

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), Gratitude, Pay Attention

What did you think your life would be like as an adult when you were in high school? Did you have specific plans? Is your life filled with things you never could have predicted?

I remember an exercise in high school that instructed us to write out a timeline of goals for our lives, how we saw them unfolding. Schooling, marriage, kids. All the things we think will play out in our lives. I can’t say I followed that timeline of expectations very well, both by choice and by circumstance. All the best planning could not have predicted where I have ended up. Do you know the feeling?

I’ve been trying to learn to let go of planning and to just receive instead. (Yes, I know some of you are laughing – I’ll wait until you’re done).

One great way to do that has been learning about contemplative photography, whose principle is to not “take” shots, but rather to receive an image. Three times recently I have received an image but only in looking at the photo did I really see the whole picture.

I decided to avoid the highway and take the back roads to run errands one day. The greens and blues and peace of the little lake (which I’ve driven past for 20 years) made me stop and back up so I could photograph it. I posted it to Facebook with the caption, “I took the road less traveled.”

Somehow, I missed the fact that I included the side mirror in the image. I was kind of bummed about that because I really only wanted to see the lake. Then a neighbor commented, “I can see your past” and I really looked at the image captured in the mirror. That image was, in fact, my past – the road I had just taken, a road very much “less traveled.” A past that lead me to the beauty I was currently enjoying. That reflection in the mirror actually became my favorite part of the picture.

It’s time to let go

By Carrie

On 11/11/2021

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), The Mystery of God

My view of the sunrise this morning. From my son’s hospital room. That faces west. Not how I envisioned seeing today’s sunrise yesterday. (After only four hours of sleep, it took me an hour to realize the reason the sun didn’t seem to be rising over the bluff was that I was facing west – even though I had known the whole time I was facing west. Just thought I’d share that…)

There’s a pandemic and nursing shortage. Hospitals are slammed. And the staff here is asking what else we need, if there is something else they can do for us.

Last night when we checked in, the hospital bed had a handmade fleece blanket on it for Cody to keep. The room number outside his door had a personalized sign with his name and a puppy dog stamp on it. A volunteer just came through with a free beverage & snack cart. A volunteer – amid covid!

This is an incredible hospital; we are very fortunate to live only 20 minutes from it. To even get a bed.

And I really hate being here.

LIFELINE FRIDAY – Gratitude…when you aren’t feeling it

By Carrie

On 11/05/2021

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), Gratitude, Lifelines, Light and Dark, Pay Attention

Cody had a seizure Sunday night. His seizure-free period went from 51 weeks between seizures down to 10 weeks.

I’m not doing well this week.

I have so many things I want to write but what I finally decided on (what God recommended when I finally checked in with Him, maybe?) was a Lifeline post on gratitude. Because I’m not feeling very grateful right now.

Or maybe more accurately, I note little things here and there but I’m not really fully paying attention to them. And He wants me to pay attention to them instead of only paying attention to the sadness, frustration, and even guilt I’m focusing on instead.

Sadness and frustration about a chronic illness in your kiddo you can probably understand. The guilt is because my son is only having one seizure every 10 weeks. I know parents whose kids have that many by lunch. Every day. So, I feel guilty for feeling sad about something that in relation to others with epilepsy doesn’t seem that significant. Which of course I know my child having any seizures is significant but….and around and around I go.

So “gratitude” came to mind yesterday. Really focus on it. Watch for it, even search for things for which to be grateful. Not to pretend the bad doesn’t exist but to lift my gaze to the light shining all around me even in the dark.

Things like…