The World Keeps Turning

It’s been a while.

Months ago, when I started down the path of writing about my depression, I was embarking on a personal journey with an unknown ending. I was frightened at what was ahead of me, but I knew I had to go, so I packed up my emotional provisions and I set out. This blog has been a piece of the puzzle. In writing about the blessings that God has given me through afflicting me with depression and anxiety, I am building altars like the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Here is where God met me. Here is where He answered. Here is where He sustained.

Here is where He blessed me.

My writing has been meager as of late because God has given me a clearer ending to my travels. Our small family of three will be expanding to four come this summer and my morning sickness has become less and less. It was difficult to contemplate writing when I wanted nothing more than to sleep away the nausea. Now, I am waiting with eager expectation the return to shore from these lonely and distant waters. Pregnancy does not grant me any large measure of relief, but I did not think it would. I am okay, though. I have all that I need to make it, and knowing what I have at the end renews my strength.

I hope to pick my writing back up in the next month. Onward and upward I go.

From 30 to Eternity – A Birthday Reflection

I’ve never been much for sentimentality with regards to time. I go to bed at my usual time on New Year’s Eve sans resolutions and I refuse, rather stubbornly, to make a bucket list. Yet, each year, on my birthday, I like to take a moment and reflect on where I have been and where I am going. My life has been tumultuous, and it is difficult for me to see past the next bend on the road I walk.

Aging doesn’t terrify me;  I’ve caught a strand of grey in my hair on occasion and I find myself smiling. I see life like I view a pregnancy, the point of the swelling stomach and spiderweb stretch marks is to carry a child to term. The point of this body, this life, the point of each line and wrinkle, is to carry my soul to the end, faithfully sustained by Christ, so that I might be delivered to my King at the appointed time. I have not always existed, but I exist now and, by the graciousness of my Lord, I will continue to exist for all eternity. What is 30 years to a hundred? Or a hundred to a thousand? Or a thousand to an eternity?

At the same time, I feel the walls of the unknown pressing in on me. I have moments where I can work myself up with worry that I won’t accomplish what I want to or cause myself panic with regards to choices in years past. I’m human with a limited comprehension of my world and my life. There are places I want to go, books I want to read and that I want to write; there are unrealized dreams that I wonder if I can recapture. There are days when I look at my life and judge it mundane in comparison to others that I see.

This is what it means to be young, I suppose. That inner desire for all things to be exciting and thrilling – to collect experiences like seashells to be displayed when I lay on my deathbed. Yet what I do, I do not because the world deems it vibrant and worthy, but because God has declared it that it is. As the Ancient of Days, He sees what I cannot. I am laboring for the long view with faith in the promises that my God has given.

Today, I am thirty. I am on a journey going forward, and I will not look back and long for what has come and gone. I will look forward and I will measure my success by an eternal standard rather than one that is finite. If I were to hope for one thing in the coming year and years, it is that Christ keeps me faithful to His glory to the end. Maybe it, Lord Jesus, and amen.

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. – Proverbs 16:31-33

The Foreigner in My Home

“What word is this?” I ask, pointing at word ‘man’ the workbook.

He looks at me with blue eyes and blinks, “Um. Map.”

“No, look at the book, sound it out,” I repeat, jabbing at the glossy page. He continues to stare at me and then scratches his head. I inhale, trying to soothe my frustration because that won’t get us anywhere; I’m certain I’ve thwarted whatever education was going to happen today anyway. I know that he knows the word. He read it yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. Today, though, I can’t get him to read, to put his eyes on the book and to sound out the letters.

“I don’t know.”

Someone, quick, get me to a wall that I may beat my forehead repeatedly. We call it quits for the day and I wander up to read a homeschooling book a friend gave to me recently. I start to read the section on learning styles because of something that caught my eye when I had flipped through earlier. As I read the descriptors, it dawns on me:

My son learns exactly the opposite to the way I learn.

Abstract Random is the label I read and the description sounds like the little boy growing up in my house. He likes routine like any child likes routine (in the sense that he knows what’s going on), but he’s always been okay with random changes. Move once or twice, change the location of dinner, do school in the afternoon or morning, and he rolls with it without batting an eyelash. I’ve made the assumption for five years that he’s laid back, that he’s relaxed.

It never occurred to me that he likes it. I mentally flail. Is this truly my genetic offspring? Who is this tiny alien that has invaded my home? How could I have been looking at this from the wrong perspective the entire time?! For the last month I have been fighting and struggling to get him to sit down, be quiet, and focus. I made sure the lessons were short, I tried to be engaging. He’s smart, he gets it, but he doesn’t like the way he’s getting it, so he fights me in his own way. We butt heads because I know it’s in his brain. I’ve seen the glimmers and the shimmers and even the occasional explosion of knowledge. Maybe being conventional doesn’t work on someone who thrives on being unconventional.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try something different. I might try school on the living room floor and we’ll start with a story (he loves stories) before jumping into math with Legos instead of crayons and paper. If my hunch is correct, I think he’ll love it.

As for me? I’m groaning… and I suspect that God is smiling because He knows exactly how I learn.

 

 

A Soul Full of Troubles

I have been quiet as of late. It’s in my nature to pull inward when in pain, and so, as the darkness sears my soul, I draw the curtains, and crawl back into my bed. I don’t want to talk about how I’m feeling. I don’t want to answer questions about my day. I just want to wrap my arms around my knees and weep as hard as I possibly can. If only the tears were enough to assuage the depression with which I live.

I’m walking a road that breaks into the soles of my feet, leaving them aching and bloody. I’m in the woods at night with nothing but a small lantern that permits me to see only one step further and no more. I am not afraid, I know this road too well, but it hurts nonetheless. So what do I say? What can be said?

There are blessings here. I have not forgotten my goal even as my vision grows cloudy, even as I sigh because I can do nothing else. A hundred blessings. I will find them, even as sorrow colors everything in shades of gray and mutes the music that all creation sings to the its Creator. I will find them, and I will speak of them, even as my voice trembles with anxiety that refuses to be soothed. There are some things simply worth doing no matter the cost. For the joy set before him, Christ endured the cross, and I am called to take up my cross and follow him. There is a joy set before me. In the darkest of nights, I lay hold of my Savior, my joy, and I remember what it is to have faith.

You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. Psalms 88:6

For This We Long…

My grandfather passed away yesterday. He had Parkinson’s and I knew when he slipped into a coma that the call would come at any moment. I did not think on it too deeply, and when I received the news, I did not stop the tears. This is the first death I have experienced in which the person taken is someone dear to me, and yet I am struck by how my heart feels it the way it felt the loss of friends as I grew up, as I moved away, time and time again. Perhaps I am not such a stranger to death as I thought I was.

He was a smart man with passion, and in his healthier days we would go round and round in heated debates about the world and life. We were raucous and loud, and if there is any question as to where my stubborn streak was born, one only had to look at this man. He loved Jesus, and he loved his family, and while his faith was more in the vein of the ‘40s and ‘50s, it translated down to my mother, and then to me, once again proving that God is made strong in our weaknesses.

I was blessed in these last few years to see him. We still debated, but I had to demonstrate patience. His mind was sharp, but his body moved slowly. Our debates were quieter, but we remained equally stubborn. We shared ice cream in the evenings, as we had when I was a young girl, and I even had the chance to include my son in such a tradition. Three generations around a table that looked more at home in the ‘70s than in our sleek and minimalist 21st century. When I left him last, I knew I would not see him again on this earth. I part of me began to mourn then.

He was a true Christian and in his last months, that faith which had rippled out from him, poured back over him as it hit the edges of his legacy, and Christ granted him peace and assurance in a fulfilled Law and a perfect Savior. Even so, while I find great comfort that he closed his eyes on earth and opened them again to see the glory that is Christ, I weep for those of us here, that remain in a world that is often so dark.

Death is not natural. Oh, it is natural in the sense that it is common, and that it is sure to happen, but it’s not how it was supposed to be. We were not meant to die. I find that as the tears come, I feel as though I am weeping the same tears Adam and Eve must have wept when they were banished from the Garden, and when she first tasted the loss of life in her son Abel. Just as sin has been passed from generation to generation, so too this grief, a remembered grief. I cry because things are not yet as they should be. I mourn because the waiting is not yet over.

My grandfather is not dead, but he is where I cannot go. I am glad that he has been able to cast off from himself the body that failed him, and that he had worn that body out so that it was worth discarding. Today he sees the treasure I long for, he sees our Creator and is known as he was always meant to be known. For that, I have joy and peace.

Even so, I miss him.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.” -Revelation 21:3-5

Puzzles

Usually I try to paint an image with my words, to create an avenue of sorts that will allow someone to travel down the path I’m on and maybe even to share a bit of insight. The lovely turns of phrase seem to fail me today and whatever insight I may have seems dodgy at best. I don’t like to talk about that which touches my heart deeply, mostly because there’s no escape route – I’ve never had roots before and I’m keenly aware that I can’t slip away when life gets sticky. The short version is that the medication I take to keep back the dark depression also prevents me from being able to get pregnant. I’ve been working with my doctor to try to find a solution and the one that would have worked, maybe even should have worked, didn’t. It’s left me utterly depressed (chemically induced at the moment – a side effect of the medication), and my doctor has admitted to being entirely stumped. This leaves me deeply discouraged in addition to my soul-weariness. What comes next? I wonder.

It seems that as I move further along in life, the problems become more complicated. There isn’t a right answer to this puzzle. God blesses with one child (Sarah) and God blesses with many (Leah) and God blesses through adoption (our very salvation!). The question in front of me isn’t what is right or wrong. All the choices before me are worthy options, each with its own merit, each with its own pain. The question is, what pain can I bear? What pain should I bear? What has the most eternal value?

The solution I wanted remains elusive and may not even exist. There are details and private matters that my husband and I have to decide on together and we both carry different fears that have to be faced. Rather than rail against God like a petulant child demanding my way, I want desperately to assess the situation with patience and maturity (even if it comes with tears). Whatever my God has designed is good for me though it hurts in the here and now. It makes me think of a quote by Sarah Edwards, after the death of her husband, the Puritan pastor, Jonathan Edwards:

What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands upon our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be.

I will not run from the discipline of God (not punishment, discipline). He is teaching me to think bigger than me, bigger than this life. I don’t think I’m anywhere near there yet, but I am comforted in knowing that my tears have weight and meaning. All suffering, for the Christian, is of God, for our good and I think it’s okay that I hurt.

So that’s where I am today, a little more quiet, a little more wounded. I look forward to feeling better in the coming weeks; already the fog is lifting as this medication runs itself out of my system. Hopefully with clarity will come wisdom and courage.

Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.              – 1 Peter 4:19

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.  – Henry Lyte

The Gray Skies of Depression

The world was gray again, when I woke up. I willed myself out of bed and I trudged to the kitchen. Opening a box of cereal might has well have been weightlifting with the amount of energy I exerted, but my son needed to eat. Once he was settled, I laid back down and didn’t bother with my own breakfast. The seconds turned to minutes and minutes to an hour until finally I couldn’t ignore the day any longer. A shower. A perfunctory meal, barely enough to sustain me. An hour mindlessly searching the internet because I didn’t much care about the dishes in the sink or the laundry that had turned sour in the wash. When I snapped at my son for a small infraction, the flags I had been ignoring, waved more desperately. It made sense, the weight loss, the sleepless nights, the daily anxiety, and the ennui that had settled on my shoulders. I was depressed. I am depressed.

This is a scary post to write because I haven’t been here in a very long time. I’ve had the moments, when doctors play with my medication, but I’ve had the blessing of knowing that I can easily slip back into even-keeled normalcy. Not this time. This time, I’m staring into the neutral grays of my world wondering what has misfired in my brain to make all the colors fade. I have broken down in tears several times with good reason. I remember vivid brilliance somewhere in the mist of my memory and I’m slowly forgetting in the haze of clouded thought.

Those who have known me, who walked with me during the most agonizing periods, maybe holding their breath right now. I’m seasoned in this walk though it doesn’t make it any easier. My newest friends have only heard my stories, edited or abridged, because there’s really no way to make this real until it’s here, tangibly. While my voice still works, I have to write this. I don’t know how long this storm will last or how hard it will rage. There’s a chance this is seasonal, I’ll know in about a week or so, based on self-treatment for SAD. In the mean time, I’ve written this, a field guide to the wilderness of my psyche.

Pray for me. It is God who afflicts me. He created me and I was born into a sinful body. I’m broken and I will remain so until Christ restores creation fully. It is both my cross to bear and my blessing to receive, as deeply as it wounds me. Pray for healing, but pray also for grace, mercy, and the ability to suffer such affliction well. My sinful heart is most apparent in my pain and my family can attest to that.

Be patient with me. I am weakest during this time. I am committed to all that I have given my word to, but my emotional energy has been significantly reduced. Where once I sprang out of bed and greeted the sun with smiles, I now loathe that my eyes have even opened. My family must be, without argument, my first obligation. Everything else I have promised will get done, but it maybe slower than expected. I will turn down more than is usual. I will be hesitant to agree. I simply must conserve.

Set boundaries. The natural inclination of any healthy person around a depressed person to try to bring cheer. It cannot be done. It is important to recognize one’s own emotional energy levels and to determine ahead of time how much one can invest. Perhaps agree to a walk for an hour or a cup of coffee one afternoon. I am insecure during these periods, unable to gauge my relationship to others. My first assumption is that I am unlovable and unwanted despite the head knowledge to the contrary. My heart is sick within my chest. If I know a person is giving what they can, I can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that I am not sucking life out of those around me.

Care for my family. My husband has no respite from his ill wife. There are few boundaries he can set as we share the same house, the same room, and the same bed. My son bears the brunt of my frustration as every sound is like nails on a chalkboard and he needs constantly from me when I have very little to give. Those men who will invite my husband to go out, have fun, and let go of the burdens for a time, are blessings. Play dates for my boy, while I quietly drink tea with a good friend, restore both of us.

Don’t try to fix me. This isn’t a puzzle with straightforward solution. Depression comes in many forms. I have seen it caused by circumstances, by dietary issues, by season, and in my case, simply by bad chemical make up. I have a wonderful therapist who has put his seal of approval on my day to day activities and said that I’m doing things right. I have a thoughtful psychiatrist who is working through the medical aspect while wearing brightly colored ties. It’s a real condition with very real consequences and also real solutions. I’ve lived with it for over fifteen years, trust me when I say that I’ve heard it all and I’ve spent a great deal of time blaming myself instead of getting help.

Don’t try to spare me. Ask me. Even if I say no, ask me to go, to do, to give. People will treat me as though I’m delicate and I am not. I want to hear about my friends’ hard days, even if it’s to complain that the kids are sick again or the paint on the house is peeling. I welcome the chance to not be the one unloading or with all the troubles. I also want to hear about joys because I live vicariously through others’ happiness during these times. Another’s pleasure may not bring all the hues back into my day, but I might catch a glimpse of a green tree or a red rose, and that will have made it entirely worth it. Laughter can soothe some tears and I will take what I can get.

Pray for me. I said it at the top and I will say it again. God has done this to me. He who measured the depths of the oceans and heights of the mountains has also laid the boundaries of my sorrows. My God is sovereign. Call to him on my behalf.

And I can’t understand, and I can’t pretend,
that this will be all right in the end.
So I’ll try my best, and lift up my chest,
to sing about this joy.
When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll.
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul.” – Page CXVI “Joy”

Not-So-Baby Steps…

With his big blue eyes, Eli greeted his daddy, “I’m FIVE!” He held up his hand, his five fingers outstretched wide. He blinked. “Why am I five?”

The passing of time is still a new concept for him. I see fear in his emotive expressions when I tell him he can’t go back to being four and his lips twist in worry when I talk about ‘growing up’. We haven’t shielded him from the world, choosing to explain it as it is in terms he can understand, and maybe in doing that we’ve put a little more on his tiny shoulders than he’s ready for. It hurts to do that, but I think it’s right and only time will tell. Usually after such conversations, I’ll scoop him up and pepper him with kisses with hopes that my affection will soothe his doubts.

I’m not an overly sentimental person. I rarely spend time wishing I could go backwards and I’m too present-minded at times to daydream about the future, but today I sat with my son, my little boy, and I told him an abridged version of his birth. I told him about how I went to the hospital and pushed him out of my tummy, how I held him and snuggled and he was so tiny. With laughter, I held my five-year old like I did my newborn, except now he giggles instead of coos and it’s all fun and games, not something I do on a regular basis. I see the hints of manhood , wisps in the corner of my eye, that remind me that one day I’ll be middle-aged and my son will head out into this wide world. I take a sober moment to pray that my failures are covered by grace and that his soul will be captivated by the beauty of Christ. I have no illusions of perfection, I know my own heart, so rather than pray that he makes all the right decisions, I plead with my Savior to catch him when he falls.

My arms feel emptier today. He’ll be getting bigger and bigger – too big for me to hold. I am amazed because I know that my God who designed me, designed him — that his name was known before time. His personality was built thoughtfully, with sweetness and humor wrapped up in dimples and olive skin. Our God, the Artist and the Writer Supreme, licked the nib of His pen and wrote my son into creation. Every trial overcome, every injury inflicted, every joy experienced has been planned meticulously from all eternity. My hands, if I am honest, have always been too small.

Today, my precious boy turns five. His life is a book already written; my gift is the chance to savor each page, confident that the author, Faithful and True, has worked out a spectacular ending. May it be, O God, may it be. Amen.

Seeking Contentment

Everything had been washed. Well, almost everything. Sitting in our garage were two bags of clothes that I’d ignored as I’d unpacked boxes inside my new house. I’d laundered, sorted, and put away loads and loads, and now there remained only these two lone bags. They had to be dealt with and there was no one else to do it, so I dumped the contents into a pile in the entryway to our kitchen. Then I left it there for three days. I took the mountain of clothes to the laundry room. It sat there for a few more days. Later, I sat down to sort these forgotten bits and pieces, and my heart sighed. It took me another day and a half to complete my task.

The pile, now folded and packed away again, consisted of onesies and little blankets that haven’t been used in years. We didn’t mean to go this long without another child but life and health interfered, leaving me with a heavy sense of uncertainty. I’d put away the tiny outfits several moves ago with the thought that I’d have another little one to dress, but I don’t and we have doubts that we ever will. Even so, I can’t seem to completely let go. I hate doing laundry, but I hate it even more when it comes with a side of melancholy.

I struggle to live in a no man’s land where I neither feel the overwhelming need to have a baby nor the satisfaction that my family is entirely complete. My voice is lost because I’m not sure if I’m mourning or hoping; it depends on the day and the color of the sky. Doctors don’t know what’s wrong with me, so they can’t offer an alternative to the medication I take that keeps me laughing and engaging my world, my family, my child who is here and not a thought experiment (like this imaginary baby who would wear these stale clothes). Every attempt to reduce or remove this drug plunges me into a midnight storm on a tumultuous ocean. It’s like giving up air. Would you give up breathing? Still, I judge myself as weak because I relish full lungs. Those who have fought valiantly by my side assure me that it is the right choice to stay healthy. They’ve seen me bleed and they’ve seen me on the edge of an abyss from which they didn’t think I’d ever return. It assuages my self-recrimination somewhat, but not entirely.

There are the memories I can’t shake and emotions I can’t forget. I remember my baby wrapped pastel blue and when I run my fingers over embroidered puppies and baseball bats, I have to take a few seconds to reconcile my life with the way that it is against the way I thought it would be. I like my life. I can say that unequivocally, but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel a twinge of longing. This is my life and for better or worse, it’s what I have to work with. I live in a broken world with a broken body and that means there will always be pieces of me that remain unfulfilled until I see Christ face to face.

God has his way of working that doesn’t always make sense to me. It’s fully within his will to give a child through birth or adoption, but I’m at neither of those destinations today. Today, I’m not waiting, I’m trying to live patiently as I seek out answers to the myriad of questions. Eli asked me a few months ago, out of the blue, if he could have a baby sister and I explained that it was up to God. From then on, every night, Eli has prayed for a baby sister. He doesn’t know all the reasons why it can’t happen, he only knows that God has the power to make it so. After all, God clearly answered with a resounding yes to his prayer for a house with a yard.

Maybe that’s what contentment means. In richness and in poverty, with or without, having hope that God can…and trusting that if he doesn’t, then everything is the way it ought to be.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows that is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:26-28

 

Sometimes a Light Surprises…

Yet again, we were in a new apartment. This time I was honest with myself and decided I would open only those boxes that were necessary, leaving the rest in storage. It was a decision born of pragmatism mixed with resignation, the most logical choice in the face of an uncertain year. As I stood on the precipice of 2011, I wondered what God was doing and how much longer he would remain silent on the difficult road we were walking. The quiet despair was a constant companion and one particular evening, as I wrestled with my own spirit and the doubt that choked me, I was moved to pray. I lamented with heavy sighs the longing I had for home, not a particular place, but for the feeling I ached for when I wept. I laid before him, as I had before, my request –  roots. A place I could stay, and learn, where I could find out the pleasures and the pains of what it meant to know the same streets for ten years.

After, as I slept, I had a dream and the next night, when I put my son to bed, together we asked Jesus for house with a yard. While I didn’t doubt his ability, I had long ago laid aside hope that our situation might be different; sometimes when you spend too much time crawling under the burden of affliction, you forget to glance up at the sky. I thought perhaps God would hear my son, not yet weighted down with all that could not be, only enamored with all that might yet be.  

Trepidation filled my heart as 2011 began. I was weary and worn to the bone. My own broken mind, my shattered spirit, the constant flux and all that happened in between left me crushed. Still, as a family we plodded along in our prayers and waited. When our first glimmer of sunlight broke through the clouds, it came with a temporary part time preaching position for a tiny church plant in Saint Croix Falls. After rejection and dark days, my husband was able to fulfill his passion and bring in much needed additional income. It wasn’t much light, but it was as blessed as the moon in the night.

Our first tease of daylight came when by Spring, Elijah had been called to our church in New Prague, a full time position that would allow me to leave my job and care for my family full time. I held my breath, partly certain that this would be like a polar night where we would have twilight, but no real day. We still needed a place to live and there was nothing to rent. Our searches turned up fruitless and while people spoke of buying a house, it seemed impossible to me. The years had not been kind to us, with medical bills, unemployment, and jobs that didn’t pay nearly enough (at one point we had three jobs between us). Knowing, if not fully grasping, that nothing is beyond the ability of God who designs both the ends and the means, we prayed fervently –  a house with a yard. If we neglected it, Eli was quick to remind us.

This was our sunrise.

   

To say that it is the perfect house would not convey the tapestry God has woven. Our home is half a mile from our church, with ample room for hospitality. It is everything I didn’t know to ask for, but it is precisely what we needed. Now, when I pray, I glance out at the yard and I smile as I lay my worries and my burdens before Christ. If I were to name 2011, I would call it The Year God Answered.

It has been a long time since I have been able to reflect upon a year with a smile on my face. I write this not to boast (because what have I done to either merit or gain what I have?), but to remember. Many of you have wept with us and this is me inviting you to rejoice with us also, and if you pray for us, pray that we remain faithful, loving, and wise.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Selah. Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.” I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?      – Psalm 77:9-13