Anne Marie Miller

Category: Mental Health

When Joy is Hard to Come By
I’m a little late in the game (no pun intended).

My husband and I just started watching Friday Night Lights. For the longest time, I refused to lay eyes on the show. I grew up in West Texas, and the Odessa Permian Panthers (the Dillon Panthers in the show) were probably our biggest rival. My sophomore year, at a basketball game, as I was going up for a lay up, a very fast Panther power forward threw her arm into my back and slammed me into a cinderblock wall which messed my knee up badly enough I had to go to physical therapy for a year and couldn’t play basketball competitively anymore. Not watching Friday Night Lights was my boycott, my personal commitment to not give anything Panther related a second of my time.

But then we started. And you guys, if you haven’t watched Friday Night Lights and you have Amazon Prime or Netflix, just go. Take a six-week leave of absence and dive in.

Enough of that.

(But really, go watch it).

Last night, one of the characters (the QB1, or starting quarter back), Matt, had a really bad day. I won’t go into it all, but everything that could possibly go wrong, did. I think we’ve all had days like that. You maybe don’t feel the best, you get the phone call that something bad has happened, you don’t get any sleep, you were so late for church you ended up staying home, you drop everything on the floor, you lose your keys, a friend isn’t responding to you, your dog is sick, you feel like you’re a fake at your work, you take it all out on your spouse with angry crossed arms and irrational accusations.

If that isn’t you, I can assure you that the things I just described happened to me in the last three days.

Please don’t hear that as a pity party. I had my pity party. I’m okay.

But you are not alone when you’re so stressed, you want to change your name and move to Malaysia.

My mini-crises ended up with my husband loving me so beyond what I deserved, that my façade of toughness and meanness broke. Tears spilled out with words of my perceived truth. And I use the phrase “my perceived truth” because once I actually spoke my fears, my hurts, and what the voices in my head were telling me, I started to see them as the lies they were. And if I didn’t see something as a lie, Tim was there to gently direct me back to find truth again.

I was lucky. I haven’t had someone with me every time I’ve found myself so far away from joy, but in the last few years, I’ve learned something about when this happens.
- Don’t ever drink more than a couple of glasses of wine
- Talk to someone anyway
The death of a brilliant actor looms over us all, a life cut too short by an addiction to something that brings a deep sense of peace. That’s why we escape. When we look in our faces and minds and spirits and hearts and we’re far away from the God who loves us and His truth, when the pain feels like a red-hot black hole inside our chest, we want to escape it. Some do it with needles, others run into the arms of a one-night stand. I’ve used alcohol and food and sleep to run away before.

In 2011, I was physically sick from my anxiety. I layed down on cool tiles of a hotel bathroom floor in Orlando at 3 am, finally finding the courage to reach out a couple hours later. A few weeks earlier, I asked a small group of people to be my friends. It sounds clunky and unsexy, but it’s one of the best decisions I made.

Asking someone to be a friend is one thing. Telling them when you’re lost and hurting is another.

Pushing through awkward words and my greatest fear of rejection, I reached out. I got help. I was a weighty, heavy, burdened and hurt girl and I needed to be carried. My friends carried me. I could lean on them.

If you’re in that place today where you can tangibly feel the pain of lost joy searing you, or perhaps you’re so far beyond hurting that you’ve numbed yourself into apathy, please reach out.

We worry that we’re going to be a burden to someone. Here’s the catch. Not one of us is a burden.

Are the things we’re going through burdens? Maybe. But you, a person, are not a burden. You are flesh and blood and skin and bone and pain and hurt and yes, even joy. There is joy for you and you may have to fight through ten thousand armies of evil to see it again.

But you don’t have to fight alone.

***

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February 3, 2014
For When You Feel Overwhelmed and For When You Feel Small

First let me begin by saying, wow, you guys. The flu is a terrible, terrible thing.

I thought I caught the flu the day after New Years. I was sick a few days, then I was okay for a couple.

Then sick a few more days, and fine for the next four.

Last Sunday night, my body hurt so terribly and I felt just so awful, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I set up a doctor’s appointment. I was running a low fever and my flu test was negative. My doctor said I had pneumonia. My chest rattled when I breathed and I couldn’t stop coughing. Antibiotics, make-me-loopy cough syrup, good to go.

I woke up Tuesday afternoon and could not stop shaking. Not shivering. Shaking. I took my temperature. 101. 30 minutes later, I felt even worse. I took my temperature again. 103.3. I was on Advil and my temperature was still 103.3? A phone call later, I was on my way to the ER where I learned I didn’t have pneumonia, but I did have the flu.

This is really me at the ER. Super awesome mask!

I don’t remember much of last week, but I think I’m on the mend.

I’ve never had the flu before (and I will be getting flu shots from now on) so I had no idea something could make me stay still the way it did. I didn’t touch my computer all week. All I could do was think.

Thinking for a week is not necessarily a good thing for me. I tend to get wrapped up in layers of self-doubt, self-pity, and even some bitterness and jealousy. Even if I try to refocus my thoughts on what’s good, my tendency to reflect in everything I’ve done wrong or that I’m not doing as well as I’d like takes over.

I was tired enough because of the flu, and with my mental defenses destroyed, I found myself in a big puddle of giving up.

I wanted to give up.

No, I want to give up.

I still do.

One thing you don’t want to do while sweating through all of your clothing because of a fever is go online. If you do, and if you’re like me, you’ll end up feeling like everyone has their life put together. They hustle and you don’t want to even get up to get a Powerade, much less do any work. They post about the great people they wine and dine with, and you forget to find gratitude for the friends who rushed to the hospital to pray with you, who brought you meals and medicine.

You feel so overwhelmed and you feel so small all at the same time.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I tend to have so much to do…I try and prove myself or reinvent myself or tell myself that if I do this or that maybe-just-maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made a difference, that I’m worth something to someone, that I’m contributing whatever it is that God gave me to contribute to this world. I preach a message that tells people about the beauty of simply being, about rest and about health, yet if I think about my to-do list, I feel sick to my stomach. I feel small and overwhelmed and because I’m not as popular as this person or because some other person who has an important title doesn’t email me back, that somehow I’m a failure.

THAT IS JUST NOT TRUE.

Maybe you’re like me (I can empathize). You work so hard to write, to share, to be a mom or a dad or a wife or a husband or a good friend and your heart burns with such fury to do just one thing that makes a difference. All the while every message you take in from the outside world, from the voices you respect (and maybe the ones people tell you that you should respect) tells you it’s not enough. If it was enough, you’d have that viral blog post, that book deal, or just one single comment or message about that super-important thing you shared with the world. You feel small and overwhelmed.

This – by all industry standards – is not a good blog post to write. I have no answers for you. No three-steps to finding peace in chaos or security where you feel frail.

This is just me saying (to the both of us):

YOU are NOT alone in this.

The chaos you feel is a lie from Satan that wants to draw you away from your identity in Christ.

It is not your job to save the world.

It is not your job to even save one single person.

It is your job to delight and worship your creator.

To walk the path he set for you, even if it’s not glamorous, or exciting, or what you expected.

Rejoice in Him.

Cry out to Him.

Strangely, as we become more desperate for God, that sense of desperateness leads us to great peace.

January 28, 2014
Is Burnout Beating You?
I’ve been in the process of adding some helpful stuff to the 5th Anniversary Expanded Edition of my first book, Mad Church Disease which launches next month (woot!)

In that journey, I realized people were needing something NOW. Something to help NOW.

The emails I get daily show me that burnout is still epidemic in ministry and in the church world and if anything has become more taboo in the last five years, which breaks my heart.

Over Christmas, I sat down and wrote Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health that covers
- rest
- spiritual health
- emotional health
- relational health
- physical health
- and prayer.
Rinse and repeat for five weeks and you’ve got yourself a 70-something page book.

Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health releases as an eBook this week! (The print will follow shortly!)

Each day has
- scripture
- a short and meaningful reflection
- and a section for practical application and a page for notes.
It reads fast because I know you don’t have much time, but I pray it takes you directly to the heart of our Father with no fluff, only grace, and gives you enough action when, after thirty days are over, you find yourself in a healthier and more intentional place than you are now.

Can you do me a favor?

If this book sounds like something you need, can you give me your email address so I can ping you when it comes out? I won’t bother you for anything else. And, if you’d like to spread the word ahead of time, I’ve made some tweets to help you do that!

You can sign up for the email notification here!

Share about it below!

[Tweet “Burned out? THIS > @girlnamedanne’s “Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope & Health” #BeatingBurnout”]

[Tweet “Had enough? > @girlnamedanne’s”Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope & Health” #BeatingBurnout”]

[Tweet “2014 = HEALTH! @girlnamedanne’s “Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope & Health” #BeatingBurnout”]

I am SO GRATEFUL for your support and I truly pray this devotional can help you find hope and health!
January 14, 2014
Your Anxiety is Not a Sin
The Texas Rangers just walked the bases. It wasn’t that exciting of a baseball game. I was doing my Algebra II homework with the TV playing in the background.

I’ve never been good at math, but this particular assignment was tough. While trying to assign some numerical value to letters (a concept as a writer I will never understand: letters are for words. Numbers are for nerds. Just kidding. If it weren’t for the numbers people in my life, I’d be in jail.), my heart started palpitating.

I placed my hand on my chest and could feel each beat through the muscles under my collarbone. What was happening? Was I going to have a heart attack? I was only 14. This can’t be happening.

I didn’t realize it, but my breathing became fast and shallow. I got lightheaded. My muscles tensed. Not wanting to alarm my parents, I quickly went out the front door unnoticed. I climbed on the top of my mother’s car where there was nothing to trap me; I could simply look out into a big, west Texas sky full of stars.

But my heart kept pounding and my head kept spinning and I wondered what they’d say the next day at school about the freshman who died on top of her mom’s car last night.

My dad came out a few minutes later and asked what was wrong. I sat up on the car’s top and gave him my symptoms, interrupted by punctuation marks of tears and sobs. He put his hand on my dangling knee and told me he felt this “irrational fear” before and it would soon go away.

It did.

For a little while, anyway.

But for the last twenty years, it’s stayed. It hasn’t been just a season, though sometimes I find relief in weeks or months. Anxiety is the weakness that can either boast Christ’s strength or it can break relationships. It’s either managed or I let it run wild. I’m almost certain it’s here to stay, and with spiritual help, counseling, support from friends and Tim, and even medication, I’m usually okay. I’m functional and happy and it lays dormant in the chemicals and synapses in my mind, hushed by medication that knows when it starts getting too loud.

I went to speak about sex one time at a college. I’m fairly certain my parents are uncomfortable every time I say that, but hey, it’s one of the things I get to do with my time. Normally after that talk, I get a few girls and maybe a guy or two say how they now feel like they can talk about something they’ve wrestled with sexually.

At this one school, I learned from the Dean that most trips to the counseling center have to do with anxiety. Interesting. In my talk, I mentioned anxiety in a sentence or two, not really going off track. Afterward in the chapel lobby, multiple students came up to me – not because of their questions about sex or pornography – but because they felt so free when I talked about my anxiety.

Really? I thought. I didn’t think there was such a stigma about it anymore. I guess I’m wrong. Noted.

Two weeks later, I logged into my blog and there were two comments from someone I’ve never met, or even heard of online. A google search revealed little. I’ll save you the lengthy comment, but one thing stood out:

You are a false teacher.

Your anxiety is a sin.

Wow.

My anxiety is a sin?

I get it. I’ve heard the lectures on worry as a sin, and trust me, it’s something I lean into my God for every day. And I believe that not trusting God consistently or even rejecting the desire to trust Him, yes, is sin.

But, Mr. Commenter…and those who think like him, let me clearly say to you my anxiety is not a sin.

And here’s the thing. If I speak to 800 college students and ten of them tell me they’re wrestling with true, clinical anxiety, I’m sure there are a hundred that didn’t say a word who are also living in that shaky, unescapable landscape. Statistics tell me that there are a lot of you who struggle, too.

Anxiety presents in a lot of ways: panic, physical symptoms like a rapid heart rate and shallow breathing or lightheadedness, upset stomachs, tense muscles, and insomnia. It can also have emotional and relational symptoms too: anger, isolation, and irritability.

Wondering why you get headaches all the time? It may be anxiety. Notice you’re lashing out with some built up anger at someone you love? It may be anxiety.

You may have heard the reason you have anxiety is because you’re living in some secret sin, or maybe you’ve even been told the anxiousness in and of itself is sin. The first may be true, and if it is, you know it.

But if you’re certain you’re right with God and others, your anxiety is not sin.

I’m not a doctor or a counselor, in any official sense anyway. However, I’d like to share a few things that have helped me manage my anxiety.
- Routines: Morning and evening routines help start my day off right and help put me in the right place to sleep soundly.
- Bible study and prayer: A constant one-sentence prayer I pray in moments of panic is “He keeps in perfect peace whose mind stays on Him.”
- Talking about it: I have my husband and a group of friends I know I can reach out to in my “craziness” and I know they don’t see me as crazy. They pray for me and offer truth and help me refocus my thoughts.
- Counseling: It’s expensive, but I’d rather have it than cable, a smart phone, or food at times.
- Healthy Stuff: Eating right and exercising work wonders for anxiety. They really do.
- Medication: Yes, I believe we are over-medicated but I also believe if you need it, you need it. It took me probably six or seven tries to get the right medication and even now, I have to adjust the dose depending on the season of life and stress I’m in. Some people need SSRIs or SNRIs and some need benzodiazepines (which is what works best for me). There are always risks, but work with a doctor and find the best balance for you.
Anxiety sucks. There’s really no other way to say it. In the church world, let’s speak freely about it and help others in their journeys by owning up to our own. And if someone says your anxiety is sin, shake your head and walk away confidently, knowing God made you in His image and that you can let your greatest weaknesses show His strength.

Recommended Reading: The Anxious Christian: Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good?
January 8, 2014
Spending Christmas in the Psych Hospital…as a patient.

I told myself I would never talk about IT publicly – which means at some point, I subconsciously knew I would.

I thought, “Maybe when I’m fifty.”

Not, “Maybe three years later.”

Somehow, IT got brought up in a meeting with my publisher.

“You need to write a blog post about IT,” said the vice president. And my speaking manager. And my husband. And just about every other person in the room.

I’ve resisted…all week long, I’ve resisted.

Yet, here we are.

And this is it.

***

In the year 2010, I spent Christmas in a psychiatric hospital. I’ve referred to it as “inpatient counseling” a few times in passing, but hey. Let’s just stick to the facts:

I was admitted December 8, 2010 to a psychiatric hospital in southern Arizona.

My friend Brian drove me there from Phoenix. We listened to Elliot Smith, an ironic choice to say the least, and ate chocolate-covered honeycomb as we buzzed down the interstate pretending like we were two friends on a road trip; not that I was about to surrender myself to the most intensive counseling and loss of control I’ve ever experienced.

We arrived into a gated entry and a technician in scrubs promptly removed my suitcase from Brian’s car and barely let me say farewell before telling him to leave. I checked in and a tiny German woman searched every inch of me and the things I brought with me to make sure they were in “compliance”…nothing sharp, nothing with any kind of alcohol in it (like my facial cleanser, for instance, which was confiscated by the tiny German woman unapologetically.)

My phone was turned off and taken away, locked into a safe. It would not be turned on again for the next month. I would now be on their schedule. No TV. No phone calls (except 8 minutes every other day) and no caffeine. Or sugar.

There was no way to escape, physically or emotionally.

The counseling process started right away with intake sessions and nosy psychiatrists asking about every detail of my life. Traumas. Any and all medication I’ve ever taken. Addictions. Fears. Family history.

“Why are you here?”

“I’ve had really bad depression for the last six years and I’ve been having suicidal thoughts for the last two months.”

Later, I was told I wasn’t suffering from depression. Instead, grief and trauma manifested as depression. Those sneaky little buggers. Some of the grief and trauma was from my past and some of it was as a result of my marriage ending months earlier. I started therapy to address those issues and finally received the diagnosis that had been hiding.

I was clinically diagnosed with PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In the months before entering this psych hospital, I felt so down, so worn out from fighting through a marital roller coaster, from working in the middle of all this grief and anxiety, and I found a new coping mechanism. Cutting – something I never imagined doing. The college students I spoke to and my younger friends wrestled with self-injury, but not me. Not a 30-year-old woman. But I did and it became my secret release for a very short time. Into my arms I would cut a horizontal path, each tear of my skin told me what a failure I was.

My appetite also failed. I stopped eating for the most part, and lost ten pounds in a month. Except for necessary trips to the restroom or to get tea, I stayed in bed asleep most days. Just walking downstairs to get a glass of water exhausted all my energy. My roommate was terrified for my wellbeing. I finally hit my breaking point right around Thanksgiving, and after telling a friend, was able to get the help I desperately needed.

I was going to check into a psychiatric hospital to get help over the holidays.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve 2010…

I sat with my new friend Sam. Sam was a twenty year old from the East coast who was cocaine addict in recovery. The small auditorium in the hospital was full of a holiday sugar buzz (it was the one time they let us have sugar), and I was about to get on stage to read a poem I wrote.

I asked Sam to hold my two cookies – a Christmas tree and the other, half a snowman – while I was on stage. Sam agreed but only with the understanding he could have a bite. I gave into his compromise and he shoved the half snowman into his mouth. Kids.

Danny, a counselor and the emcee for the evening’s talent show, called me up to the stage. My hands were sweaty and I took a deep breath as I looked at the sixty patients in the room.  I felt like a nervous eighth grader reading a book report in front of her class. Speaking in front of thousands of people? Not a problem. Anytime. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. But read a small poem to a group of sixty patients in a psychiatric hospital? Terrifying.

Up on stage, I made a couple of remarks to bring in the audience’s attention. I looked at each person quickly as I scanned the room, now, after 18 days, knowing most of their stories and how they too found themselves in the middle of the desert, confined to a hospital that mends different kinds of wounds: Eating disorders, suicide attempts, compulsive behaviors, addictions, depression, anxiety, traumatic experiences, and mixes of all the above.

I thought of the stories I heard of murder, incest, violence, death, and unspeakable pain.   Many people would consider finding themselves in such a broken place like a psych hospital the equivalent of hitting rock bottom. Maybe at first, I did too. There’s no questioning the uncomfortable pain I processed over the time I had been admitted.

But I wasn’t at rock bottom. Instead, on that stage and after that healing, I was completely centered, perhaps for the first time in as long as I can remember.

Before the Christmas Eve talent show, I sat down to write in my journal. I was over halfway into my treatment and after hundreds of hours of counseling (and prayer), I could see hope. And light. It was the first week in months I didn’t rationalize the thought of killing myself. The first time my body, mind, and spirit felt at peace.

How, in such a place of hurt and loss could I find joy, gratitude and  peace?

How could I feel joy and sadness at the same time?

My rock bottom wasn’t on the  stage of this treatment center, it was on a stage where “The Anne Jackson: Author, Speaker and Advocate” stood. It was where bright lights  shone on me as if I were enlightened with the answers. On that stage, I  may have had the right look, the right words, and even the right  intention, but my soul was empty and my body a container which held  my identity that was crashing into a million tiny pieces.

Was it a paradox? Absolutely.

The year 2010 was full of monumental moments.

I rode my bike from San Diego to Myrtle Beach for Blood:Water Mission. I had a critically acclaimed book release. I was speaking almost  weekly to rooms full of wonderful people. I traveled to far away lands to tell stories  of beautifully broken hope and despair.

Then, a disease in my mind almost took my life were it not for the intervention from friends.

Reconnecting with your soul and your spirit and God isn’t a formulaic equation. There is no system, no  perfect grouping of rules or steps. You can’t tiptoe into it. You have to leap  into a vortex which will suck the life out of you until you are  detached from the self you once knew.

As it spins you around, you become filled with a painful yet beautiful Gift that touches all who are near you. If you allow it, life as you know it will never be the same after you leap into arms that have always been ready to catch.

Such has been the case for me.

On the night of Christmas Eve 2010, I read my poem, took a bow, and sat  down next to Sam, ready to eat my Christmas tree cookie.

Although it’s been over three years since the grief and trauma fired its lies saying I had no reason to continue living, I know the battle is not over. Now I really do live one day at a time, often simply one moment at a time.

Like a newborn, this life needs complete, uninterrupted care.

It needs nurturing. Acceptance. And grace.

Grace that a newborn child brought to us over 2000 years ago in a messy, putrid, glorious room of wood and straw.

There is beauty in every broken Christmas.

Lord, have mercy on me. On us.

Amen.

December 12, 2013
Three Things to Help Control Freaks Let Go
Control has control on me.

It’s my thorn, my biggest enemy, my closest friend.

I’ve been out of control a few times in my life…
- The many times we moved when I was growing up
- When a youth pastor sexually abused me
- When a tornado hit my house
- When a car I was driving had a bad tire and sent me spinning down a 150 foot embankment
- When a person who said he’d love me forever changed his mind
But really, aren’t we out of control all the time?

Tim and I are in Sioux Falls. Our flight leaves in three hours. We get back to Nashville (assuming there are no delays, which again, is out of our control) at 9:30 tonight.

The girl watching our new little puppy called and texted while we were at lunch. The puppy got sick – take her to the vet sick and I am a self-proclaimed puppychondriac. I want to get home. Now. But I can’t. It’s out of my control..And it’s making me anxious.

Canines aside, earlier this morning, I spoke at a university and gave students an opportunity to sponsor a child through Compassion. Will they? Will one? Will 20? If nobody does, did I just let a bunch of kids down who need help? If 20 students do, will I wonder why it wasn’t 40? Or 100? It’s out of my control…and it’s making me anxious.

And it just snowballs…what happens if I don’t sell another book? What if nobody wants Mad Church Disease when it comes out in February next year? Or when Lean on Me publishes in October, what if it flops? What if I never get asked to speak again, or what if we can’t have children or adopt or…or…or…

(Take a breath, take a breath.)

I realize I’m not the only control freak out there.

And I think there may be two types of us: Internal and external.

Internal control freaks allow the “what ifs” to avalanche inside our spirits and distract us from the present, from the hope and faith we have.

External control freaks project the anxiety on to others. If I was an external control freak, I’d be at the airport forcing the airline to put me on the next plane to Nashville and throwing a fit about it (yes, so I can go home to a puppy; I get it). I would have manipulated those students with Western guilt and twisted and turned my words so they would sponsor children.

How do we release the anxiety we have when our illusion of control is broken?

This is what I’m choosing to do today.
- Talk about it: Thankfully, Tim is on this trip with me so he’s sitting right next to me while I type this and reminding me that God loves me, he loves me, and with both situations, I’ve done the best I can do. I talked to the vet and our puppy is getting checked out. I did my best presenting Compassion, and we know that some children’s lives will be forever changed because they got sponsored.
- Reflect and Repeat: I am a super fan of the one-sentence prayers that are said over and over again. For when I’m anxious, it’s “He keeps in perfect peace whose mind stays on Him” (my rendition of Isaiah 26:3) The rest of the verse says “Because he trusts him.” I trust God. Period. He has never failed.
- What’s Possible Now? My friend Gail has a saying when something doesn’t go as planned: “What does this make possible?” So, what does being in snowy South Dakota make possible while experiencing my anxiety and facing my control issues? I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. So, I can write about them. I can share what I’m learning with you. I can ask for your prayers. You can ask for mine.
Any life interruption is rarely a pleasant thing. Especially when it involves things we deeply care about (children in need and my little puppy – clearly I care about them in different ways; Hey, I’m just being honest with you!)

Control freaks of the world, let’s all take a breath. Share your concern. Pray. Do what you can. God cares about you and what’s important to you. Let’s loosen our collective grips and be present, now, fully and with trusting hearts.

(Update: As I was typing this blog post, our dog sitter called and said our puppy was sick and was given some antibiotics, but it was nothing serious enough to put her in the hospital…you know, just in case you wanted to know :)).
December 3, 2013
Monsters Like You and Me

He was a Monster, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him: muddy, kind eyes and a soft and sparse grey beard. He was the one who brought the turkey out to the table at Thanksgiving and it was always perfect and with just enough crispy skin and the family devoured it over memories and laughter and the sense of familiarity.

Yes, this was Thanksgiving and it happened the same way every year since any of them could remember.

To any passerby, it looked no different than something you’d see at the house next door or the house on the television, but most of them knew – especially her – what pain this man with the kind eyes and the soft beard delivered.

Every year would pass and nothing would change; she wouldn’t say anything about the Monster…what was the point? In hushed conversations and secret phone calls, her observations were confirmed. The shell of the man she knew didn’t change much but his insides did. First his heart, then his mind, and now, she wondered, his spirit? One by one pieces of him broke away and fell like a man of ice walking in the sun for the first time, dripping, cracking, breaking – and completely see through.

She talked to a man named Gary about the Monster and how even when she wasn’t with him, he stayed with her. Was he following her? Was he out to hurt them all? He wanted full control and she wasn’t sure at what cost. She said unspeakable things about him, things someone with the same molecules and atoms and blood should never say, but it was as if she wasn’t talking about him. He was gone, she determined.

Gary sat, plump and attentive, in an old recliner across from where she sat. He let her say her peace and then talked about the monster.

Yes, what the Monster did and what the monster does is inexcusable. The pain from the past, the scars seen and not seen, the anger that rises in her when he is far away or when he is in her own living room sitting right next to her, and even closer, when she carries him around in her heart – it is all justified.

“But,” Gary said, “but.” He shifted forward in his chair and reached into the pocket of his brown pants, retrieving a pair of glasses. “I want you to wear these from now on. You say you want to know what the Monster will do; these glasses will show you. You’ll see everything: who he is, why he is the Monster, and what you can do about it.”

She held the glasses loose in her hand, her wrist ever so slightly bent like the weight of the glasses were too much for her small hand, and like Gary’s simple explanation wasn’t enough.

“Do you trust me?” he said, seeing her reaction.

“I have no other choice,” she said, clasping the pair of tortoiseshell frames and walking out of the room. If her family was to be safe, she knew she had to be the one with the clearest view of the Monster. She had to protect everyone quietly. He could not hurt them anymore.

Shaken by what could be, she set out to find the Monster and figure him out, why he was the way he was. But she could not put on the glasses. She knew it wasn’t time.

But about the monster, she was right. The Monster was following her, waiting outside her house until she came home and because she never locked the door, he’d follow her in. She made dinner; he was there. She took her dogs for a walk; he was there. People would ask about him, how he was these days, and he was right there. Yet they couldn’t see him. The only power the Monster had was to make himself invisible to everyone else but her and disappear right into her very heart.

These were the worst times for her because her heart felt like the Monster took over and she didn’t have a chance. Almost instantly the anger and evil he had transferred into her and if she wasn’t careful, she could become a monster too.

Once when she had enough, when she didn’t allow the Monster in – she screamed at him to go away, far away, forever, and slammed her front door, and she ran into the den where the glasses Gary gave her were tucked away in a drawer. She pulled them out and put them on. She checked herself in the mirror to see how they looked and instantly threw them off her face and frantically brushed her arms off, tearing her sweater, stripping down to almost nothing.

She was a monster, too.

Never before had she seen herself like that; demons and evil covering her every inch, doing anything to break her and take over her. For the most part, she knew she was always fighting something dark, but she assumed it was the Monster, not the demons inside and around her. She fell to her knees, weeping, praying that each one would let her be: fear, jealousy, anger, self-righteousness. Her past, her pain, her anxiety. With heavy wings, each one flew away, leaving her light but weak. She pulled herself up, got dressed, and went out to find the Monster. She circled back to the den, make sure she put the glasses back on.

It took her a while to find the Monster, walking through the chill of the autumn air. Her last encounter with him must have pushed him far, far away. In a barren land she found him hiding in a small cave. He didn’t see her right away, but this was best. Because now that she had the glasses on, she was able to see man she thought was a Monster really wasn’t.

He was just like her.

Those muddy eyes were friendly, but full of pain and tears. Years of crying covered his grey beard in salt, like an ocean leaving its traces behind. He sat slumped in the corner because the weight of the demons he was carrying with him. She thought back to how she looked with all those demons on her and looked at the Monster. He had so many more…hundreds, maybe thousands.

This is what it must be like to see like God sees, she thought, not placing her view as divine, but only seeing what invisible things people carry with them and fight. She walked over to the Monster, ignoring the threats and hissing the demons on him made as she reached in to rest her hand on his shoulder.

He was startled; so startled that the Monster yelled at her, screaming in a voice that wasn’t his, “Get away! Get away!” He hissed at her too, clearly either unaware or resigned to the demons that weighed on him and changed him.

“Get away,” he said to her quietly, with a huff of resignation.

In a great story, she probably should have pulled out a sword to fight or maybe brought an army in, but in this story, she did what the Monster asked and walked away. She no longer saw the Monster as a monster anymore, but saw him for the darkness that covered him, that he was to weak to fight off. She could fight from a distance, offering prayers on his behalf and fighting off her own demons so she could keep a clear mind, but she was not afraid anymore. She was not angry any more. The man she knew that she thought was a Monster was still a man, a broken man who didn’t know any better.

And she would not give up on him, now that she could see that truth.

November 11, 2013
It’s Okay to Start Small

For a season of my childhood, we received food from the government. Black and white label five-pound containers of peanut butter. And cheese. I’m sure we got more, but the snapshots of those two items are clear in my mind. At times, we had our own garden and a local farmer would be kind enough to wrap up in butcher paper whatever animal he slaughtered and we’d freeze pounds and pounds of it. Every Tuesday I had a piano lesson and it was a celebration. We had to drive in to town anyway, so after my piano lesson waited a What-A-Burger kid’s meal and Dunkin’ Donuts donut holes for the next morning.

Overall, my parents did a reasonably fine job of creating healthy children. We were rarely sick, we were extremely active (what else is there to do in west Texas but ride your bike hours on end chasing imaginary drug dealers?) I played basketball until I blew out my knee and when I’d get angry, I’d run a one-mile stretch between our house and an elementary school. I was never overweight…until I moved out on my own.

In my early twenties, I added a good thirty to forty pounds to my 5’6″ frame. Some people say I carried it well and they couldn’t notice. I look at the few pictures I have from that time and reply that I carried most of that weight in my face. If you read my old blog in those days, it was a weekly weigh-in…and over the course of nine-months, I lost it.

But then I got diagnosed with a heart condition that prevented me from getting my heart rate over 120, and exercise was out of the picture. I was slim, but I wasn’t in shape.

Long story short, someone dared me to find a new doctor and get my heart “fixed” – even though I was told it couldn’t be. If it was fixed, I’d have to ride a bike across the country with the Ride:Well Tour. Well, my unfixable heart was fixed and between 2009-2010, I logged close to 5,000 miles on a bicycle.

I worked out all the time…until…boom. The heart condition returned.

Two years went by and I’d try to exercise, to force myself to push beyond my 240+ bpm heart rate (don’t ever try that). I returned to my doctor and had another surgery on my heart in July 2012. As far as we know, it’s still fixed. Hopefully it will stay that way.

I set a goal at the beginning of the year to run 300 miles in 2013. I believe I’m at 60. I did really well in the beginning (don’t we all?) and then didn’t regularly exercise for, like, I don’t know. Six months?

My weight is creeping back up into what I consider to be my “danger zone” and I find myself demotivated instead of motivated to do something about it.

Something about be a perfectionist…

My friend Dawn is amazing. She lost over 130 pounds in a year by exercising and eating right. Size 22 to size 2. Just like that. No magic pills, no fad diets. Just hard work and self-control. Our society lacks those so much, People Magazine picked up the story because it’s so inspiring.

My texts to Dawn lately:

I feel like crap.

Why do I want to sleep all the time?

I can’t stop eating cookies.

And the big one last week…I think I’m medicating my anxiety with food.

Dawn always graciously replies to make little changes. Tim and I have. We started juicing (again for me – the first time for him). Tim is gluten-intolerant, so I’ve cut out gluten as well (and I feel amazing!) We don’t buy very much processed food…almost everything we eat is fresh (and when we can, organic and local). This week, we’re taking out all meat but healthy fish.

I tried to go for a run last week and was disappointed that after a mile of intervals, I was done. I used to be able to run four miles just six months ago!

“What do I do? What can I commit?” I texted Dawn in frustration.

Her reply:

Go easy on yourself…even if it’s simply a goal of moving everyday. You don’t need to be hardcore! Commit to taking, at least, a three-mile walk five days/week…at least you’re moving…and your body can learn to crave it.

It’s hard when I see her flipping tractor tires to accept that, but I know she’s right.

As a maximizer…as a perfectionist…as an all-or-nothing…I have to admit…

It’s okay to start small.

No, really. It’s okay.

Following Dawn’s advice and some extra encouragement from my husband, I only hit snooze once and I put on my new Reeboks with the hot pink laces and some good music and went for a 2.5 mile walk. I even ran a few times. And when I couldn’t run anymore, I stopped and continued walking.

I got home, Tim made some kale/carrot/apple juice, I made some healthy scrambled eggs (and coffee…), and I feel good.

I still feel frustrated that I’m not flipping tractor tires yet, but if I can commit to even just getting moving five times a week…which I can do even when I travel…it’s progress.

Maybe it’s not healthy eating or exercise for you. Maybe it’s a ministry goal or something you want to do in your marriage or with your kids. Maybe it’s signing up for online dating or asking your friends to set you up. Maybe it’s reaching out to start a Bible study or a girls’ night. Maybe it’s reading your Bible every day.

The time you spend in whatever you’re doing will add up over time.

Skipping a day here and there doesn’t seem like a big deal until six months have passed and you realize you haven’t knocked off one mile (but you’ve slept in an extra cumulative 72 hours during those six months…shudder).

It’s okay to start small.

Will you start with me?

October 1, 2013
The 34,000 Divorces

Dear reader,

I don’t know who you are. But you found this blog because you Googled something that asked something about how to find help because you’re going through a divorce. Or you’re looking for ways to help a friend (sister, brother, parent, co-worker) who’s going through a divorce. All I know is that in the last thirty months or so, there are 34,000 of you that have found your way to this website because you did a web search using the word “divorce” and a divorce is one of the most broken, painful things one can experience.

Each day when I log in to my blog, I don’t bother looking at how people got here anymore; it’s always the same. It looks like this.

You see, a few years ago when I wrote at another blog, things like “Anne Jackson author” or “Anne Jackson speaking schedule” or “Anne Jackson books” would bring people to my website. I never once thought anything having to do with divorce would lead you here.

But in 2010, I faced my own crisis. A divorce. It was never supposed to happen to me. If you click around enough on this website, you’ll see a journey of grief and healing. Of pain and hope.

There may be a little advice. But I’m afraid I have little to offer you.

Divorce is hell; it’s a million fires and a black hole and anguish and fear. It’s empty and all you know is it’s not the way it was supposed to be.

I’m sorry that you’re there. I’m sorry someone you love is there. Divorce leaves you broken and in my own I realized that broken was the only place where I gave God room to come in.

I guess if you’re here and looking for an answer or a glimmer of light or a breath of air as you search the internet for some way to possibly hurt less, that would be it.

Be broken, give God room to come in.

And I’m sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.

Much love,

Anne

June 10, 2013