We went to Collegiate's annual staff conference last week, and it's a time I love because there are women there who have been working in college ministry (or participating as their husbands work, or both) for a long time. They've raised children within our church network, but the kids aren't with them (and E wasn't with me), so we can really sit and talk.

Something that was said has been going around and around in my head:

You don't have to be mentally healthy to glorify God.

And those are words that nourish my heart. My body chemistry right now is really messing with the way I normally function. I'm very hope-driven and fun-oriented. Those things can take a hit with more-than-full-time parenting and pregnancy without adding medicine that further reduces my capacity for hope and for fun. I don't feel like me.

But I don't have to be healthy to glorify God. I don't have to be stable or strong or not cry about nothing.

It's given me a way to reroute this experience through a different lens from my norm. It helps me remember that I don't have to participate in these feelings. I can experience them, but I can do it with the recognition that my body chemistry is influencing how I perceive my life.

It's helped me remember that, for emotional people, we can sometimes only see life through our emotional experience, and that's not healthy. It's not good to ignore or suppress them, but they shouldn't be our guide. We need to take captive our emotions and bring them to Jesus, just as we are our thoughts.

So yeah, everything feels bad and I'm having a hard time enjoying life, but that doesn't mean I can't experience this season in a way that gladdens the heart of the One who made me (and this placenta that is TOTALLY FALLING DOWN ON THE JOB). And He knows why this is happening and when it will stop and just how it feels. And I am comforted.