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Battling mental illness as a young mom
I’m not sure if many people would say the year after they spent a week in a mental health hospital was the best year of their life. But I would.
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My troubles had started years earlier. My husband, Ryan, and I had always talked about wanting four children. We had our daughter, Nadia, and shortly before her first birthday we found out I was pregnant with our second child. But only a few days later, I had an early miscarriage. To say I was devastated would be a complete understatement. Ryan was at a conference several hours away, and I called him crying so hard he could not understand what I was saying.
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In the years that followed, I was unable to get pregnant again. We would go to family gatherings every month and get asked when we were going to have another baby. I would feel so anxious and angry. I would feel sick to my stomach for days before every gathering. But I bottled up everything inside and never told anyone. I had been hurt and betrayed in the past and struggled to trust others.
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Ryan, a teacher, received a call to be the church music director at Bethany, Manitowoc, Wis., so we moved to Wisconsin. I thought things would be better. I had a husband who stuck with me through the ups and downs. We had a funny, creative daughter who is always full of laughter. We had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and I had a position teaching voice lessons at the area Lutheran high school. But every day I was plagued by the same thoughts running over and over through my head—how I had been hurt, how it still hurt. This had been going on for years.
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At one point shortly before I got very sick, I looked this up online: What does it mean if I’m never happy? Results for depression came up, and I thought, That’s ridiculous! I am not depressed. I had so much to be grateful for, and I just needed to keep toughing it out.
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When Chanti and Zach Sanchez moved from California to Texas in 2018, they were just looking for an affordable, safe place to raise their family. Since then, however, they found more than a nice home and community. They found a church family and the true gospel . . .
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Do you trust the TV news? I cringe when I hear a newscaster announce that a jury “found the defendant innocent.” In American law, no one is found innocent; a person is either guilty or not guilty. Innocence describes a person’s moral state. It’s like having a jury find . . .
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Many US churches were surprised this year when they suddenly lost their property insurance coverage. Many factors have impacted the insurance industry. Wildfires in California, hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and . . .
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