Lindsay L. O'Connor

Image text: It can be hard to empathize with someone else’s story when you’re drowning in your own.

If you’re in survival mode, don’t let shame be piled on top of it all.

Let go of the need to perform and instead, try to allow. The lessons of transformation will present themselves.

Sometimes the best gift you can give the world is to take care of yourself first. Transformed people transform the world.

I’m praying for people in this place to have moments to rest in their belovedness.I struggled with 2 rounds of postpartum depression. The second time, I was frustrated with myself. I thought that if I had “learned the lessons” the first time, I wouldn’t be back in the same place again. On top of the energy it took to take care of my basic needs and my children’s while battling sleep deprivation, anxiety, & depression, I was scrambling frantically to try to hurry up and learn whatever lesson God was trying to teach me so that I could move on.One of the best encouragements I received was when my dad said to me with deep compassion, “It’s not a performance. Sometimes God wants to walk through this with you.”

Great suffering presents us with lessons, to be sure, but they occur as we give ourselves over to transformation by allowing and resting in God’s love and getting the help that we need. We get out of bed, feed ourselves, drink some water, make the doctor appointment, take the medicine, breathe in and out, ask for help, and stop trying to perform. We count on others to pray for us and stand in the gap when we just can’t. We wait for God to bring us back to ourselves.

Then, one day, I looked back and could see that while I thought I was just surviving, I was experiencing some of the most painful parts of transformation. I didn’t like it and wouldn’t ask for it, but I also know that I’ll never be the same.

If you are in survival mode, may God help you let go of the need to perform and achieve and instead, to rest in your unshakable, unconditional belovedness. Then, one day, when you look back, may you see how you were held as you were being beautifully, painfully transformed. Transformed people transform the world.