Move Out Of Your Head, And Into Your Heart.

I heard this story at church yesterday.  I couldn't help but feel like it describes my life perfectly right now.  It's called "God's Embroidery."

When I was a little child, my mother used to embroider a great deal.  I would sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing.  She informed me that she was embroidering.  As from the underside I watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand, I complained to her that it sure looked messy from where I sat.

She would smile at me, look down and gently say, "Child, you go about your playing for a while, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put you on my knee and let you see it from my side."

I would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so jumbled from my view.  A few minutes would pass and then I would hear my Mother's voice say, "Child, come and sit on my knee."  This I did only to be surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a sunset.  I could not believe it, because from the underneath it looked so messy.

Then Mother would say to me, "My child, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn plan on the top.  It was a design.  I was only following it.  Now look at it from my side and you will see what I was doing."

Many times through the years I have looked up to my Heavenly Father and said, "Father, what are You doing?"  He has answered, "I am embroidering your life."  I say, "But it looks like a mess to me.  It seems so jumbled.  The threads seem so dark.  Why can't they all be bright?"  The Father seems to tell me, "My child, you go about your business of doing My business, and one day I will bring you to Heaven and put you on My knee and you will see the plan from My side."

My life is messy right now.

And I am patiently awaiting the day when it will all make sense.

- - - - -

Sometimes it's so tough to distinguish between what is marriage and what is depression, because they both came into my life at the same time.  It wasn't until we had been married for about two months that I was diagnosed with depression; which means I had established a habit of blaming all the pain and sadness I was feeling on the fact that I was married.  While struggling to transition all my blame and anguish from marriage to depression, I received some priceless advice from a most beloved old roommate:  My uncle Robb.  He told me to:

"Move out of your head, and into your heart."

He was completely right.  Since depression had taken me hostage, I had been spending nearly every waking second in my head.  I could spend hours stewing on how my life was over; mourning the loss of my car and dream job; longing for my family and home; essentially just listing all the reasons I had to be sad.  Which strangely enough only made me more sad.  And put a huge barrier between the hubby and myself.

So I tried packing up and moving to my heart.  Instead of thinking, I tried feeling.  Instead of listing all my problems, I tried listening to other people's problems.  Instead of analyzing my new life, I tried feeling for the love in my marriage.  Before long, I started to feel like my old self again.  Happy. 

I'll admit, things haven't suddenly been perfect since moving into my heart, I've had my setbacks and there are definitely days when I retreat back into my head.  However, I'm beginning to see how life is supposed to be lived.  In the heart.

To the brain, the back of the embroidery can sometimes look completely illogical and preposterous.  It could take quite awhile to think yourself through what it's trying to be, and you'll undoubtedly isolate yourself along the way.  It's so much better to let yourself feel the excitement of the unknown, to cherish each strand, and to embrace that no matter what, in the end the picture is going to make sense and be beautiful.  

Home really is where the heart is.