Life got small when I was depressed. Really small. It used to be big, filled with all sorts of things to make it full. You probably know the things I mean – a good career, friends, a decent social life, vacations, a church community,  ministry and whatnot. And I guess according to some standards, I was quite successful. Life was big, but then suddenly, it started to shrink. And then it got so tiny that I started being able to count my friends on one hand and my acquaintances on two and I stopped going outside and making people laugh and dreaming and planning and caring. My life started shrinking because it had to, because I was sick. Suddenly I couldn’t fulfill the commitments I made and the obligations I had. I couldn’t be the person I had set out to be. When life stopped being big, I could barely get off the couch. That’s a good reason to stop, I think.

But deep down inside I knew that sickness wasn’t the only reason life stopped. One day while I was still in India – still trying so hard to make it, trying to live up to the expectations of others and myself, trying to be successful, trying to serve God to the very best of my ability and with all the gusto I could muster up – I just stopped. I knew I was done. I knew I couldn’t take one more step forward, couldn’t give one more ounce of energy, couldn’t be the person I thought I was – the person I thought God wanted me to be. On this day, God opened up my heart in an unprecedented way. I sat on my apartment porch in New Delhi and  watched the squirrels climb the building walls and the pigeons fly around and chase each other. Watching these creatures had become one of my favourite pastimes and as I watched them I thought about how they were existing exactly the way they were supposed to. In their climbing and flying they were praising God, not because they were singing worship songs or raising their paws, but simply because they were being what they were made to be. I began to realize that the squirrels and pigeons had more peace than me and, more than anything, I wanted what they had.

In this deep longing, suddenly I didn’t care what anyone thought of me anymore. I was done. This big life I had been living crumbled before me. All of my experiences and education and connections became stale to me, and as my dreams shattered I wondered if they were really even my dreams anymore. When you don’t know who you are, how can you belong to your dreams? The dreams I once had now seemed so calculated, so impersonal, so distant – I knew I was loosing them but I also knew I wasn’t the person to hang on to them anymore. That person was gone. I didn’t know who I was, but I knew who I wasn’t. On that day it became so clear to me – I needed out. I needed to stop. I needed to leave the life I had and most of what went with it. I needed to start climbing walls and flying.

And with that, my heart finally cracked open.

Because of this, and because I was very sick, I left India. I left not because India didn’t allow me to do those brave things like climbing walls and flying – not at all. I left India because India represented all the things I knew I no longer was and could no longer be. India was the result of the accumulation of pieces in my life that built me up and held me steady. I left India because I became dependent on these things to help define me. I left a country and people I loved dearly because I realized that I could not love them with a heart that was lost. How could I demonstrate to them the abundant life of Christ if there was no abundance in me?

I wrote in my journal that day:

february 23, 2012
“what if i’m just a girl for awhile? what if i just go home and do normal things and not be “the missionary” or be anything unusual or out of the ordinary? maybe that is my next extraordinary step of faith – to believe that i could just be ordinary.”

When I chose to leave India, I chose to leave life how I knew it. Not just in India, but all of life. And with that, to sever, to burn, to hope, and to live again, but differently this time. I chose to let God redefine me; to let God redefine in my life what faith was, what risk-taking was, what extraordinary was.

The problem was, I had no plan after India, after “long-term, overseas missionary”. That was what I had always worked towards and what I always wanted to “be”. Leaving India was leaving the plan. I didn’t cope all that well, to be honest. Like I said, my once big life became so small that I could barely see it. And what I could see, I despised. I couldn’t work any longer, I couldn’t speak in public, I couldn’t hold conversations very well or express myself appropriately. I couldn’t be with people for long periods of time, and I couldn’t really be with myself. All of my vision and dreams for life disappeared and I couldn’t look beyond the day I was in. Even the day I was in felt like too much to handle. My social circle was impossible to maintain and I had no strength or will to maintain it. Confidence was replaced with timidity, hope with fear, joy with anger. I lost my nerve to try anything new or even anything old. Was this God redefining extraordinary? There were days I just wanted to die.

In the middle of my depression, when I was struggling to just make it through a day, I decided to make a list. I called it my “Things to do in a Day” list (see picture above). A few of the things on this list were:

• watch a movie
• read a chapter in a book
• nap
• write a song
• clean the apartment
• recount what/who you are thankful for
• learn a new chord
• runwalk
• call a friend
• pray

I looked at this list every day and it helped me make decisions. It helped me feel like I had purpose and could still accomplish things. It was probably the best thing I could have done for myself at that time. Believe me, it felt very satisfying to cross “nap” or “walk” off my list. At least I was doing something. During this time, my only work was what was on my list – my work was to get better. I took on no responsibilities, except the personal responsibility to stay alive. I no longer worked hard at being a Christian or at “ministry”, I ripped off my “Hello my name is Missionary” name tag and threw it in the trash, and I stopped dreaming or even thinking about the day after the day I was in. I stopped thinking about what my heart wanted or who I was or what the future might be like with me in it. I stepped away from friends, people I loved and still love. I could no longer could maintain a social life. I wasn’t funny, I wasn’t interesting, I wasn’t intelligent or witty. I had very little to say to people. But I read books now and then, I phoned a friend here and there, I went walking at night, I talked to my mom, I watched TV, I played my guitar, I cried, I slept, I ate, I prayed, and I worked the hardest I  have ever worked in all my life. These were the things I did in a day. These were the things that made up my small life and helped keep me alive.

The amazing thing is, I never stopped loving people during this time. I loved very few people and I certainly didn’t love myself, but I think this love was, in the end, what got me through. When you stop loving people in times of despair, you’re in trouble.The love I had for my family and friends, and the love they had for me, was the only tangible proof I had to hang onto that God was still present. And as He was in the holy act of redefining me, this was where He ended the forest fire of my heart and and where He started to grow something new. All was not lost because I could still love and be loved.

After all that had burned to the ground, love was the ashes that remained.

In ways we don’t ever expect, love keeps us alive. The act of love – the giving and receiving of it in its purest, simplest form – is the most delicious feast we’ll ever eat on this side of heaven. And whether the rest of life has been robbed or even if you intentionally walked away from it for something different, love always remains and never fails. It is the eternal Trinity abiding in you, and if you let Them in, They will make a pauper very, very rich.

As I sat in each day, resting in simple tasks, I began to know God’s love in a way I don’t think I ever had before. I wasn’t doing anything for Him, I wasn’t performing or giving or earning a salary. I had no plans to please God or make Him proud of me, no dreams involving anything to do with His Church, and no desire to make His name known among the nations. And yet it was in this time that I began to embrace a profound mystery that I am still embracing, and one that I will be embracing the rest of my life:

GOD LOVES ME.

I started to heal. And as I healed, I started to enjoy walking and praying and talking to a friend and recounting who and what I was thankful for. Some may say that I started enjoying these things because the chemicals in my body finally told me to, or because I was sleeping again, but I know the truth: joy returned to me because when I knew little else, I knew that my Creator loved me. I didn’t have to do anything for His love. He just loved me. And when you know you’re loved like that, it doesn’t matter how big or small your life may seem to you – your life is actually extraordinary. As I healed, I began to experience a kind of contentment in my life I  had never known before. I didn’t have a job or a cool car or a lot of money or a fascinating social life or a husband or children or a house or a picket fence, but I had contentment. And with this contentment, rooted in the love of my Father, life began to get very, very big. In fact, it became so big that no walls could house it, no ruler could measure it, and no bank account could add it up. And it all started so simply – with the things I did in a day.

But I’m only human.

As my body began to feel stronger and my mind clearer and my emotions more stable, I left the list. I started do other things, to think other ways. This wasn’t all bad either. The joy of once again dreaming and planning for the future was exhilarating and necessary. It was part of my healing, and still is. But I also began to stop thinking about the day I was in. I was still in the day, of course, but I began peaking my head through the window, looking longingly toward the future, and in doing so, forgetting to pull myself back into the day. My prayers became prayers of tomorrow. I stopped sitting in the moment and listening to myself breathe just for the sake of knowing that I was alive, and that being alive was enough. I stopped disciplining my mind and body to stay in the present and simply worship. Not worship God because of my excitement for the future or because of what He did in the past, but simply worship God for who He was in the moment – as if there was no yesterday or tomorrow, no past or future. That kind of worship disintegrates the so-called big things of life in a milli-second and places you exactly where you belong – in this day, which is a part of eternity.

I stopped doing these things on my list because I thought I was better. Better as in “feeling well” and better as in better than them. I thought I didn’t need them anymore. I thought I was strong enough to get back on the horse, and to let life get bigger once again in the way it once had. My “Things to do in a Day” list began to have books piled on it because now I could think again. It got lost in the shuffle of an ever-increasing social life and ministry schedule. “Things to do in a Day” were now about bigger things, stronger things, more important and impacting things. Or so I thought.

When I started coming off my medication I became wobbly again, my emotions began to soar and dip, and hope became dull. Old thoughts started circling around my head and the temptation to let them land in my heart became real again.And land they did. That’s when I remembered my list; that’s when God reminded me of my list. What was I doing?

Is there ever anything more we can do in life than what we can do in a day? 

I began to understand that anything we do in life always grows from small things, from things we do in a day – loving a friend, eating a good meal, resting.  Breathing. Sometimes breathing is enough. Sometimes breathing is the bravest, strongest, most faith-filled, risk-filled thing we will ever do in life. Whatever the case, these small, ordinary things, if we do them in a day, are actually the extraordinary things of life. Who knows what they will grow into – flowers or gardens or forests. But that’s none of our business anyway. What is our business is just today. Dream from this day, plan from this day, but we can’t forget, as we so often do, that this day is actually all we have.

Know you are loved by God, not because of what you do in a day, but because you’ve been given a day to be loved by Him. What a gift! From this place of love and rest and contentment, we just need to figure out what small things we’re going to do in this sacred day. And no matter what, these small things will be extraordinary.

________________

© Stephanie Ratcliff and stephanieratcliff.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Stephanie Ratcliff and stephanieratcliff.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.