An Anchored Hope

I just love the autumn… mainly because I prefer the slightly cooler weather and the beautiful colours on the leaves.

This time last year I was in the middle of the worst sleep deprivation of my life. I was hallucinating. Crying. Barely human. Stumbling through each moment trying to distinguish between night and day. We had our first baby.

A year later I am able to breathe. Getting through postnatal depression isn’t easy. Raising a little one is such a big responsibility and change – but a joy. It’s a new season – autumn 2018 – and I am so thankful to be sat typing a blog post from my heart.

As I took a walk yesterday with pushchair in front and crunching the leaves underneath my feet, I paused in the beauty of it all. Seeing a father playing with his children as they were laughing together. Listening to the wind sweep through the branches of the trees as if to say ‘it’s time for a new season…’. Feeling the crisp, cool air against my cheeks, I have thought about how I have lived the seasons of my life so far. Seasons do come and go.

This blog was born in one of the most difficult seasons of my life. Chemotherapy going in, words coming out. The chemotherapy has stopped but the words keep coming. In this new season, I am going back to the Word. The Word that has sustained me from my earliest days and continues to lift my eyes up in wonder to the Lord who is near.

It’s easy in the continuous harsh winter of social media to compare myself to others, to soak in their seasons and feel envy bubble up inside. But that is not my season. Every season of my life, I want to be ready for what God has planned for me. It will look different from everyone else’s life because I am Ruth. I am hoping that this blog will go back to its well-watered roots.

Reading Jeremiah recently, I am reminded to not get my strength from myself or from what is going on around me but to trust in the Lord and to place my confidence in him.

He will be like a tree planted by water:
it sends its roots out toward a stream,
it doesn’t fear when heat comes,
and its foliage remains green.
It will not worry in a year of drought
or cease producing fruit. Jeremiah 17:8

Whatever season of life I find myself in, I want to be like that tree. When the pressure rises, the trials come, the temptations press in, I will abide in Christ alone for living water comes from him. He is the vine and I am a branch that is holding onto Him. Life in all its fullness and beauty can be found in Him. For that reason alone, the pressure is off me and I can rest in this truth. And breathe…