If you're a faithful "What If" reader, and you've paid any attention what so ever, I shouldn't have to tell you that last fall held some difficult times for me. For no reason and many reasons, all jumbled together, I struggled with finding joy in my day to day life. I don't know if I should call it depression, which is not a term I throw around lightly. I don't use that term to mean "sad," it was more like: don't want to get out of bed, more bad days than good days for months on end, can't remember what it feels like to not feel like this. As a believer, I know that happiness may be circumstantial, but joy is not. So where was my joy? Try as I may, I just couldn't will myself out of the pit. And I tried hard to just ignore it because I had no good reason to feel so bad. And if you're a friend of mine and didn't know, don't worry about it, I'm just that good at faking it. It was months before I let David know.

I still don't have a firm grasp on what was going on with me for that 4 or 5 month period, but as one who over analyzes and "what ifs" and questions and second guesses everything...I have decided to just let go of "why" and praise God for His rescue. I say this because, I feel good again. I am sleeping well at night, and as I sit on the edge of the bed each morning, I realize I am more annoyed with my alarm clock than I am dreading the day ahead, which had become such a familiar burden. I am content in deep places, I am satisfied, I'm really okay. My good days far outnumber my bad; in fact, I don't remember my last "bad" day. Well, correction, I indeed remember my last bad day, but circumstances deemed it a bad day. It wasn't a bad-for-no-good-reason bad day,which is what I had become accustomed too. My laugh is back. In fact, I find myself laughing too much, as in laughing an inappropriate amount or at inappropriate times. I find myself laughing so hard and so often that I am slightly annoyed at the sound of my own laughter. If you have recently been in a social situation where you found my laughter to be a bit much, you'll have to forgive me, I'm making up for lost time. I often laugh out of the blue over something I heard a day or a week or a month ago. Fear of little people...seals...Japanese whaling...things that are NOT funny, but you'll find me laughing about them...I have my reasons :) I just can't describe how light my lightness feels following the tremendous weight.

Okay, I've gotten way off track. For a couple days now I've been asking why or how or when? What caused the shift, when did I make the turn, why am I feeling so much better? I don't have an answer but this morning, my devotional led me to Psalm 40 and I think I'm beginning to catch on:

2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
He set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

3 He put a new song in my mouth...

So, here's where I am now: wallowing in great appreciation and awareness that He did a work in me, He did. I couldn't help myself. Try as I may, I could not will myself better. He picked me up, dusted me off and set me on solid ground. He put a new song in my mouth...which is a good thing because I couldn't even remember the words to my old song. For months I would say, God I can't remember what it feels like to just feel like me. But you know, I'm still not her. Follow me: my God is too good and loving a God to just pick me up and return me to where I was, instead He picked me up and moved me to a better place. Rather than reinstate me to my former self, which is all I asked for, He gave me a new song. Oh, that gets me.

So what's different now? Just me, nothing else. Almost everything that was a part of my life 6 months ago still is: same struggles, same relationships, same sameness. But I changed, He changed me.