How I got here: Part one

Finally, I'm writing the story that inspiring my new blog. I'm starting at the beginning and telling the story the way I lived it. I hope writing it out will help me understand and grow in faith, and I pray you'll gain something from reading it, too!


It was a typical Wednesday morning. Nothing strange had happened. I was not under the mysterious power of PMS or being treated for depression.

And yet I was in a “fog” that was somewhat unfamiliar and yet familiar at the same time. I was sad but couldn’t put my finger on why. Then it hit. Tears – the big, chunky kind – combined with snot and shoulder heaving. I didn’t know what happened. It was an ordinary day. I wasn’t a sad person. But I was having an emotional breakdown right in midst of the other morning commuters on Interstate 55.

As suddenly as the emotions had hit, I attempted to suppress them. At first it was useless. They had a chokehold on me. I began talking to myself – out loud in my car, banging the steering wheel for emphasis. What a sight I must have been!


“Get a hold of yourself."
"You aren’t a sad person."
"You don’t get depressed."
"This is ridiculous."
"You can control this.”

And finally I did. For approximately 40 minutes. Until I made a rather impulsive remark while instant messaging a co-worker that I 'may or may not return to work the next day.' Thirty seconds later, she was in my office closing my door and demanding an explanation for a remark that was so unlike me.

I didn’t know why I had said it. Then tears hit again, plus the addition of a quivering lip even as I tried to stop them from coming. Thankfully she was patient and understanding, as I searched for an explanation to what was going on in my mind – in between tissues, loud nose blowing and lots of blubbering. My words, usually so carefully chosen, came without forethought. Even though she later said they’d been written across my face for weeks, they shocked me:

“I’m not happy. I don’t know why."
"It’s not like this job is miserable."
"I love the people here, but I just don’t want to be here.”

I felt stuck. I WAS stuck – in sadness, hopelessness, anger, regret. I was overwhelmed suddenly by the life I was living. And the emotional attack hit just as my friend Lorna said it would – later, without warning.

Rewind the hands of time to early December. I was headed home when traffic came to a halt on Route 29. Clearly there was an accident. Obviously it was at my church, where I was headed to pick up my kids from the after-school program. That turn-in is so dangerous, and there have so many near-misses and accidents there that nearly everyone I know who lives in our small community has been involved in one, my family included. I say a prayer every day at 4:30 -- the approximate time Dan picks up the kids.

Because of an unusual set of circumstances, I was picking up the kids. Otherwise, he may well have been the one in the accident, because it happened right around his pickup time.


Cars peeled away from the backed-up traffic, turning around to take back roads home instead. My car slowly crept forward over the course of an hour to finally reveal the scene – a frightening explosion of flashing lights around the entrance to my church and scattered across the church parking lot.

A lump formed in my throat. My stomach lurched upward. It was more than likely someone picking up their child. From the scene unfolding in front of me and the ambulance without flashing lights leisurely passing on its way to Springfield, it seemed not just probable but likely that someone didn’t survive.

I pushed the thought aside as I loaded my children into the car and back through the directed traffic at the church entrance. I began helping Dan finish up dinner when I arrived home and then quickly got on the State Journal-Register and Facebook to see if there was any news.

A guttural moan involuntarily escaped my lips when I saw a post asking for prayers for my church’s children’s minister and his preschool age son – Lorna’s husband and child. After a few frantic moments, I decided to call her. No answer. I grabbed Dan and told him I had to go. He could come or not, but I knew if something happened to him, she would be at the hospital – or wherever – praying by my side.

Strange that those were my exact words to my husband because less than a week later, it was him.