Living Grateful by Samantha Cabrera
Doesn't depression cause our one broken mind to be so aware that we are broken, so we need to harbor close every given moment? I look to the stretched golden fields that just awoke to the morning light, and I cry out how I want to live fully given to my family.
I feel my broken brain break open even more as I consider living given to my husband and son. So, for those suffering from deep brokenness of the mind—let me share my table with you:
Living given is to show up. I pull off the milky covers while the sunlight barely spills into our room so I can go to my crying son to feed him full. While I hold my darling boy on my lap with the milk bottle pouring into him—I whisper a groaning prayer:
Oh, Father, sustain me this day. I surrender my thoughts and my emotions to you. I want to be fully present for my son today. I want to do everything with dignity and with the desire to be holy before you. Help me be the wife and mother you've called me to be today. Amen.
My son looks up at me with the bottle of milk still in his mouth—his brown eyes innocent and pure—and I brush my lips on his tawny hair. I feel the joy close in on me, knowing I'll be showing up today as I let my son slide down my legs to crawl to his toys. Naturally, he gravitates to board books; I read about five or more books a day to him, and it's no wonder he can flip the pages by himself already. Together with the ravenous caterpillar, we've devoured a whole lot of food and colors and words; it happens to be one of the most joyous moments throughout my day because my mind is focused on living given to my son and not how fractured my thoughts are.
I watch his eyes soak in the shapes and sounds, and it's in these moments the soundness spills into my soul. I feel complete. Whole. Full. Hopeful.
When my broken body is fully surrendered to others, I realize that this is when I truly live in abundance. This is when I live fully given to the one my soul loves and the ones I've been given to love sacrificially.
As the sun begins to rest for the day and my aching feet feel heavy, I still walk my way down the stairs to cook dinner for my husband and me. I take out the wheat pasta and the salad to serve a meal that will fill us and nourish us. Our farm table is a long carved wooden piece that can sit ten souls, but I somehow still relish when it is just the two of us by candlelight.
His eyes glow brown, and everything in me melts to love him more deeply. How was your day, my love? He asks over a bite of sorrel pasta. It was good. I say, and I drink from my cup. What made it good? He continues. My past character would be riddled in restiveness—but now? I look into my doctor's eyes as the sunlight dances in them, and I can only smile. After all that we've been through together and with the arrival of our sweet son—my days are pregnant with the goodness of God. My husband had tears in his eyes after I told him our day.
I didn't realize he was gazing at me so tenderly while I spoke. He grabbed my hand and brushed it with his fingers. I'm proud of you, my love. I want every day to be like that for you. Don't give up. Don't ever give up.
Living out in the country was a good move for us after five years in a bigger city; I'm not too fond of the precipitancy of large cities. Looking out upon the meadows leaves me a bit more stilled, a sort of cessation that leaves me better than I was before. I can leave the rebukers and accusers in my mind and focus on the simple, fragile things, like the way the milkweeds and cornflowers billow in the wind, or the way the beryl swallows fly together in unison, or the bend and grazing of the cows scattered on the open land at golden hour. It's a heap of goodness here, and I welcome all of it. This is home for us; my frayed mind enjoys this kind of celestial serenity—maybe because it leaves room for my thoughts to lope like the steeds do, in a kind of insouciant way. My broken spirit needs to see the open spaces—the wildflowers, the pruned orchards, the resting marigolds, and the tenders of the soil. It's amicable for my one battered soul. Sometimes, I feel like my spirit has been so frayed through trauma and pain that it feels unmendable. But then I hear a gentle voice, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise[i].
I look out on the pastureland where the cows huddle under the shaded oak trees in the heat of the day. While we are languishing in our brokenness—just desperate even for shade—God still anguishes with us—because He meets us in our broken-heartedness and comes close to our agony. His voice is like a promise—like a murmur of the fallows; it's in this barren land that's been harrowed and left unsown that will bear the goodness of my anguishing one day because a field broke open always yields something. And I do feel it—I feel it in my body that's growing wider and rounder—carrying new life, and I trust this is the harvest in me.
So, gratefulness? It's in the everyday living of my life...like the words I carve deep in my heart from my husband...don't ever give up.
[i] Psalm 51:17
Samantha Cabrera is a wife, mother, and devout follower of Jesus Christ. She is the founder and editor of Calla Press and desires to glorify The Father through storytelling and creativity. She has her MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University and is a certified ELAR teacher. She believes everyone has a unique story and that we can all be broken storytellers together to tell the holiest of stories.