Taking it Outside

By Molly Hallenbeck

When my second child was an infant, and it was winter, and I may have had a slightly serious case of postpartum depression that I blatantly refused to identify, and I also had a one year old who had barely begun to walk, and we had just started a business, and had no money, and I was a bit of a mess, (never saw that coming, did you?) I would take the compost out to the garden every night after dinner.

Not because I enjoy the aroma of carrot peels, coffee grounds, and onion skins, but just to be outside for a few minutes. I would offer up my paltry petitions to the Father of Lights, and try to suck in as much cold fresh air as I could.

Sometimes I would breathe so big and fast it would hurt. Or I would hyperventilate. (Tingling extremities are not necessarily from the cold – a lack of oxygen can be a serious problem.)

But it helped. If only for a minute (literally); to speak to the Creator in the middle of his creation and remember that although my world was spinning out of control, our world was spinning on its axis. Just the way it’s supposed to.

I know only a bit about the science of the creation we’ve been given, but the stars are beautiful, and the sunset is breathtaking, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, outside the Father’s hand.