I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Phil. 3:13-14

A hundred years ago, when lumberjacks cut down trees, they floated them downstream in the flooded spring rivers. Sometimes the logs would jam the river and cause a standstill. They’d create a dam and all the force of the river might explode behind the jam and flood everything nearby.

I know I’m not the only one who gets dragged down into a mental log jam. In the hard places of life, my difficult emotions crowd into each other and clog up my brain until I’m paralyzed and ready to explode.  

Yesterday, my husband’s day off, I felt irritated with how the day was going. It didn’t take me long to slide from slightly grumpy to “I don’t even want to be here anymore. Everything about this day sucks.” 

I was crying on my bed, about to text my friend an SOS when Nate came in, we talked, and then I got up and started tidying the bedroom. We began some projects, spent some time with the kids – nothing fancy, just some checkers and superhero playtime – and the day picked up momentum. By evening, when we hosted new friends for Memorial Day and shared some smoked pork and laughter, everything felt okay. The sun had started shining again, literally and figuratively, and I knew, going to bed last night, that things were going to be fine. 

Depression sucks us back into the past. I’m a failure. Everything is too hard. I’ve had such a rotten life. Nobody’s ever there for me. 

Anxiety takes you to the future. What’s going to happen? What if…? What about…? Do they still like me? Am I screwing everything up?

Loggers watched the river closely when they floated their wood downstream. They’d jump to force loose any trouble logs that started jamming before they got stuck. 

To get our heads out of the logjam, we have to move our bodies. Curled up on my bed scrolling Facebook or crying keeps me stuck and pulls me down farther. Sometimes, I can’t face the thought of a whole day stretching in front of me. But I can handle the thought of five minutes. I can do anything for five minutes. 

So I evaluate. What can I do for five minutes? 

* Empty the dishwasher?
* Take a quick walk?
* Sit down and play tic-tac-toe with my kids?
* Get a drink of water or a healthy snack?
* Write down 5 things I’m grateful for? 

“I press on,” Paul says. Focus on the one thing ahead of me. Pressing on means getting up and acting instead of just staying in my head.

I’ve been stuck in my head about my writing the past week. I feel like I’m making progress, taking steps forward, and then I get scared. I’m asking God where he’s taking me and what he wants me to speak. But today I was stuck. So I got out my journal and started rambling. Incomplete, incoherent thoughts. But I wrote, and the fears got unstuck. 

All the sticks of fear and overwhelm got jammed up in the river of my brain. So I had to press on. Force some of them loose and they washed out. 

Science is proving things like simply taking a walk everyday can reduce depression. To shake loose the overwhelm, I can move my body and get my mind in sync with my actions. 

We can move forward. 

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