Category Archives: personal testimony
When Sin Brutalizes You
When Our Sin Overwhelms Us “There are three things for certain. #1 You will never forget your sins. #2 God has forgotten them. #3 The Devil will try to make you remember your sins. The question is who are we going to side with? God says our sins are past, cleansed, and gone. You cannot go on with [...]
Fear & Loathing in Hawaii
A year before I received Christ as my Savior, I was hospitalized in a U.S. Army psychiatric ward. My uniform was replaced with the distinctive attire of a mental patient. Ironically, I had been attached to the same hospital as a medic on the labor & delivery floor. And to make things only slightly more surreal was that [...]
Heaven: To Sun Ourselves in His Smiles
A boy stood on a windy hillside, flying a kite. He continued to release the string of the kite and it went higher and higher until it was completely out of sight. One of his friends walked up and asked how he knew there was still a kite on the other end. He replied. “I [...]
The Hopelessness of Mental Illness
I’ve seemed to have settled down into a blackness that defies all explanation. I’m dodging being hospitalized, and they can’t put me where I don’t want to go. Hopelessness swirls me around and I feel like a bug going down a drain. Thoughts of suicide are becoming more concrete and despair is becoming a frequent visitor. [...]
Mannequin Logic
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:22 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5 When you were [...]
Give Us This Day, Our Daily Meds
My particular issue is with Bipolar 1, with psychotic features. I have social anxiety which factors in as well as weird delusions. The anxiety and delusions are pretty much one and the same. They are often the things that will touch other people, while the rest is less obtrusive and can be hidden. I have [...]
The Fishbowl and Your Pastor
Having been a senior pastor for three years, and in full-time ministry 20+ years, I have had to adjust to the constant surveillance of my life and my families. To be so visible, was wearying and maybe even demeaning at times. I was constantly “center-stage.” It’s funny but these two ingredients– the fishbowl and my Pastor’s [...]
Understanding Bread
I have learned a lot about my Christian walk in the last few years. Most of it has been gathered from ordinary life experiences. Like working on a farm, hanging wallpaper, driving too fast in a cornfield (!). If I set long enough I can list 100 more, each with a lesson or two. Been thinking [...]
The Scary Part of Depression
“Must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you All through my life? –sharing my fire, my bed, Sharing–oh, worst of things!–the same head?– And, when I feed myself, feeding you, too?” Edna St. Vincent Millay The critical issue we face is the reality of living with ourselves through an acute episode of depression or mania. I [...]