Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
Author: Pastor Bryan Lowe
A repentant rascal with definite issues, but who is seeking to be authentic in his faith to Jesus Christ.
An avid reader and a hopeful writer. Husband and father. A pastor and Bible teacher. A brain tumor survivor. Diagnosed with clinical depression, and now disabled.
Enjoys life, such as it is, in Alask.a (Actually I have it pretty good.)
Here are some more, I hope that they bless you somehow. All were painted out of a long season of deep depression. Painting these (and a lot of others) was the only thing that kept me sliding off the edge. Some might ask, how can you create these out of your Bipolar Disorder? To be honest, I am just as mystified as you.
“An artist has been defined as a neurotic who continually cures himself with his art.” (Lee Simonson)
The Bipolar MindThree Crows Having Lunch
All of these paintings have been given to various non-profit organizations, for the handicapped and the mentally ill. To me, that is the place they belong.
“If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.” (Herodotus)
Kachemak Bay, with moonlightStraight on view
Doing my best, and feeling my worst. I make no pretense to being an “artist” so if you don’t care for these paintings I will understand. But for me one painting is worth 20 Zoloft.
Holding on, with a makeshift easel…it doesn’t matter
May God’s presence come near to you today and may you understand his outlandish love for you.
“Artists are just as important as doctors and nurses. People need nourishing of their souls as well as their bodies; in Navajo culture the word for ‘medicine man’ and the ‘artist’ are one and the same.” (Marni California)
We have a built-in a deep, voracious hunger for God and nothing can change that fact. You will never find anything that will satisfy this craving. My lovely wife loves chocolate, and I love my lattes. But they absolutely pale in the light of Him; there is no comparison. Fact #1, we were made to walk with God.
“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”–Blaise Pascal
Life unfolds before you, and your life has a definite purpose. Fact #2, God wants to connect you to himself. In the Garden-of-Eden days, Adam and Eve had this incredible relationship with him. The Bible tells us that God desired to “walking in the garden in the the cool of the day.” He has not changed. He wants to go hiking with you!
C.S. Lewis once said, “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
Some of us who are reading this suffer from mental issues. Others struggle with broken relationships and divorce. There are those who deperately live out of their physical difficulties, illnesses and addictions.
I invite you to consider a life with God through Jesus. Fact #3, your load will not be any lighter nor your path less challenging. But walking with God will fufill your dreams of purpose and meaning. His love and forgiveness can surround you and give you a new life. It would be a honor to help you make this step.
Arranged by topic, these observations will be having you think about the roles of men and women and how they differ.
SHOPPING: A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need.
WORRY: A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
SUCCESS: A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
HAPPINESS: To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
BEAUTY: Men wake up as good-looking as when they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.
CHANGE: A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, but she does.
MATURITY: Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.
BATHROOMS: The typical man has six items in his bathroom – a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.
OFFSPRING: A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
DRESSING UP: A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.
This could also suggest a difference
LAUNDRY: Women do laundry every few days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the Laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by re-runs of old American sitcoms.
EATING OUT: When the check comes, Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack will each throw in $20 bills, even though the total bill is only $22.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their check, out come the pocket calculators.
MENOPAUSE: When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of these changes varies with the individual. Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction – he buys a motorcycle and/or a Porsche and flirts with pretty young girls.
TOYS: Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and impractical. Examples of men’s toys: little miniature TV’s. Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve cocktails on command. Video games. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires at least 6 “D” batteries to operate.
JEWELRY: Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get away with a watch and one ring. That’s it. Any more than that and he usually looks ridiculous.
TIME: When a woman says she’ll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she’s using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football game just has five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.
FRIENDS: Women on a girl’s night out talk the whole time. Men on a boy’s night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are “Pass the Doritos” or “Got any more beer?”
RESTROOMS: Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in a restroom will never speak a word to each other. Women who’ve never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, “Hey, Tom, I’m going to the men’s room. Do you want to join me?”
Broken Believers 