Category: depression

I’m a Riddle to Myself

They tell me that courage is to do something that frightens you. That it is being strong in the face of pain and suffering. If that’s true (and I suspect that it is) then I haven’t arrived yet. I’m a spiritual “chicken.” I’m no eagle yet.

It seems at times I’ve been ‘gifted’ with cowardice! 😁

I struggle at times with chronic depression, and am physically handicapped. I have lost the use of my right arm and hand. I no longer have any balance and must use a cane. This is due to a brain tumor I had in 2002. I’ve had over a dozen head injuries which only has compounded the ataxia.

I admit I sometimes get angry with God. I also get spiritually confused as I try to walk like Jesus wants me too. My frustration with Him is all foolishness when I think of all He has given me. I pretend at these times, and I do it well I think.

I’m also afflicted with a terrible disease called “Facebookitist.”

I find that this blog I write sometimes covers up a multitude of my own sins. You see and read what I want you to see. I polish up things to preserve a modicum of spiritual decency. I want you to see me as faithful and triumphant. A real disciple, (but alas, that’s often a bit of a stretch).

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games.”

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

“As Thomas Merton put it, “A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.”

Brennan Manning

I once was confronted by a younger believer, “I don’t know you, brother, you’re like two different people.” And honestly I’m sure he was right. I am, and it disturbs and saddens me.

And what is the truth often scares me. I’m often a spiritual coward who tries to speak the things that are real and true. (A clown trying very hard to play “Hamlet.”) I occasionally realize I will write something that’s spiritually false, and that scares me. “Kyrie Eleison.” God have mercy on me, a sinner.

I think all I want is God’s stamp of approval. “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And perhaps yours as well?

I realize that I end up wanting truth which is no small thing. Many lies must be stripped away and that seems to take time. It’s like scraping away layers of varnish on a table you’re working on. I’m pretty much coated with sin. I desperately need the truth to survive.

All I really know is that I love Jesus, and I seek to be filled with His Spirit. I keep coming, over and over, to Him. He holds on to me.

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”

     C.S. Lewis

“Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.”

Brennan Manning

When Faith Doesn’t Seem to Work

by Terry Powell

I am not a Christian because my faith “works” for me. Talk to a devout Mormon, Muslim, or Buddhist and he’ll extol the here-and-now benefits of his faith. He’ll cite a serenity of spirit, or a sense of order that believing brings to his life. Yet his belief system contradicts mine, so logically these various faiths cannot all be true!

If I were a Christian just because faith has utility for me, because my days are more likely to unfold in a smooth, trouble-free manner, I’d be a pragmatist, pure and simple. And I’d be prone to shuck my commitment to Christ the moment a different philosophy or religion appeared to offer me more.

Don’t get me wrong. Following Christ is not without rewards in the present. My faith often sustains me, provides perspective for decision-making, and injects happiness rooted in a biblical worldview.

But not all the time.

There’s the inevitable warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil to contend with. And in my case, either chronic depression or other weaknesses of temperament sometime get the best of me. I’ll keep praying for relief and I’ll strive for sound mental health, yet I don’t want to be among the growing number of Christians who expect God to give them on earth what He only promised for heaven.

From a theological perspective, I’m a Christian because God chose me and initiated a relationship with me (Eph. 2:1-10). From a human perspective, my faith is in Christ not because it works, but because I believe Christianity is true. And truth is objective reality, not a subjective experience. No matter how I feel, or how my day goes, truth doesn’t change. Truth just is. I wrote this poem to convey this point.

Nature of Truth

When all hope yields to despair

and I doubt that God is there;

when my heart is cold, unfeeling,

and my prayers bounce off the ceiling;

when depression takes its toll

and winter winds assault my soul;

when the race seems all uphill

and dying grows in its appeal;

when things don’t go as expected—

still, God’s Truth is unaffected.

In the long run, faith works in the sense that I’ll enjoy eternity with my Savior (thanks to His works, not mine). But being a Christian doesn’t shield me from affliction in the here and now. It does assure me of God’s compassion and healing presence: “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds” (Ps. 147:3).

Love, Terry

 

Terry teaches in the areas of Church Ministry and Ministry Leadership at Columbia International University in South Carolina. He has served as a Christian Education staff member for three  churches, and he’s a licensed preacher in the Presbyterian Church of America.  His current books in print are Serve Strong:  Biblical Encouragement to Sustain God’s Servants, and  Now That’s Good A Question!  How To Lead Quality Bible Discussions. Terry has been married for 46 years, and has two sons, a daughter-in-law, one grandson, and a dachshund.  His constant prayer is, “Lord, make me half the man my dog thinks I am!”

Check out his blog at https://penetratingthedarkness.com/. His ministry is focused on Christians experiencing clinical  depression and other mental issues.

 

We Are Not Crushed

“Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.”

2 Corinthians 1:9

To be chronically ill often means living with awful frustration. We can’t do what we want, we are ‘trapped’ by a disease we never asked for, and we’re held hostage by our minds and bodies. We once had a job– a career… and our time was occupied by that.

We wanted something else, anything more than being very sick.

I once was a pastor of a small church. I also taught Gospels for several years in a local Bible Institute. I loved ministry very much. I enjoyed helping people and teaching the Word. I endeavored to be faithful in the ministry. I hope I did.

With the sudden onset of a brain tumor, followed up by a diagnosis of severe depression, my life more or less exploded. I had extensive memory loss. I knew I had to step out of the ministry. I simply could not function. It was a hard thing to leave it behind.

The post-op recovery following the tumor was an ordeal, as I had to relearn much. A few years later I ended up on disability; I was unable to work, and my symptoms were so unpredictable. I dealt with profound depression and a solid dose of paranoia and fear.

My depression grew even more profound with the stillborn death of our third child just 3 days before her delivery, Things suddenly ground to a standstill as my wife and I tried to process all of this. I guess I just couldn’t understand and more or less just shut down. I spent months in bed, unable to function.

The isolation of being ill seems worse than the pain. We wonder why this is happening to us, and we hear lies about our own unworthiness or God’s anger. We think that the Church has abandoned us. We can feel cursed, forgotten, or even worse. (Maybe even irrevocably lost?)

Satan craves our spiritual destruction, and he snares unsteady souls.

I admit I have been slow to learn this– but God brings good things out of the dark. I’m embarrassed by my personal lack of acquiring all of this. Now I’m starting to learn finally, and I want His words to reflect these truths.

I’m learning how to walk in brokenness.

His light will shine, and the treasure is found in clay vessels. Brokenness only means the treasure is now seen clearly. It’s important to note–jewels lose none of their value by being surrounded by broken clay. Our weaknesses are being turned into goodness, understanding, and love for our brothers and sisters.

Troubles of many varieties will pay us a visit. Count on it.

“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Bryan Lowe

Visit my new site: alaskabibleteacher.com

Walking the Tightrope

The Balancing Act

Circus performers have my enthusiastic admiration– especially the tightrope walkers! They move with such grace and courage. Their work above the crowds must be perfect, or else. I don’t even want to consider their failure. (I hope they can bounce).

To be a mentally ill or disabled Christian is just as formidable. We must walk out our condition 24/7, 365 days a year. It is relentless. We struggle with a weakness that pits us against symptoms and gravity of a spiritual kind. We get little support from others– sometimes criticism. It often is a very solitary feeling. We are often overlooked or scorned.

My particular rope is depression. Everyday I mount up and walk out on to it, holding my breath. I still fall a lot, but have a good safety net, and the Holy Spirit is my strength. Losing my balance happens. I pick myself up and climb up the ladder for another go at it.

“In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. 10 And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us. 11 And you are helping us by praying for us.”

2 Corinthians 1:9-11, NLT

We must rely on God. It is His “job” to keep us, repeatedly. So day by day I “walk the line.” My meds are my balance pole, and I don’t need any special attention. I do whatever the day brings, and even that is from His hand.