Category: despair

Growth in the Troughs of Life

This post has been floating around in my head for almost two weeks now, and I had fully intended to post it here at Broken Believers last weekend, but just didn’t get it done. In retrospect, learning of the great trough our dear brother Bryan is going through, I realize that either I should have made the time or the timing of posting it today is part of God’s design. All I know for sure is that it needs to be posted.

I recently purchased a new book titled The Soul of C.S. Lewis that consists of one-page reflections on various quotes from many of Lewis’ best-loved writings followed by a Bible verse. The book has 10 different contributing authors, and each essay is not attributed to an individual author, but they are all wonderful. Today I want to share a little about one of those essays, along with my own thoughts on the topic at hand.

The Lewis quote that begins the essay is from The Screwtape Letters, one of my favorites of Lewis’ fiction. Although fictional, there is a great deal of truth about the struggles and potential downfalls of the believer in Christ to be found in this short collection of letters between Screwtape, a high-level demon, and Wormwood, his nephew who is a low-level tempter in the minions of Satan. The quote at hand is:

“It is during such trough periods, much more than during peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.” Screwtape, chap. 8, p. 40.

The trough periods Screwtape refers to are the low times in life that for some are manifested as periods of deep depression. Many a strong Christian has experienced such troughs over and over throughout their lives. I have experienced them to differing degrees myself, and our dear Bryan is experiencing just such a trough now. They are certainly no fun, and we often wish we could avoid them altogether, but experience tells us that is not possible. Perhaps it is not even truly preferable in the grand scheme of things as God sees it.

In the essay based on this quote, the author writes:

“Although the emotional peaks are bright and lovely and certainly more enjoyable, that doesn’t mean that the trough is the wrong place for us. The truth is that God is often most at work in the troughs—the hard places where we feel most desolate and alone. Sometimes when we’re trying to clamber back up to the peak, God may be calling us to stay awhile in the trough.”

“At these times we often feel full of confusion, fear, and sadness because we cannot see God’s hand at work, molding us by the very things we wish to escape. It is often only afterward, when he has moved us to a different place, that we can look back and see how he was working in the midst of the difficult spots.” The Soul of C.S. Lewis, pg. 115.

As I read this essay, I was reminded of Psalm 23. This well-known and beloved Psalm begins and ends in the peaks – “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” and “I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” But in the middle is a definite trough – “the valley of the shadow of death.” I’m pretty sure there is no trough deeper or darker than this valley. But – and this is the important part – we don’t travel that valley alone. God is with us in the valley of the shadow of death, He is with us in the troughs of life.

The valleys of deep depression are not signs that we have been forsaken by God or that God has given up on us. He is walking with us through that valley, using every step of the way to help us grow in faith and grace, so that we will be able to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So let us not try to clamber out of the troughs we encounter ahead of God and by our own power, but let us instead walk close by our Lord, following in His footsteps to see where He will lead. He is our Light in the darkness of the deep valley. May we stop to see all that He is illuminating there.

Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” John 12:46 (NIV).

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Focus on a Known God

Note: I recently posted this on my blog, Linda Kruschke’s Blog, and right away I knew I needed to post it here at Broken Believers, too. I hope it will encourage many here.

Some things in life are unknown. Right now I’m facing the unknown of health concerns. After multiple tests, doctors still don’t know what is causing recent symptoms. I do have a list of what it is not. Whenever a test reveals that it is not something else I’m told it is good news. And I know that for the most part it is. But the difficult news remains that we don’t know what it is.

I thought of this post this morning, but decided not to write it because, frankly, I get tired of complaining about my health. I know there are a lot of people worse off than me, and I’m sure it gets old for others to hear about my various maladies.

Then I went to my list of blog subscriptions to see what others had posted for today. I clicked on a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Karla over at Out of Eden Ministries. The post was called “at the beginning going low.” She starts with a discussion of how Rahab the prostitute appears in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:5, and goes on to talk about how God makes the insignificant into a significant part of His plan. Karla writes:

Phone calls and prayers and prostitutes and a scarlet cord and you, yes you. Your life, your love, your pain, your prayer, and your hunger for more. All significant in the plans and the hands of God.”

I immediately knew I had to write this post after all, because although it starts with my insignificant struggle with pain and its unknown cause, it doesn’t end there. It ends with a focus on the known. What I thought of to write for today was how, even though I don’t know what is wrong with me, God does. And even more importantly, I know the truth of what God has revealed in His Holy Word. Here are some truths that I cling to, that I choose to focus on, as I face my insignificant struggles.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 (NIV).

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:17 (NIV).

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5:10 (NIV).

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV).

My own struggles are light and momentary in the grand scheme of the universe and God’s plan. Though I will suffer a little while, Jesus will restore me and make me strong. He will use my sufferings for good in the big picture of His purpose. He has plans to prosper me spiritually, and He will faithfully fulfill this promise.

(You might be wondering why certain words are bolded in the above verses. These are the words I remember and that I used to find these verses on Biblegateway.com, since I seldom remember the actual chapter and verse of the scripture that I have stored up in my heart.)

Karla’s post made me realize that I needed to listen to the prompt in my spirit to post about my struggles and the known promises of God that I choose to focus on, because there just might be someone out there who is struggling too and needs to know that God is with them. If that happens to be you, then hold onto the promises of God and He will see you through.

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In Pursuit of Happyness

By CARONAE HOWELL, From the New York Times, dated July 20, 2009

flight1
To fly away

I’m the kind of woman who spends entire days thinking of nothing but birds: woodcocks, goldfinches, kingfishers. I look for loons everywhere I go. Sometimes I find herons in Central Park and they are mysteries. There is one thing in this world that I envy: the hollowness of bird bones. In the three milliseconds of liftoff, a bird separates itself from its problems. The sky is the freest part of the world.

I have always been depressed, and I have always wanted to fly — not to emulate Superman or to travel faster. I want to fly because of the elation. In my dreams I am a butterfly or a fairy or a honeybee. Depression, for me, is when you want to be a bird, but can’t.

There is a specific moment in which I became a woman. It was February — always the worst month with its aching light and its slip-induced bruises. I had been trying to fall asleep for at least four hours. At 3 a.m., I found myself sobbing and shaking and confused, sitting on my metal dorm bed in the bird-with-a-­broken-wing position. I dug my fingernails into my forearms, leaving shell-shaped trenches behind. I have the kind of skin that refuses to heal, just stays eternally raw and mottled. It was five weeks into my fourth semester.

In late January, a freshman hanged himself in my old dorm. I found myself asking, really, how hard is it to suddenly find yourself perched on a sink, rope around your beautiful neck, ready to fly? How hard? My dad drove through four states to pick me up the next week. On the way home I had tea and ice cream. He asked me if I remembered the time he took too many of his antidepressants. I did not. Nor did I remember my uncle’s suicide (gun to the cerebrum) or my sister’s delicately sliced arms and hips. These were things I had only been told. The space between my skull and my irises hurts sometimes — hurts like the shatter of a tiny bird that has fallen midflight.

And so it was that sour February night that I took the delicate step into the adult world: realizing that I was too depressed to stay at college was realizing I had not only lost my flock; I had fallen from the air entirely. Michigan has many birds. My favorite might be the wood duck, with its banded neck and flat little wings. When I watch birds take off, I hold my breath. They always make it to the sky.

Every Monday morning at 9 I see my therapist, mug of green tea and honey close at hand. I take new pills now. I have a routine: oatmeal in the morning, Wednesday nights with my father. I tell my therapist about Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon.” Who isn’t searching for their people? I arrange my thoughts. (No, I have never been in love and I am, in fact, afraid of men; I panic in Times Square; I grow attached to almost everyone I meet.) I have feathers and questions.

I moved to New York City for college in 2007. School did not grow me into an adult, nor did voting for the first time or doing my own banking. These things were not confrontations. How did I arrive at the place where I could look at my disease and say, “Yes, you are here, but I will not let you take the joy out of looking for birds”? I like to think it was New York, or my newfound discipline, but it was a more internal revolution. I acknowledged my traumas: I was not crazy, just damaged. I was molting. Columbia gave me many new things: a copy of the “Iliad” with a note saying the first six books should be read before orientation, a job in the oral history office, a sense of time management.

But without my sanity — without joy — these things had little value. I knew nothing until I knew I was hardly living. Hobbes and Locke and all the philosophers in the world could not matter when each day was insurmountable and burning. In my year and a half at Columbia, I began to learn how to love myself. I tell my therapist about my earliest memories and the bizarre geography of my family. I’m anxious and I have no self-esteem. But I am mending. Fifteen lost credits is a small price to pay for happiness. Perhaps I am learning how to fly. My bones may not be hollow, and joy will never come easily, but the beauty is in the struggle. The birds are everywhere.

Caronae Howell, Columbia, class of 2011, history major

Getting Both Barrels

Dual Diagnosis of Mental Illness and Substance Abuse

Drugs & booze are deadly

Dual diagnosis services are treatments for people who suffer from co-occurring disorders — mental illness and substance abuse. Research has strongly indicated that to recover fully, a consumer with co-occurring disorder needs treatment for both problems — focusing on one does not ensure the other will go away. Dual diagnosis services integrate assistance for each condition, helping people recover from both in one setting, at the same time.

Dual diagnosis services include different types of assistance that go beyond standard therapy or medication: assertive outreach, job and housing assistance, family counseling, even money and relationship management. The personalized treatment is viewed as long-term and can be begun at whatever stage of recovery the consumer is in. Positivity, hope and optimism are at the foundation of integrated treatment.

How often do people with severe mental illnesses also experience a co-occurring substance abuse problem?

There is a lack of information on the numbers of people with co-occurring disorders, but research has shown the disorders are very common. According to reports published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA):

  • Roughly 50 percent of individuals with severe mental disorders are affected by substance abuse.
  • Thirty-seven percent of alcohol abusers and 53 percent of drug abusers also have at least one serious mental illness.
  • Of all people diagnosed as mentally ill, 29 percent abuse either alcohol or drugs.

The best data available on the prevalence of co-occurring disorders are derived from two major surveys: the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) Survey (administered 1980-1984), and the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS), administered between 1990 and 1992.

Results of the NCS and the ECA Survey indicate high prevalence rates for co-occurring substance abuse disorders and mental disorders, as well as the increased risk for people with either a substance abuse disorder or mental disorder for developing a co-occurring disorder. For example, the NCS found that:

  • 42.7 percent of individuals with a 12-month addictive disorder had at least one 12-month mental disorder.
  • 14.7 percent of individuals with a 12-month mental disorder had at least one 12-month addictive disorder.

The ECA Survey found that individuals with severe mental disorders were at significant risk for developing a substance use disorder during their lifetime. Specifically:

  • 47 percent of individuals with schizophrenia also had a substance abuse disorder (more than four times as likely as the general population).
  • 61 percent of individuals with bipolar disorder also had a substance abuse disorder (more than five times as likely as the general population).

For the rest of this article, go to NAMI:  http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=54&ContentID=23049

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