Category: difficulties

A Message from the Playground

Old Merry-Go-Round

“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:13, NIV

I was thinking about this today, remembering the playground as a child.  I absolutely understood “the merry-go-round.”  I believed deep-down that it had been invented for just me.  It fit me, very well.  I like pushing around and around, and when it started to get beyond me, I would fling myself on to the spinning platform.

If I made it, the battle was only half-done.  Now, I had not only had to stay on, but I also had to avoid all other kids being spun off.  Just getting to your feet was a major undertaking. As the centrifugal force began to increase, the faster it went, the greater our momentum, and the more kids were thrown off; they tumbled into the mud.  There would be kids strewn all over the place, in heaps, crying. Clothes ripped, and knees bleeding. This wasn’t for ‘the faint of heart.’ This was war!

If somehow, you could make it to the center, you were the king of the “merry-go-round!”  For me at the ripe old age of 7, it was amazing!  I would exult and crow of beating my mechanical nemesis and blowing away the laws of physics.  But there are parallels here (surprise!)

Sometimes, life is a difficult ride.  But I know this.  If I can make it to the center, everything will be ok.  The dynamics of discipleship and mental (or physical) illnesses make it different.  We are all trying to find our way.  We stumble and fall (even hurled into the mud.)  But the center is right were we need to be.  It is the center that compels and calls. We were made for this.

We must continually fight to be at the center.  If you fall off, you can get right back up, and try again.  Nothing gets easier. Everyone scrapes their knees. I think one of the reasons that “heaven” is not talked about on every page of the Bible is we all would ‘mutiny,’ and head for its glorious shores. It’s going to be that good.

We will struggle.  But, we can struggle well with our illnesses if we we know His presence.  I get so my edges are frayed, and I feel like everything around me is dissolving.  My “fight or flight instinct” kicks in, and I feel frantic trying to hold together.  Being mentally ill is like flying a plane that has engine problems.  There is no escape; all you want it to cower and hide.  But you can’t. There is no place to go, but Jesus.

But there is a certain place, and when you battle to get to the center, you will find freedom from the pull of outward things. It is good to rest in Jesus, and abide in the center with him. Spiritually, you have been infused with His presence.  And you rise up!  You now discover that you have wings.

And the ‘merry-go-round’ has served its purpose. aabryscript

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Losing Time

Wooden_hourglass_3“The most important thing to remember about depression is this: you do not get the time back. It is not tacked on at the end of your life to make up for the disaster years. Whatever time is eaten by a depression is gone forever. The minutes that are ticking by as you experience the illness are minutes you will not know again.”

— Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)

This morning we turned our clocks back one hour. I much prefer this adjustment over the spring moving them  ahead, as I always feel cheated when I have to do this.

Losing time is one of those quiet issues that a mentally ill person often faces. The days spent in bed, the hours “hiding” in our rooms, the minutes frittered away with dull and anxious thinking are forever lost.

I have to believe that somehow God intervenes on behalf of the broken believer. That He can redeem all the time wasted in depression and its misery. The loss is tangible. But so is His redemption of me.

“Then I will make up to you for the years
That the swarming locust has eaten,
The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust,”

Joel 2:25, NASB

The prophet Joel saw the devastation that swarms of locusts had made on Israel’s crops. He observed the damage they had inflicted, and the loss they brought.

The theme of restoration runs through the Old Testament. It has the idea of reparations and repayment for God’s people. In many places God speaks a word of promise to those who suffered loss.

“He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.”

Psalm 23:3

David’s shepherd psalm speaks hope and life to those of us who’ve suffered loss, “He restores my soul.” Psalm 23 describes the deep essence of God as a shepherd caring for His own, We can find in Him the restoration we want and need.

God’s heart for wayward sheep is huge. He loves those with a mental illness, and He comes to us willing and capable to redeem all our past yesterdays. He brings us beauty out of the ashes:

 “and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.”

Isaiah 61:3, NIV

All we have to do is wait. Lay out your issues of loss before Him. Let Him become the Lord of your past.

your brother, Bryan

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Pressed Roses

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33, ESV

This world is not our friend. And then we often face issues that create ugly things–  a fight with a spouse, poor choices, money problems– a lengthy list that seems that we’re always adding new entries. And as we each of us work through our tears, as we face sickness, loneliness, fear and misunderstanding.

In this world of woe and trouble, we discover that life is itself often brutal. Myself, I must deal with clinical depression, paranoia and physical pain. It is constant, a barrage of challenging things. Sometimes they swallow me up, and I lose my way.

I was thinking this morning, of a recent find in the pages of an old book– pressed rose petals! The book had been many years on the shelf. When I opened the book they I found them.  Typically, they are fairly well preserved. They still have color and shape. And most of all, they still have a fragrance.

I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do when this happens. Do I just “read” around them, or do I physically remove them? I almost feel that they are sacred or something. Do I find an old jar and store them? But no matter what I do, I always pause and think. Sometimes though, I can even remember the incident that they were given. An anniversary or a birthday maybe? Or sometimes they are given, “just because.”

Two distinct thoughts work in me. I look at the hard, hard things that I have had to process through my past, and present, and most likely, my future. I have to believe, from all that I have read and the preaching I have heard over the years that my pain gets turned into gold (or into roses!) This is exclusively a work of God. The second thought is a little bit harder to think through. But Jesus is the rose. He is the beauty and the fragrance of heaven come to earth.

There is an old fable kept by the believers of the first century; it was said that wherever Jesus stepped while on earth, roses would spring up in His footprints. This is only a legend of course, but that doesn’t mean that it is all false. Some of these stories have more truth in them than we think.

 

Coming to Him is such pleasant thing. It shouldn’t be an agonizing ordeal. It is not a painful or real sacrifice. After all, He is the rose. Roses are beautiful, they have a definite fragrance. There is a symmetry to them, and they are special, people will cultivate them for their beauty. Roses are never a hassle, for some reason we can never send or get too many.

“I am the rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.”

Songs 2:1, ESV

“A discipleship without flowers, probably isn’t worth having.”

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God’s Purposes for You (Yes, You!)

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Our present struggles must be seen in God’s own light. As broken believers that is the exclusive method of seeing them, as our own flickering candle isn’t bright enough or strong to illuminate our issues.

“We were created for God’s pleasure. In these closing moments of this age, the Lord will have a people whose purpose for living is to please God with their lives. In them, God finds His own reward for creating man. They are His worshipers. They are on earth only to please God, and when He is pleased, they also are pleased.

The Lord takes them farther and through more pain and conflicts than other men. Outwardly, they often seem “smitten of God, and afflicted,” yet to God, they are His beloved. When they are crushed, like the petals of a flower, they exude a worship, the fragrance of which is so beautiful and rare that angels weep in quiet awe at their surrender. They are the Lord’s purpose for creation.” 

Francis Frangipane

“…struck down, but not destroyed.”

2 Corinthians 4:9

We battle to understand. We seldom find anyone who can help us. We’re the broken believers of Jesus Christ. We are the struggler, the mentally ill, the chronically ill, the overwhelmed. And yet we have been loved and chosen by God.

The chasm between the present and the future is broad and deep. We live with issues that others can seldom comprehend. Many of us have given up trying to explain. Yet by an amazing grace we stand in God’s presence, by faith.

But God has His promises. They are read from a leather-backed book (or an app) and are to be secured by faith. When we hear the Spirit speak through them we make them our own.

“By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

2 Peter 1:4

My “life verse” is the promise found in Philippians. It assures me, that although the process is long and arduous, the Lord will finish His work in me. There is coming a definite day when all will be completed. I take this by faith. I’m sure because He promised.

“I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 1:6, NASB

We must see the temporary moment pitted up against the eternal forever. What we must deal with now is just a “blip” and heaven is never-ending. Something awaits us that can’t be described. Perhaps the Apostle John had the clearest insight into eternity, writing the Book of Revelation. Paul would describe his own experience in the third heaven as “I heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak” (2 Cor. 12:4.)

“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”

2 Corinthians 4:17

I’m really looking forward to arriving in Heaven. Just thinking about it now gives me a strong hope (as it should). The trials now are tough. But more and more I long to see Christ, face-to-face.

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