Category: mental illness

Scorners Have a Certain Power

 

I finally broke through and realized that I am a consummate scorner.  I have cultivated this for many years, and especially the last five.  I will tell now, I am to scorning as Tiger Woods is to golf.  I have been diagnosed with Hepatitis C, a durmoid brain tumor, lung issues with a chemical accident, manic-depression requiring extensive hospitalization, and a low thyroid requiring meds.  And, on top of this, the death of a newborn daughter.

My faith has been extremely challenged through all of this.  I have pastored a church and taught classes at a local Bible college, all with a lot of enthusiasm and purpose.  My students and my congregation were being blessed.  But all of this pretty much disintegrated around me and I found myself with a whole lot of nothing. 

Scorn has never been anything I gravitated to.  But it has ‘seeped’ into my thinking, through a slow and steady presence.  It works like mercury poisoning.  It has touched me as a gradual toxin, slowly sickening me with its constant contact.  I haven’t been connected with the light as I should have.  But over an extensive amount of time, a venomous and noxious filth has been introduced into my heart and my thinking.  It must be like watching someone die from ‘radiation sickness’.

To scorn means to become ” ‘competous’, disdainful, scornful, to mock.”  I never, ever dreamed I would be brought to this point.  But life has continuously rolled over me, and I find I just can’t make it work anymore.  I definitely do understand the promises of God.  But I definitely do not understand God’s grace on me.  But you might as well try to explain the color ‘blue’ to a blind man.

I am Bryan, the scorner.  I am also ‘a spiritual beggar’, with a significant mental illness.  I should be on the streets pushing a shopping cart and drinking cheap vodka.  When I start to scorn, I get mean and cynical.  I’m contemptuous and I sneer at whatever crosses my path that day.  I hear voices and ‘tune in’ radio stations.  All I lack is a ‘tin-foil’ hat, which I have seriously considered.

My depression molds my thinking, and my despair rules the rest.  The promises of God are not for me, and they seem to always be out of my reach.  In many ways, I am an ‘unbelieving’ believer (there are many people like us).  My own frosty coldness and hardness never seems to amaze me.  I don’t want to be this way.  God, help me please.

A defining word, for people like me is this: “self-forgiveness“.  I consider myself above average when it comes to forgiving others.  I look forward to forgiving others.  But, I just cannot forgive myself.  I simply can’t let myself  ‘get off the hook’.  At times I do sense a comfort and a peace over these sins, but very soon they begin to rub me raw.  Like blisters, or ‘a stone in my shoe’, I begin to limp again. They are incredibly persistant.

This is not self-pity.  I am not looking for any manner of attention or warm hugs.  I do though want to open up my darkness so the light gets in.  I must learn to forgive myself, if I will ever walk clean.  This is imperative.  The adulteress who fell at Jesus’ feet and wept managed to forgive herself of a great deal of sin.  Those of us with mental illness/addictions have to come to this same point.  Is Jesus’ love enough to cover me?

Administrative Mumbo Jumbo

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One.  The comments option is being used more and more.  A total of 501 comments have been posted on BB as of today.  This is a wonderful thing as I think of all the effort that this takes.  Each comment is read and thought through.  Sometimes I’ll respond, if it seems the situation needs it.

Two.  Please pray for my mental health.  I have been struggling lately with a lot of confusion.  Its like I’m like everyone else but that my zipper is down. 

Three.  Very important.  I’m praying about bringing on a certain person to help guide these shenanigans.  She has the skills, the mental illness issues all which give her a lot of credibility.  I’m interested in bringing her in for a few months, and posting once a week.  Please pray, ok.

What is Your Shelf Life?

There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:

  a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot…

Eccl. chapter 3

 

They also serve who only stand and wait.– John Milton 

 

Our spiritual lives are cyclical, or seasonal.  We move in and out of seasons that take us through various experiences and different theologies and thinking.  There have been times when all I could think was about ‘evangelism’. Than I went through a period when ‘teaching’ was everything.  Morning, noon and night. Teach, teach, teach.  I have walked through seasons of prayer; and parenthood or work issues.

There are many dozens of these spiritual excursions.  Each season brings us something neat.  And demanding.  There will be unique concerns around each place you visit.  Jesus, who is in charge of turning us into disciples, has itineraries and dossiers on each one of us.  He knows the lessons we have already undertaken.  He is going to teach us our next unit.

Sometimes what it is, is a lot of scariness, anxiety and work.  I’ve heard it said, more then once that Jesus is more concerned with our character than our comfort.  His followers have had to traverse some nasty terrain.  They’ve had some ugly falls, and blisters and ‘charley horses’.  He did not ‘issue’ them shoes with wings.

Let’s be honest–I am currently in a season of illness and pain.  It’s funny, I have been in ministry over 20 years.  I sit in this classroom and it is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Remember, staring at the clock, using your secret powers in order to make the bell to ring sooner?  That’s me, right now.

When we live in spiritual seasons, we are amazed how quickly they change from one to another.  Very little remains the same.  And, if you’re dealing with mental illness things are usually more fragmented.  My Bipolar turns me into a liquid.  I float over there and then over here.  From moment-to-moment I can be anywhere. I am unstable.  This makes things problematic, but not impossible.

This particular season I have been put on the shelf.  For the most part, I’m in the dark, I’m on the bottom, pushed to the back and I wait.  I know He hasn’t forgotten me.  Over the years, I have observed this and I do have a general idea of ‘how it works’.  But God is faithful, if not patient.  That blesses me, and infuriates me, at the same time.

I came across a quote by John Milton, and it has been solace for me for months.  “They also serve who only stand and wait.”  I am assured that I have not escaped my Master’s heart. 

 Below are the lyrics from Larry Norman (and an CCM artist by the name of Honeytree). Look for them, or this song on YouTube.

I Am a Servant

I am a servant, I am listening for my name,
I sit here waiting, I’ve been looking at the game
That I’ve been playing, and I’ve been staying much the same
When you are lonely, you’re the only one to blame.

I am a servant, I am waiting for the call,
I’ve been unfaithful, so I sit here in the hall.
How can you use me when I’ve never given all,
How can you choose me when you know I’d quickly fall.

So you feed my soul and you make me grow,
And you let me know you love me.
And I’m worthless now, but I’ve made a vow,
I will humbly bow before thee.
O please use me, I am lonely.

I am a servant getting ready for my part,
There’s been a change, a rearrangement in my heart.
At last I’m learning, there’s no returning once I start.
To live’s a privilege, to love is such an art
But I need your help to start,
O please purify my heart, I am your servant.

 

And I can’t say anything else.  B 

Disciples Wearing Steadfastness

“The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.”   

Harry Emerson Fosdick

 

Finally.  A voice of reason and understanding in our quest for to be Christlike.  A very simple dynamic that stresses personal intimacy.  As we walk and talk with Him we are affected, we absorb things by rubbing up to Him.  We become altered.  But it takes a “steady discipline” (that is probably the most intense words in this quote).

Steadiness is a very undervalued commodity.  This culture— my culture— has minimized this particular quality, and inflated others to take its place.  We put a new weight on certain things that eventually ‘throw off’ the equilibrium of our discipleship.  We extract ‘steadiness, or faithfulness’ from our faith and we are left with something that is only a “disciple”  in pretense or personal confusion.

Being steadfast means you are dependable and stable.  It is evidence ‘exhibit A’ that you have the Holy Spirit infecting you.

‘But as for you,(A) O man of God,(B) flee these things.(C) Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.’

1 Timothy 6:11

When we are in pursuit of something, we become incredibly focused.  Our peripheral vision is adjusted and we become focused on just reaching our goal.  Paul told Timothy to make these things his target, and then to pursue them.  But this particular verse, embedded as it is with concepts of discipleship is rarely (maybe never) given more than a fleeting glance.  Perhaps is is just too boring?

Admittedly there is a plethora of choices.  Our fellowships had just passed out spiritual menus for us to order from. (As it that were possible.)

Count it all joy, my brothers,[b] when you meet trials(F) of various kinds, 3for you know that(G) the testing of your faith(H)produces steadfastness.4And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be(I) perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

If we fully intend to become ‘biblical’ we will refocus on all that God wants to hear.  We are pretty much in peril if we buy into a gospel that is not balanced on the New Testament scales.  We will not grow at all if all we eat are “spiritual snicker bars”.

People like us are almost always trying to balance ourselves.  Bipolar depression is a vicious illness of extremes.  One day we are into this, and then we shift to another thing.  We walk a tightrope it seems, even while others are enjoying themselves in a steady, solid and comfortable walk of discipleship.  Being aware of your  balance,  propensity and momentum is a valuable asset to have.