Hello,
I wanted to follow on from what I wrote a couple of days ago. I couldn't leave it there. I was pressed for time on a public access computer so had to wrap it up prematurely.
As somebody who struggles with managing my mental health, I find it helpful to write my way through my journey. Though, admittedly, most of that has transferred to my personal journal so won't make it on here. But the fruit of what I discover will, I'm hoping.
Let's carry on...
What Has the Lord Done for Me Lately?
For me, the journey I've been on since the two plus decades of following Christ, has taken me down some roads I never thought I'd encounter in all my imaginations. But I did.
Suicide? At one point several years ago I was contemplating it.
Anxiety? Yep, it strangles me on my worst days but leaves me free on my best days to be my best self.
Depression? It's something I manage every day.
People can talk to me all they like about how the above is not God's will for my life and, whilst that may be one opinion on this, I simply have to take my own medicine and cast my cares upon Jesus. I have to. I have seen life the other way, despite being a Christian, and I don't ever want to return to that way of living.
That was existing.
Surviving.
It wasn't thriving and it certainly wasn't fuelling my commitment to be all that I can be in Christ.
It takes some hard truths from those closest to you, sometimes, to help you see just whereabouts you have taken a wrong turn, or ten, in life and readers of this blog will see a time when I was fully committed to a church I used to go to that now I don't mention by name anymore.
It was a very harmful place. Very harmful.
But luckily for me, God didn't give up on me and instead He walked me through my darkest hours where I actually said to my late father that I wasn't sure I would ever go back to church again. He didn't judge me, he just let me talk, but that conversation is one that always sticks in my mind because it reminds me just how harmful it can be to throw yourself into situations with nary a thought for the impact it is having upon you as an individual.
If anyone asks me about that place, I would still tell them it was the most toxic atmosphere I have ever been in. It was. But it has taken hindsight to teach me that as I was convinced it was the best thing ever for all the wrong reasons.
Here I am now, benefitting from some wonderful teaching from Church at RB in San Diego on a Wednesday and Lutheran Church of Hope on a Sunday thanks to the wonders of online streaming.
It has been a long journey to get here, riding through a pandemic where I knew I needed some form of church input having been out of regular church attendance since around 2017. I've been to a couple of churches near me, one of which showed me that there is a spiritual home for me out there. The other? I've been a few times but it's not where I feel God is calling me to be.
I'll know it when I find it. But what a ride it has been to get here!
Holy smokes! What a ride it has been!
I've taken on some wounds and emotional damage that I never would have asked for, yet at the same time see them as part of my story of God's faithfulness that even in the harm, He never left me. Not once. No, not once.
The journey that I have been on has led to me realising that my place is not somewhere I'm stifled and actively prevented from becoming all that I can become all because my chequebook can't open wide enough.
I need somewhere where I am accepted for who I am. Loved for who I am and the fact that I am still talking about this nearly seven years later, shows me just how deeply the damage went. And still is.
But my scars are my stories.
All I can do now is apply the Apostle Paul's words in Philippians 3:12-14 where he urges, from his own story not to let the past stop our progress to our future: -
I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself. Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above.
I have to keep reminding myself (like right now, as I write this!), every single time the past returns to haunt me, to forget the past. It has gone. It exists no more so can do no more harm to me.
To forget, in this case, comes from the Greek ἐπιλανθανόμενος (epilanthanomenos), which means quite literally "to forget, neglect". One of my favourite Bible study resources, HELPS Word-studies, defines it as: -
"to overlook, especially the effects that go with failing to notice"
Now this I cannot unpack because it is absolutely loaded with potential, so stay tuned for future posts on this topic.
It's clear that Monday's post is going to be the start in a series of devotionals designed to help us see that the only way to be empty of head (a lack of toxic thoughts) and light of heart (a lack of obsessive concern for our daily worries) is to pursue a calling that knows all undue care belongs at the feet of Jesus.
Notice, I didn't say "...all awareness..." because God does not want us to bury our heads in the sand over the problems that come our way. Instead, we are to show that we are not full of care for them to the point they are the only thing we think about keeping us awake at night, or are what we obsess over daily stunting our daily performance.
Final Thought
If even a fraction of what I've written lands in the heart of a welcoming soul, then I will have done my job. I know I've likely lost some of my audience over the past year or two due to inconsistency as I've had to change my priorities to maintain forward momentum in my life holistically.
As long as you can begin to understand that to be full of care means there is no room for you to receive the good work that God is already doing all around you.
He is working.
He is moving.
Oftentimes, we just need to tune our own personal awareness wide enough to realise that we are a part of this work.
We have a part to play too because it's a partnership.
It's a partnership, between you & God.
I'm not here to convince you to come to Christ, or to convert you to Christianity, but to echo Elizabeth's words when she realised what God had done in causing her to bear a child: -
After these days, his (Zechariah's) wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. She declared, “The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favour and taken away my disgrace among the people.” Luke 1:25 BSB
I can only testify to what the Lord has done for me. You, my dear reader, must decide what you want to do with this testimony.
Reject it?
Accept it?
The choice is yours.
===TLP===
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