The Devil Made Me Do It…

There are some people who see a demon behind every bush.

They can’t get through an entire day without rebuking something or “binding”  up something else “in Jesus name.”

I am not one of those people.

Satan is alive and well and I don’t doubt that he is real, but I don’t like to give  him more credit than he deserves. I believe in what Christians call spiritual warfare, but it isn’t the cornerstone of my life. Because of my bipolar I have been told on more than one occasion that I was demon possessed or, if not actually possessed,… oppressed or repressed. What I was… was mentally ill. I have had well meaning people do some serious damage to my mental health by blaming all my troubles on Satan. I am leery of people who seek to blame Satan for every mood swing I have or every sniffle, ache, or pain. That seems like it’s leaving God out of the picture when he’s definitely in it.

Why am I going there? What is this post about?? It does seem to be coming in from left field seeing as I was talking about love in the last two posts.

I watched a video on YouTube tonight that I want to share, but I had to preface it first. It’s called “Devil Can’t Have Me.” Having prefaced it, I have to say that I do believe that there have been spiritual attacks on my life even before I became a Christian. The Bible says that Satan came to “steal, kill, and destroy.” I personally think that all thoughts of suicide have the imprint of Satan on them. And when I look back over my life, I can see all of the things that he has stolen from me, all the hopes, dreams, and relationships that he has killed, and when I think of the few times I actually attempted suicide, I know that it is only by the grace of God that Satan did not succeed in destroying me.

The video seemed weird when I first started watching it. The images were harsh and the music was jarring. I didn’t like it, but they lyrics in the song grabbed me. I couldn’t stop listening and as I listened, the drama being acted out on the stage grabbed me because those thoughts were my thoughts. Those thoughts ARE my thoughts. And I wanted the actions to be mine as well. The ending was weird and I don’t get it… but I liked it enough to want to share it here.

I am not seeking to blame Satan for all the bad choices I make. I made them. I’m not even going to try to blame him for all the bad stuff that happens to me, because I serve a sovereign God. He could stop any and all harm from ever happening to me if he willed it.  And I’m certainly not  going to go looking for Satan or his demons behind any bushes because the sad reality is… you generally find what you are looking for.

Watch the video. Listen to the song behind the actions and hear my heart’s cry. I know God is using all of the stuff that has happened and all of the stuff that IS happening to accomplish something in, around, and through me that I cannot even begin to comprehend. I know that I am a stronger person than I was 2 years ago and all of the strength has come through facing the various trials that have come my way. It doesn’t mean I like the trials or relish the fight. It means that I trust God to know what  he’s doing. Tonight it is enough that I understand that much.

According to Bipolar Girl: What IS Love??

Anger blocks our ability to love. I learned that in the anger class I took last year. Since I’ve been battling some pretty fierce anger for months now is it any wonder that God would shine the spotlight on this? Here’s the original post from my very first blog (2005) with some 2012 revisions….

Post #737- 1 Corinthians 13 According to Bipolar Girl
Date: April 17, 2005 4:10pm

I’ve been wondering about love lately:  what it is, and why I don’t seem to know how to give or receive it. Today in church I was reminded of something God had revealed to me earlier this month about love and… what it is… and why I seem to have such trouble giving and receiving it. I share those thoughts today as I examine the famous “love chapter” in the Bible. *This is the one they’re examining in the book study. 

1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

I can say whatever I want, even “holy” stuff, but if I don’t love God, I’m just making noise.

1 Corinthians 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Even if I have all knowledge and God gives me great faith, and if I “believe” in God, but don’t actually love him; then I’m nothing. On the Day of Judgment Jesus will say that he doesn’t know me, so for all eternity I will be nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Even if I sacrifice everything (give up everything I own; do good works; or even die for “the cause”) if I don’t love God, then I haven’t gotten anything. I’ve lost everything. Love doesn’t start with the actions. It starts with the heart and overflows into my actions. That’s why when I try to force myself to love people it blows up. I’m not loving them from an overflow of love of God in my heart. It’s “love” based on “shoulds” and that’s not love. 

So what is it like to actually love God? The answer to this is important to me because I’m learning that I have to love God before I can even attempt to love others. Yet, now that I see what love of God isn’t, I want to look at what loving God actually is:

1 Corinthians13:4 Love is patient.

God is patient with me. In order for me to show my love for God, I need to be patient with Him. I can’t try to force my timing. I must wait for His will and on His timing. I can’t insist on rushing in when Jesus is telling me to be still.

Love is kind.

When God tells me “no” or “wait” what is my attitude towards him? If I love him, I will be kind to him no matter how I feel about what he tells me. Telling God what to do or how he has to answer my prayers is not kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast.

Loving God means I don’t envy how much he has blessed or gifted others. I shouldn’t envy how much he’s blessed them with gifts and talents that I want  for myself, but neither should I brag about how he’s blessed   or gifted me. It’s about accepting who he made me to be — the good, the bad, and everything in between.

1 Corinthians 13:5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

If I love God, I’ll stop being rude to him. I won’t ignore him when he’s talking to me. I won’t interrupt him mid-sentence. I won’t pitch temper tantrums when I don’t get my way. I will watch the tone in which I speak to Him. I wonder, how many of my depressed episodes were essentially temper tantrums against God? If I love God, my walk will stop being all about “what’s in it for me” and become all about “what’s in it for him?” I will become God-seeking instead of self-seeking. I will seek His kingdom instead of my own.

If I love God, I need to stop playing the fool by getting angry at him when bad things happen to me and he doesn’t stop them from happening. It is foolish to get mad at God, but, unfortunately, I still do it all the time. I need to stop reminding him of every bad thing that he has ever “allowed” to happen to me over my entire life time. I need to stop dwelling on the wrongs of others… or on wrongs that others have done to me… because by holding on to this anger… by dwelling on how God let me be hurt, I set my own suffering above that of Christ.

1 Corinthians13:6 Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

If I truly love God, I won’t wish ill upon those who hurt have me. I won’t be happy to repay evil with evil. I will rejoice in whatever truth God reveals in or through the life of that person and my involvement with them.

1 Corinthians13:7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Some people think that loving God always means acting like “a Christian” or being a “good witness.”  Yes, loving God means protecting his name with my “witness” because people judge Him by the way his people act. But it also means letting him protect my mind from guilt whenever I believe that I’ve fallen short –when my mental illness or my sexual addiction make me feel like I’m the worst Christian ever I need to let God protect me instead of trying to protect myself through isolation. Loving God means trusting him even when everything seems overwhelming and out of control. Loving God means always hoping in him and not giving way to the kind of doubt that kills. Loving God means persevering because “perseverance must finish its work so that [I] may be mature and complete lacking nothing.” James 1:4

 1 Corinthians13:8 Love never fails…

If I truly love God, I won’t stop loving him. No matter what life brings (positive or negative)…whether I find the pony or not…I will continue to seek him with all of my heart. If I love him like this… love for others will be a natural overflow. There is so much more to be said on this topic… but I’m ignorant. I wrote this… but I still haven’t learned how to walk it out. I’m hoping that by having me revisit a past lesson about love, God’s actually going to reveal more of what love really means, so that the anger will fade and the loving will take its place.

Related articles

• Before I Got Angry: Love According to Bipolar Girl (theadventuresofbipolargirl.wordpress.com)

Commercial Interruption #979

Much has happened since my last post. I am short on time, however. Bible study tonight. Nothing like a meltdown to challenge your belief that you can help lead anybody to a deeper relationship with Jesus. Good thing I don’t back down from challenges. I’m short on time so I can’t go in to how Jesus brought me through last night’s dark valley…but I’d like to interject some laughter by way of a video I found on YouTube called, “Pray for Your Neighbor” by Thou Shalt Laugh 4 comedian Michael Jr

Counting the Cost

Today is one of those days when I’ve got so much on my mind I don’t know what to say. The question of counting the cost came up and I haven’t allowed myself to be still long enough to think about what that even really means. I just know that life is short and I feel like Bipolar Disorder ate up a bunch of my years like locusts. I don’t want to waste time, but I still have no clear direction. The dream that I was pursuing died and I have no idea how to revive it.

In an attempt to find direction I thought I’d read the entire New Testament when I got out of the hospital. I figured I’d start with Revelations. I mean… when I went to Disney World  back in 2003 I planned our trip like a military assault. I had charts of all the parades, maps to all of the “hidden Mickeys,” and I even got up at insane hours months in advance to make dinner reservations at all the best restaurants in the park. It disturbs me now that I would put so much effort into learning about a place that will eventually pass away. I’m going to spend eternity in Heaven and know next to nothing about it. Because I’ve spent so much of my life trying to stay ahead of my depression, I have never felt “prepared” enough for anything else, least of all Heaven. So what better place to start preparing than Revelation? I read it… and honestly? I didn’t get most of it. Does that make me sub-par spiritually?? Not letting that stop me I decided to focus on the epistles.

I’m still reading and still seeking direction. So far I haven’t had any talking bushes, voices from heaven, and I wasn’t sucked up to the “third heaven.” But I am enjoying the time I’m spending in the word. This whole “counting the cost” thing, however, threw me because… well… because it did. So rather than ramble on about a half-baked thought, I’m content to just say that I’m seeking answers… truth… and I won’t stop until I find it and understand it.

How to Deal with the “Day by Day”

I felt pretty pleased with myself after the last post. There I was: taking off the mask and being real. Taking off the mask that says “I’m OK” when I’m not. My feeling of self-satisfaction lasted until I opened my morning devotional book and it was about praising God instead of complaining! The writer of that day’s selection said that we forestall God’s answer to prayers when we whine and complain. I believe that to some extent… but…

Personally, I think there is a place for complaining and whining. Look at the Psalms. David pretty much whined and complained his way through most of them… only to remember at the end of each of them that God was in control. If David hadn’t been such a melancholy whiner, we would not have the comfort of many a favorite psalm to comfort us when we feel a similar need to bellyache to the Lord. I think the book of Psalms is the equivalent to David’s blog. What he lacked in technology, he more than made up for in mass distribution. Look at the number of hits “Psalms: the Blogless Blog” has had over the ages. If whining was the unforgivable sin, God would have edited that book out of the bible.

Whining to God is a lot better than whining about God. Being honest and saying that I’m struggling with emotions and circumstances I can’t handle seems better to me than lying about how I really feel and hiding it under a bunch of faux praise that I really don’t feel. Oddly enough, after I posted and then read the bit about praise, I was reminded that I do have a whole heap of stuff to thank God for and proceeded to thank him. And that praise ushered in a lot of blessings I hadn’t expected.

The day that I had expected to head south once I stepped out of my door was surprisingly northy. Without exception, all of my classes were great. The behavior of all of my students was not great and my reactions to some of it was less than stellar… but I could see the difference in how I would have handled things if I hadn’t been honest about my feelings and then turned my honest declaration into prayers. God KNOWS how I feel. I’m not fooling him when I squash my struggles or my not so pretty feelings about them. He is not asking me to lie to him or anybody else. That’s why non-believers tend to think that Christians are so phony — we try so hard to be “good witnesses” that we aren’t always real.

There is a line, however,  that you have to draw with all the “realness” if you want to be professional. I cannot go to work with all my drama hanging out. They are paying me to do a job, not to bring my dirty laundry to work and try to wash it there. I was professional yesterday and true to myself. I’d also like to think that I was true to God. My take home lesson from yesterday? Expressing my gripes and complaints is not necessarily a bad thing especially if I’m taking them to the Lord. That I happen to blog about it is part of that “testimony” that is going to “overcome [Satan].” I imagine that I am not the only Christian who struggles with a negative outlook. I also imagine that I am not the only one who struggles with terms like “take every  thought captive” that are mentioned in the bible. I don’t understand terms like that and when I say that stuff out loud I feel like I’m speaking a foreign language  that I don’t fully understand.When the thoughts seemed to take me captive I got mad. Clearly, I was doing something wrong but had no idea how to fix it.

My way of  “taking my thoughts captive” yesterday was not to utter a phrase that I don’t understand. It was to admit to God and anybody reading my blog that I had  overwhelming negative thoughts and then turn them over to God in prayer. And yesterday that worked for me.

Stressed

Right now I am looking at my circumstances and I’m stressed. Actually... I’m looking at other people’s circumstances that happen to be colliding into my life and I’m stressed. For the first time in my entire life, my life is relatively drama free… and what do I do??  I’ve got to go and import other people’s drama just to shake things up a bit. The one safe thing about the Bipolar Bubble was that I generally could go unaffected by other people and their drama for months on end. In my rush to get out of the Bubble, I neglected to appreciate some of its benefits. Only having to deal with my own drama? I miss that.

Right now I feel stressed and tense and confused and angry… and a whole bunch of other things that I can’t even name.  And all because of other people. I’ve read my bible. Had my quiet time. Prayed for all kinds of stuff and I’m still tense approaching tenser.

Time to pick up the sword:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

That’s in the book of Phillipians somewhere. Can’t remember where right now. I’m going to meditate on that one and do what it says and I’ll let you know how that turns out for me.

Train Up a Child

Yesterday we had an earthquake.  I was at my laptop, sitting at the kitchen table when I felt the movement. Not big by California standards… but island folk aren’t used to quakes. At first I wasn’t sure what it was because it was so slight but then a harder, more definite jolt was enough to send me dashing off to stand in the doorway. Of course, with the recent heavy rain and my leaking ceiling, I doubted that the doorway would protect me all that much, but it was an ingrained habit for me to stand there because I grew up in California. In the Land of the Quakes and the Flakes you grow up having “earthquake drills” in school. At home we’re taught to  hide in doorways and at school we’re told to get under desks and we practiced it so much that now, at the age of 42, I reverted to childhood training. It didn’t matter how questionable the doorway, I was going to stand in it.

This morning that made me think of another verse that has impacted my life. Not because I memorized it and use it when I feel threatened or anything like that, but because it is a truth that has played out in my life:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

That didn’t just hold true with earthquake drills for me. Unfortunately, it held true with other, less helpful things. A lot of my blogging in the past has been about fear. I used to be a very fearful person until very recently. I’ve also blogged a lot about my struggles with porn and sexual addiction. I wish I could say that when I became a believer Jesus just made those things go away. The fact that he didn’t makes me think that there has to be a higher purpose to why he allowed me to struggle with them for so long. I’ve come to the conclusion that Jesus wants my life can be used as a cautionary tale. Y’know the, “DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU” sort of tale.

As a child, I was trained up to be fearful and I was trained up to think about sex. None of it was intentional, but it happened. My stepfather kept porn where any one of us kids could get into it and since I was the reader in the family… I guess I got hooked on porn because I “liked reading the articles.” And when I was about eleven years old my mom started giving me Harlequinn “Romance” novels to read. Some people think that they are harmless, but for an impressionable pre-teen, they were like a gateway drug for me. I became compulsive about reading them to the exclusion of all other things. When I applied to Harvard for undergrad I had to lie on my application about what books I’d read that year because every single book that I’d read (and I’d read tons) were romance novels. Eventually they fed into a need to read hardcore erotica. My mother maintains to this day that there was nothing wrong with giving me those books and denies that the resulting feelings they inspired in me had anything to do with my current addiction. She also maintains that it was my fault that I got hooked on porn. I shouldn’t have read my stepfather’s magazines. I beg to disagree. If he didn’t want us to read them, he shouldn’t have left them where we played.

The point I’m trying to make? Whatever you put into your kids’ minds is going to stick somewhere. If they are exposed to something long enough or if parents give the impression that they approve of something then kids are going to engage in it not knowing the far reaching consequences. I actually think my stepfather’s porn and the “romance” novels from my mom had a greater impact on me than whatever incest issues I have with my brother because I actually remember what happened with the magazines and the novels. I remember my mom giving them to me and I remember all the new and exciting feelings I felt when I read those books.

By giving them to me, my mom was participating in my training without saying a word. And the words she did say when I got into high school contradicted what she’d taught me earlier. In high school she went all heavy handed about what I shouldn’t be doing with boys and how my deeds “done in darkness would be seen in the light.” But those words couldn’t stand up against the years of unspoken training that she’d given me in those books. That training said that sex was not only acceptable, but that it was necessary. Train up a child in the way that they should go? Yeah, they trained me without saying a word.

But what about my fearful training? Most kids are not fearful. If you’ve ever looked out over  a playground at recess you’d see kids doing things that would make your hair stand on end and then turn white once it got there. Adults make kids afraid. Ok. Adults and bullies… but where do bullies learn their behavior?? When I was a kid I used to watch these movies with my siblings. Killer bees, killer ants, killer piranha, killer sharks, Cujo the killer dog... there was a whole series of low budget horror movies that pit nature against humans and the humans usually got the crap kicked out of them before they won. Then there was “Twilight Zone” with Rod Sterling and “The Outer Limits” series that made me fear all things in black and white. And let’s not forget “Psycho” and “Helter Skelter” which made me fear serial killers and violent death. I watched all of that before I was in middle school. Up until very recently the list of things that I had a paranoid fear about could fill pages. Now I’m down to about a page, but it makes you wonder how I became so fearful.  Why was I allowed to put all of that garbage into my head growing up?? Train up a child a child in the way they should go? Yeah, I was trained.

I’m not saying that my parents scarred me for all time by allowing these things to come into my life… but it hasn’t helped. Just like I was trained to go to a doorway during an earthquake, I was also trained to turn to porn and masturbation when I felt left out , unwanted, or unloved. I was also trained up to have a paranoid fear of just about everything because those movies said that I should fear just about everything... no matter how irrational. Now my innate personality has to play a part on it. I think I’m fearful by nature. The movies just kicked the fear up a notch. But come on… Ants. It’s only been until very recently that I stopped being afraid of ants. Of course, now I can kill a centipede without too much stress or mess… but conquering my fears hasn’t come easily.

Good thing God is bigger than anything my parents or my childhood could have ingrained in me. I might have received really poor training growing up, but my life belongs to Jesus now. At just the right time he shows me what areas of my life are coming under his watchful care and then he goes to work. He has been working on my fears for the past year. He has been leading me through my fears causing me to face many of them. I’m personally hoping I don’t have to confront my fear of serial killers and violent death with an actual encounter — but something tells me that I’m safe on that front. He’s also been drawing me to an end of my addictive behaviors. If I say that I am a “sex addict” that is to say that Jesus cannot change me and I know better. He has changed me and he is changing me. There will come a day when I don’t instinctively turn to addictive behaviors to self-medicate. I’ve had to learn and accept that as a child of God, my father can and will train me up however he wants me to go.

If I could change one thing about how I grew up, I would have wished somebody had told my parents not to expose me to sexually charged material and violent, fear based movies. All of that and the problems it created for me fed into my mental illness in ways that could have been avoided. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I will not be getting a call from my mom. We haven’t spoken in a long time. I’m actually not looking forward to the holiday. I plan to spend it alone. I just don’t want to deal with other people and their happy little families. It’s kind of like a slap in the face. But I do have a lot of things for which I am thankful. This year, my father has trained me well. I will not turn to addictive behaviors to self-medicate. I might be feeling a bit down this holiday… but it’ll pass. Train up an adult child in the way that they should go?? Hmm. Bears considering.

One Step Beyond

As far as the whole sexual addiction thing goes I feel like I’ve reached a plateau in my recovery. Sure, the list of stuff that I no longer do is actually longer than the list of stuff that I do but that I wish that I didn’t do, but I still feel like I’m an airplane circling the runway. Which makes me think of this verse out of the book of Romans in chapter 7:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

See that always seemed like splitting hairs to me. Like that comedy routine that Flip Wilson has where he’s dressed in drag insisting that whatever he’d done wrong, “the devil made him do it.” It wasn’t me watching all that porn… it was the sin living in me that did it?!! It took me years to finally get to the point where those verses made any sense. It’s not about scape goating and blaming the “sin living in me” for the bad stuff that I do. It’s about accepting that I sin. When I became a believer Jesus didn’t just wave a wand and work some mojo on me so that I never wanted to do the wrong thing. Quite the contrary. There are some days that I don’t just struggle with sexual sin… I actively want to engage in it. If I’d read those verses with any understanding back then I might have saved myself from a lot of guilt induced depression. Temptation is going to come my way. That’s a given. How I respond to it is what matters. Avoiding the temptation would be the best thing to do, but the choices that I make after I’ve given in to the temptation are also important.

In the past I used to morph into Bipolar Girl after I’d indulged in porn, masturbation, or whatever. I’d isolate myself and wallow in my own self-pity. I was a Christian and Christians weren’t supposed to act that way. I didn’t have to deal with other people condemning me. Other people didn’t know. So I was my own judge and jury. I got to the point where I could see my own wretchedness:

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am!

But I made the mistake of stopping there. I focused on how badly I’d messed up and I let the guilt suck me down into depression. Praying never really seemed to make the sexual behavior or the depression go away. I couldn’t figure out why God wasn’t helping me overcome my temptations. When praying didn’t seem to help I tried blogging. I’ve already said that blogging about my depression used to be hard, but it was never as hard as blogging about my sexual addiction. Well imagine trying to talk to people about it. I used to be a loner. Talking to people about depression, suicidal thoughts, sexual sin…? Not possible. Shame kept me isolated and the isolation was going to be the death of me.

Blogging opened a door for me to take one step beyond all my isolation and suffering. What I wouldn’t dream about telling somebody in person was easy to blog about given the relative anonymity. It helped get me to a point where I was willing to talk to a real person. It got me to a point where I knew I could look online and find support. Recovery from my mental illness and my sexual addiction has always meant going one step beyond. Sure, I stayed on some steps for years before making the next step… but take that next step I did.

I found a website for Christians that struggle with sexual addiction. It became like home to me. The people there knew what I was feeling and what I was thinking because shared similar struggles. It became my safe place. But you can’t even stay somewhere safevwhen God intends you to move. I think I’ve gotten comfortable in my safe place. I have fallen into a rut where I sin, repent, and then post about it on that site only to sin, repent, post. It’s like a never ending sin cycle. Sure, I don’t do a lot of the things I used to do and I no longer let my own wretchedness tempt me to suicidal thoughts… but this is not what God has in mind for me. I know this because of how that verse ends:

Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jesus is not content to leave me like that. A few weeks back a guest speaker at my church talked about why we don’t have intimacy with God. He mentioned apathy which is a big one for me… but he also mentioned ignorance of the word. I think I know the bible better than the average bear, but this ain’t Jellystone Park and I’m not Yogi the Bear. What I don’t know about the bible could fill volumes. And even if I  say that I “know” something about the bible, if I live my life contrary to what it says then I haven’t “learned” anything. For years I lived my life contrary to the truth in the verses above. I lived like Jesus couldn’t or wouldn’t rescue me from my sexual addiction and my mental illness. Even now I still focus on my actions instead of the truth. God is telling me that my heart attitude is at the heart of my problems. My sexual addiction is just a symptom of deeper issues that only Jesus can fix. All the therapy in the world is not going to fix it. All the medication in the world won’t make a dent in it.

I need to take a step towards ending my ignorance of the word of God. I think a wall went up years ago in my mind because I would read my bible, close it, and proceed to view porn or masturbate or fall into depression and struggle with suicidal thoughts. I thought that just reading the bible should have been able to help me and when it didn’t, I got mad at God. And when Christians would tell me that I just needed to “pray more” or “read my bible more” I would get mad at them because any idiot should have known that I’d all tried that before. I stopped taking steps. Oh, I’d read my bible, but I’d get tripped up over parts that I didn’t understand and I wouldn’t seek out anybody to explain it to me. I’d go through long periods of time where I didn’t even touch my bible. I figured nobody would be able to filter the bible through the same filters that I used (Bipolar and sexual addiction)… so they couldn’t possibly understand my struggles.

I now see that people don’t have to understand my struggles. That’s helpful… but it matters more that they understand the word of God and how to apply it to my particular trials and temptations. This weekend I met with my mentor. She’s an older woman who is like a mother figure to me. For some time I’ve been feeling like we shouldn’t focus on my sexual addiction when we meet because it’s not really the cause of my struggles… it’s a symptom. God has been showing me that my apathy and ignorance has kept me struggling year after year after year. I told her all of this and she agreed to help me. As I invest my time trying to know God as he reveals himself in the bible, she has agreed that I can bring any of my questions to her and she will give me her perspective and help me try to understand. I don’t expect her to have all of the answers, but I’ve always wished that I could have a mature believer in my  life to mentor me. I think a lot of the things that triggered my mental illness in the past were a result of my actions conflicting with my beliefs. The resulting discord was more than I could handle. But instead of dealing with the root problem, I’ve spent years attacking the symptoms. Spending two decades struggling with a mental illness and over three decades struggling with a sexual addiction has affected my walk with God. I know my views about his deliverance, his healing, and his answering of prayer are skewed. What I believe affects how I act and my beliefs about these things needs to be adjusted. I’m not content to wallow in my ignorance or wretchedness. I’m not content to just blog and post online about my challenges. I not even content to meet with my mentor and send her online accountability reports.

Now I’m going one step beyond that. I’m leaving my self-imposed isolation and being willing to share my deepest doubts and questions about my faith with another believer. That’s going to be hard, but if pulling these things out of the deep recesses of my mind are what I need to do to finally walk by faith and to stop tripping over my own fears, failures, limitations, and wretchedness… then it’s worth it. If it will move me beyond the never-ending sin cycle with my addictive behaviors… it’ll be more than worth it. And if it will bring me closer to Jesus, then it will be priceless.

 

Right now... I still do what I hate doing… but God’s plan is that I take one step beyond that.

Do Not Suffer Fools Gladly

I am a fool.

It’s not a new revelation. I’ve known this for some time. And don’t let my tone fool you, I’m not being tongue-in-cheek. I’m  dead set serious which makes you wonder just how many more cliches/idioms I can possibly squeeze into my opening paragraph. Once I had a high school English teacher make a snarky comment about my use of “trite, worn out phrases” and my response was to write an entire humorous essay loaded to the gills with cliches. He couldn’t stop laughing… and I couldn’t stop laughing at him. I thought the man was a fool. Since he’d been an undertaker before becoming a teacher, I also thought he was creepy… but I digress.

Fools. Most of us have little patience for them. We mock them. We try to avoid them. We use them as cautionary tales for our young. Few, if any of us, like to admit when we do something foolish or worse... admit that we are, in fact, fools.

This morning I had to meditate on scripture because I was in a bad mood when I woke up. Tense. I gave up trying to sleep at 4:30. Eventually, I ended up reading an old blog post back from when I first moved in to my place to remember just how far I’d come and how happy I was. By the time I left for work I was in a good mood, but that mood slowly got eroded away as I had to deal with stressor after stressor culminating in a staff meeting. I am anti-meeting. They generally go longer than they have to and don’t accomplish as much as they could. I was in a royal snit when I left and by the time I got home (8 minutes later) I was grumbling from the car to the front door and just wanted to start slamming things. I laid on my bed and tried to massage the cramp in my leg that has been getting worse since yesterday and I tried repeating that verse I’ve memorized on not being anxious… but even as I said it the anger rolling off my words was not lost on me. I tried praying… but the anger ringing in my ears was disturbing. If I could hear it, God certainly didn’t miss it and I learned a long time ago that being snappy and demanding with God gets you nowhere fast.

And that’s when I remembered one of the “sword” fighting tips from long ago. God gave me this verse years ago and it comes to me when I least expect it, but need it most:

The end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit because anger resides in the laps of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9

Does it get any clearer?? Things have been pushing my buttons all day and rather than be still and pray about it… I take the low road. I get mad. And I don’t just get mad, I stay mad. So anger doesn’t just “reside” in my lap, it’s taken out a 30 year mortgage! Being angry all the time was a hallmark of Bipolar Girl up until recently. Unaddressed anger has taken me to some very dark places. All this waiting is getting to me. Work? God said, “Wait.” My health? God said, “Wait.” You name the area and God’s response has been, “Wait.” But I don’t want to wait. I want to move.  I want to get on with the rest of my life now that I’m not actively mental and they removed the uber-uterus. But I’ve learned my lesson about running ahead of God. I might be a fool, but I’m not stupid. This is where I have to really think about what that verse means and whether or not I really believe it. That would make waiting a lot easier and probably take the sting out of my anger.

Right now I have absolutely NO control over anything happening in my life. I have to wait… but waiting in anger is the same as not waiting at all. By being angry I’m telling God that my plan would somehow be better than his plan… but when you hear that out loud you can’t help but realize how stupid that sounds. I’m still mad, but blogging has helped me. My anger has downgraded to frustration. And you can reason with frustration. Anger tends to be blind and deaf. Maybe tomorrow when I go to work if I let God adjust my attitude I won’t do a slow tango with anger. Maybe I’ll stand up and pick up my sword and slice my pride and my impatience to shreds and stop anger before it starts building a second floor skylight. My students might make me mad with their immature antics… but if I come home dwelling on the anger, who’s the fool? God doesn’t suffer fools gladly and I don’t want to either. Especially when the fool is looking at me in the mirror.

Never approach a fool from any direction