Psalm 33

New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

¹ Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous;
it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
² Praise the LORD with the harp;
make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
³ Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.

⁴ For the word of the LORD is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
⁵ The LORD loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.

⁶ By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
⁷ He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
he puts the deep into storehouses.
⁸ Let all the earth fear the LORD;
let all the people of the world revere him.
⁹ For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
¹⁰ The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
¹¹ But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.

¹² Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
¹³ From heaven the LORD looks down
and sees all mankind;
¹⁴ from his dwelling place he watches
all who live on earth—
¹⁵ he who forms the hearts of all,
who considers everything they do.
¹⁶ No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
¹⁷ A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
¹⁸ But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
¹⁹ to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.

²⁰ We wait in hope for the LORD;
   he is our help and our shield.
²¹ In him our hearts rejoice,
   for we trust in his holy name.
²² May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
   even as we put our hope in you.

Is this God’s way of telling me to focus on who he is and not search for some non-existent pony?? Don’t get me wrong. I think being positive is a good thing. But I don’t want to put my trust in horses or ponies. My little pony was not going to make my anger go away. God diffused my bad mood  after I prayed with a friend and he diffused it in a really awesome way. He reminded me that he is bigger than any of my circumstances and all I have to do is pray and submit to him. I have to put my hope in him and then be still. Even when I’m angry I can put my hope in him…. especially when I’m angry.

Another Word from Our Sponsor: Ps 139

Today is one of those days where less of me and more of him is best. I found another Skit Guys video on YouTube. It’s on Psalm 139  and it really spoke to me. It’s long… but it’s worth it.

 

 

¹ O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

 ⁵ You hem me in—behind and before;
 you have laid your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens,
you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths,
you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

 ¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
 ¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

 ¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

 ¹⁹ If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
   and abhor those who rise up against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

 ²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
  test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

We Are One…

I’m actually writing this by hand on paper at a dinner party. We’re between the main course and desert. The woman of the hour — the birthday girl, is serenading us on the keyboard and our friends are preparing desert crepes in the kitchen. Hysterectomy Girl was taking a breather on the couch listening to the music when it dawned on me how blessed I am to be in this moment.

All of us are Christian and this moment, all aglow with candles and the pleasing aroma of camaraderie in the air, is charmed. Nights like this never existed for me in the past. Oh, I might have been invited… but I would have felt tense and stressed. I was the broken one. The one who never fit in.

Tonight, I’m thinking of how involved I feel. Accepted. Loved. I belong. Where I once  felt like the amputated pinkie toe on the body of Christ, now I can come together with other believers and just be me. Even if that means writing in the middle of a party. I’m a writer with a short memory. Writing is what I do and this is a moment I didn’t want to lose.

The body of Christ is a beautiful thing when it works as it should. Tonight we’re all functioning in our gifts and abilities and it’s good. Natural talents are abounding and coming together to make this night special.

And I’m here. No longer an amputated baby toe. I’m here with women who love Jesus and, by extension, love me. Where once I used to be isolated and alone, now I am here... and we are one.

Bipolar Girl Redefined

A couple of significant events happen this week. Of course, my idea of “significant” is drastically different from that of  the average bear. Things are just a little bit different in Bipolar World: colors seem a bit more vibrant, sounds take on a different pitch, and a flower isn’t just a flower. Everything I experience gets filtered through my bipolar lens. Actually, I used to think that was true. Now I think I need to qualify that. Yes, I have Bipolar Disorder, a mental illness. Have had it for years and will probably have it until the day I die. While I’d like to think that God has healed me of it, the proof will only ever really come at the end of my life when I can say that I’ve lived symptom free for the latter part of my life because I’d look pretty darned stupid going around saying God healed me of it and then something triggers a big old honkin episode six months down the track. Can God heal me? Yes. Do I think that he has??? I really hope so.

I told my surgeon that yesterday when I went in for my final post-op visit yesterday. Ok, maybe not in so many words, but God used this man to heal me. And that surgery has impacted my mental health. He definitely healed the hysterectomy related problems. I no longer have a football sized growth in my abdomen and it’s not like it’s ever going to grow back. Gone. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. Dr. C said that he was amazed that I am experiencing no signs of depression and that my moods are more stable than they’ve ever been. He pointed out that in the Latin or Greek (I forget what he said) that “hysterectomy” finds its roots in “hysteria” and that they once thought that it had much to do with depression and mood swings in women. Of course, the idea of radical hysterectomy as a cure for bipolar and mental illness seems a bit out there as a standard operating procedure, but for now, I am content to be content.

That wasn’t the first significant event to happen, but it does have me questioning where depression fits into my life these days. By right, I should have been depressed yesterday. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. My doctor is a visiting surgeon from an outer island. He was not at my normal medical center. Trying to find him was a nightmare because nobody seemed to know where he was. They didn’t even know if I was in the right hospital. I was stressed out and for a split second in a total panic. I actually forgot my regular doctor’s name when the woman at registration asked me. But then I regrouped and calmed down. In the past that would have been one long bumpy trip down the spiral staircase that is bipolar … ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk… as my head hit every other stair on the way down. In the end, I made it to my appointment and by the time I walked out I was smiling and happy. I’d reminded myself of all God had walked me through and how much I’d had to be thankful for in the hospital. I gave my doctor and his nurse thank you letters. My doctor said he’d never received such a wonderful thank you. It made him feel appreciated. Me? I felt free. Depression had tried to rear its ugly head and I gave it the ultimate smack down: giving thanks. It is hard to be depressed when I’m giving thanks.

Earlier this week I read a blog by a woman with Bipolar. She said something about how Bipolar blogs are on the demise. To be honest, I’ve been so self-absorbed dealing with all the drama in my life that I have rarely taken time to read other bipolar blogs. Unless somebody with Bipolar actually reads my blog and asks me to read theirs, I still pretty much blog in my bubble. I’m not even sure I happened upon her blog, but as I read it, something dawned on me that has been dawning on me by slow degrees for a while now: My blog is not a Bipolar blog.

I mean, I have Bipolar Disorder, and it has impacted every area of my life in profoundly negative ways… but, make no mistake, this blog is about Jesus. Maybe I don’t put his name in every post that I write, but the major premise from my very first post was that the Adventures was not about me. I’m just along for the ride. This is a Christian blog, a religious blog, a God blog, a faith blog, a discipleship blog… call it whatever you will as long as you understand that spiritual growth, the journey with Jesus is the real focus. There is precious little in this blog to be found about various medications to take (although I have had my fair share of meds). I will also never talk about new therapies (although I’m a big fan of therapy with the right doctor). I don’t know the latest research, so I can’t blog about it. And since my posts always contain some mention of what God is doing in my world or teaching me by the events that unfold, my blog might be just a bit too preachy for the average non-believing person with Bipolar Disorder. Interestingly enough, my Adventure with Jesus started when I was a non-believer and it has only been in walking this journey with him that I’ve found even a hint of peace.

Now both of those events combine to give me a message: Know who you are. Now maybe they said something different to you when you read them… but I feel like Jesus has been telling me to remember who I am. I might have slapped on the Bipolar Girl label because I find labels beneficial… but labels cannot accomplish everything. Yesterday I spilled chocolate sauce all over the front of my favorite red t-shirt. The label did not tell me how to clean it. General cleaning, yeah, sure… but this was a massive spill. The “Bipolar Girl” label does not define who I am even though it’s been beneficial in helping me understand what goes on with me when I’m having episodes. But beneath all of that clinical understanding lies the “manufacturer’s settings” say that I am a child of God. A follower of Jesus. It’s only through knowing him and knowing who I am in relationship to him that I’m ever going to have any lasting peace.

Which leads me to the third significant event. I returned to work this week and that in itself is a big deal. I can now drive without difficulty. I can even manage the huge flight of stairs without going “ka-thunk.”  My classroom was well managed and I smiled through each day, all day. But even still, this was not the significant event. I was driving to work  when I happened to notice flowers. Hundreds of them. Huge yellowy-whitish flowers all along the sides of the road, up high in trees, all over the hillside, and down into the gulch and they were all the same. I’ve driven this road how many times? I’ve never noticed these flowers. Impossible since they were so huge. It was beautiful… like falling into the rabbit hole into some fantasy land filled with ginormous flowers. The flowers were all in full bloom and it was the most amazing thing to see.  On Sunday my pastor had said, “Bloom where you are.” And it felt like Jesus was giving me my own personal visual. I was grinning like an idiot all the way to work because I felt certain that Jesus was telling me to bloom there.

On the way home I was excited to see the flowers again and just as happy to think about blooming where I am. I’ve got this manuscript, my memoir that is just sitting here because I don’t know what to do with it… and maybe Jesus is telling me to bloom where I am (at the trade school) and leave the book to him. Unfortunately, the next morning when I drove to work pretty much every one of my beautiful flowers was dead. Talk about short bloom. They were all closed up and hunched over as if mourning their own demise. What the hell was Jesus trying to tell me through that??? It’s a good thing I don’t take signs so seriously or I’d be fearing my own death. It did bring home the message of blooming where you are, while you can. That’s what I want to do. And in order to do that I need to redefine my blog. I would love it if non-believers read my blog and found something helpful in it. But I’m writing to, and for, believers who have mental illnesses. The people who struggle with depression and God. The ones who want to know where is God when the bottom falls out of their world. The people who need to be reminded to persevere. Because Jesus hasn’t forgotten them to their illness. It’s just a label. I’m not going to change the name of my blog or the tags I’ve attached to it, because I’ve called myself “Bipolar Girl” for so long that it would feel weird,  but now I blog knowing that, while necessary, this Bipolar label is not one size fits all.

The New “Normal”

I was just responding to a post on Hystersisters.com where a woman shared that she is finally starting to feel normal after her total abdominal hysterectomy (TAH) four weeks ago. She wanted to encourage me. I think my  response might have sounded a bit flippant… but I was as serious as a hysterectomy. I don’t want to return to normal. My “normal” was generally characterized by deep depression, stress, worry, and fear. Add in a large heaping spoonful of bitterness, resentment, doubt, and self-pity and you’ve got a “normal” not worth returning to. It made me think of what normal is and what I normally settle for.

A few months back I had a chance to hear the author of that book, 9o Minutes in Heaven (not to be confused with that preteen make-out game involving a closet and heavy petting). The author was a pastor coming home from some pastor type conference when he was struck by a big rig truck and DIED. We’re not talking zap-’em-with-the-paddles-and he’s-back-dead. He was dead-as-a-doornail-for-90-full- minutes-as-attested-to-by-on-the-scene-medical-personnel dead.  During that time he says that he went to heaven. Personally, I was really skeptical when I read the book. I mean c’mon. As far as I understood it… heaven wasn’t big on returning merchandise. Maybe he just thought that he was dead. Maybe he had too  many minutes walking into “the light” and it fried his brain too much. I seriously doubted that he’d died even if he was a pastor and thus, theoretically, contractually obligated not to try to make millions of dollars selling faux death stories to gullible people.

It didn’t help that the book wasn’t full of cool stories like how he met Moses and King David for lunch or what it was like to listen to angels sing… or what Jesus REALLY looked like. I have a hard time relating to the conventional depictions of Jesus, so better intel would be nice. Unfortunately, the book was an understatement that I really cannot remember well. I do remember the part when his dead body was in the car and another pastor was singing praise songs over him and his body started singing along with him! The pastor broke some kind of record for jumping backwards out of totally wrecked automobile. Nobody believed him when the said that the body in the car was singing. And to be honest, I wouldn’t have believed him either. So it was with a large degree of skepticism that I went to go see the undead pastor.

Seeing the photos and hearing him speak? I believed. I still don’t think his book was much to go on and on about, but his testimony that night had me riveted in my front row seat. His story was amazing, but it was when he talked about creating a new “normal” that he really had my attention. Clearly, being dead will change your perspective on life. You don’t want to return to the same old, same old. And given the fact that his body had been torn to shreds during the accident… the same old, same old was never going to be possible for him anyway.

Now clearly, I am not trying to equate my hysterectomy to a fatal car crash. Not even I am that self-centered and self-absorbed. But when I thought about my life going back to normal… I cringed. Why the hell would I want that?? God stepped into my puny little existence while I was off island in that hospital and he is showing up in big and small ways now that I’m back on Maui. He altered my faith while I was over there. Why would I possibly want to settle for what I had before that? Now I’m not expecting to come back and be Super Christian… able to do all kinds of super cool Christian stuff in a single bound. Delusions of grandeur are right up there as symptoms of mania. If I get too far out there… people are going to wonder if I’m having manic episodes. I’m not going to willingly allow myself to fall back into my “normal” patterns of worry, fear, self-pity, doubt et all. Yet, neither am I going to make the mistake that I made when I came back from last years’ Hawaii Writers Conference.

I saw God do some amazing things in me and in my life during that four day conference. I fully expected to come back and be completely changed. I thought that I’d found my new “normal.” When evidence of my old normal started to rear its ugly head I started to harsh on myself and doubt what God had done. And that only sped up the looming depression until a new friend from church told me that it would take me a while (maybe even a year) to learn to walk in all that I had seen God change in me. That made so much sense and has given me the needed perspective to handle what I just went through in that hospital. It is going to take me a while to learn how to walk in all that he worked out in me… but I do not doubt what happened to me while I was in the hospital or how it impacted me at the time.

I’m not sure exactly what my new normal is going to end up looking like… but so far it’s looking pretty damned good.

The Devil DIDN’T Make Me Do It

I started typing this post on Friday… and then Friday fell into the rabbit hole. Thursday sucked all of the air out of me and I just shut down on Friday. I’m not even sure what I did all day. I’m finishing this post now because I need to address the notion of what mental illness actually is. Now, I do not have any credentials behind my name besides my BA in Rhetoric… but I think living with a mental illness for the past twenty odd years counts for something. So let’s look at where my thoughts were on Friday:

I just got finished watching a youtube clip of that old comedian, Flip Wilson. It was the “The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress” sketch. It wasn’t as funny as I remember it, but then few things are except for maybe reruns of  “I Love Lucy.” Vague memories of my parents watching Flip’s sketch when I was a kid kept the phrase, “The Devil Made Me Do It”  in my memory and it was the events of yesterday that pulled it out of storage.

Yesterday was the emotional equivalent of that ride, Drop Zone. I felt like I was on a free fall only to repeatedly get back on the ride and go for another drop once it was over. All the calls that I had to make might have been easy for somebody else, and it might have come in handy if I was somebody else yesterday, because I think I only made two calls before I started to unravel. That much stressful bad news in one day was too much for me. The resulting meltdown, however, was not as bad as it could have been. In the past, when I got to the bottom of the Drop Zone I was generally in a bunch of emotionally scarred pieces. I would hit bottom and I would just kind of stay there. For days. Weeks.  Yesterday, I could feel the meltdown coming… so  I kept checking in with people to get prayer. And when I didn’t feel like I could call anybody else, I sent out an email. I was already upset before I began to make the calls.

Being told that I might have to come off of  my meds three days before my surgery seemed like a really bad idea to me. It scared me. I’ve been taking my lithium since 1998. Surely, my brain is saturated with the stuff by now.  Plus, every therapist I’ve ever had has warned me of the perils of abruptly stopping my lithium. Then here comes my primary care physician, whom I like, respect, and trust telling me that I would need to stop taking it abruptly since my surgery is on Wednesday. I panicked. It was like having my security blanket ripped away. Of course, he didn’t say that he was going to make that decision. He said that they’d make the decision at my pre-op appointment… but since that’s on Tuesday and my surgery is on Wednesday… even I know that there aren’t 72 hours between the two days. That’s was probably the biggest trigger.  I couldn’t bear the thought of anything else postponing my surgery. I need to have this hysterectomy and I needed it six months ago. The impact it has had on my mental health has not been good. I needed to get that issue resolved before the weekend and that meant I would have to call somebody.

My complete inability to handle stressful phone calls without crying and having a meltdown only made the situation worse because I was relying on emails to my doctors knowing full well that it takes up to 2 business days for them to call me back. Upon reflection, I created that crisis. But in my defense, I’d been told by the two other doctors that there shouldn’t be a problem with my lithium. The resulting meltdown pretty much put me out of commission for two days. That and the fact that I re-injured my rotator cuff while I was packing. By the end of Thursday, depression seemed inevitable.

Which has me addressing the issue of what mental illness is exactly. For people not in the know, it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain. I am genetically predisposed, through no fault of my own to lean towards depression. Now, choices I make; situations I place myself in; thoughts that I allow myself to dwell on can all have an impact on my depression so I have to watch what I allow into my life. But even if I stayed hermetically sealed in my Bipolar Bubble for the rest of my life vigilantly keeping out any and all possible emotional triggers… I still have Bipolar Disorder. I’m still going to have episodes. And I may have to take medication for the rest of my life to help control said mood swings and episodes. And those are just basic facts of my reality. My mental illness cannot be ignored or dismissed just because it’s not so severe that I have to be hospitalized. It is as real an illness as cancer or kidney failure or giant fibroids.

Now, let’s look at what Bipolar Disorder is not. It  is not a choice. I did not choose to have this disorder. I do not choose to have suicidal episodes. It is not something that I brought on myself. I have not sinned and am being punished by the Lord. When I have a depressed episode or when I am caught up in depression… I am not sinning. I’m being caught up in my illness. Sure, I might be struggling to see the Lord in the midst of my mental whirlwind, but I do not doubt that he is there or that he loves me. Over the years I’ve had well meaning Christians tell me that I was in sin when I was really in the middle of a depressed episode and I was reaching out to them for help. I’ve been told that I was being disobedient to the Lord. That I was in rebellion. That I needed to pray more; read my bible more; believe more. I’ve been told that I just need to read So-And-So’s book or attend Susy Q Christian’s seminar for women. I’ve had people rebuke the devil and his demons out of me, off me, and every other prepositional phrase one can say to a demon. And I have to say that after Thursday… I’m done. The Devil did NOT make me have a meltdown Thursday. I have a mental illness.

Do I believe in Satan? Yes, I do. The bible is full of stuff about him and I believe the bible is inerrant. Not asking for a  debate. That’s just what I believe. Do I believe that my Bipolar is from him? No. I do not. Will he try to attack me when I’m in the middle of a mood swing or a depressed episode? He’s opportunistic. Why not. I make for an easy target. Kind of like one of those National Geographic videos of lions chasing a sick gazelle. Satan is not going to give me a free pass because I’m mental. But you can’t blame ever mood swing I have on Satan. I have a mental illness.  God is not punishing me and Satan is not controlling me.

I have a mental illness.

Mental illness is not a sin.

But it seems like neither well meaning friends nor foes fully understand that…especially in a time of duress like Thursday. I had a meltdown on Thursday and for a split second suicidal thoughts crept in. I’m too stable now to entertain those thoughts for long, but the fear of going un-medicated for three days put the fear in me and given my history… to ignore that fear would be like ignoring the idiot lights on my dashboard. I did that once. Bad idea. Car stalled just before I entered an intersection. Living in fear is bad… but fear, in and of itself, is not. Fear is what finally made me go to the doctor to get my condition diagnosed. Fear is what led me to get people to pray for me. And that’s what I need right now. I need prayer. I do not need well meaning, but off-based, words that make me feel guilty for having a mental illness. I do not need to be made to feel like I’m sinning because my moods are swinging rather wildly right now. So, for now, I giving up on my quest for understanding. My mission to get the church at large to understand mental illness is going to take a break until after my surgery and recovery. I still think the church has a LONG way to go in understanding mental illness… but I can’t fight that particular battle right now. Right now, I’m tired. I’m still in pain and I could use some compassion and prayer more than anything.

2:40am and All Is Well

Pain woke me up about an hour ago. Not sure which pain got my attention first though. The uber-uterus was rock solid and was sitting in my belly like a leaden paper weight. My shoulder and back were caught up in a pain I lack the word to describe. The headache on the right side of the back of my head continues to hover like a bird nesting in my hair. And the carpal tunnel in my left hand was making pathetic mewing sounds like a hungry kitten wanting attention. How old am I?? I think bodies made in 1968 should be recalled.

Oddly enough, the physical stuff is not pushing my Bipolar Button. I’m not freaked out or feeling sorry for myself or shaking my fist at God demanding to know, “WHY??”

I did the practical stuff first. I tried to ice my shoulder. Didn’t help, but it was a nice try. I tried stretching… which upon reflection, may not actually be helping. A trip to the bathroom to empty the bladder seemed to make all things uterine  feel not so bad. And I’ve decided to ignore the headache and the hand. This close to surgery I am not going to risk rescheduling because I took OTC pain killers. Once all the practical efforts to relieve the pain failed, it dawned on me that, once again, I’d failed to turn to God first. Maybe I prayed. It was 1am. Kinda hard to remember what crossed my mind that early in the morning besides, “Ow.” When I finally did think about God, I didn’t go all holy roller and start praising him for being him. I didn’t start praying for other people suffering around the world. I didn’t even pray for my own pain. My mind was kind of blank. Focusing seemed beyond me. So I grabbed my devotional books and looked at the daily readings.

To be honest, they seemed spot on when I read them, but like the breakfast I at two days ago… I don’t remember what it was. Spiritual food is like physical food. We need it, but we don’t always remember the particulars. It sustains us and is necessary and important, but we can’t live on one meal. We need to keep going back for more. So I’m not bugged out that I don’t remember something I read two hours ago. It filled a spiritual need. I’m not morphing into Bipolar Girl — pain is generally a good trigger for that. I’m not feeling sorry for myself. Maybe the trip to the cancer center on Monday helped put my situation into perspective…. doubtful, but possible. Most likely is that I took time to feed my spirit and my spirit sustained my soul.

Then a scripture came to mind so I hauled out my big bible. The one I’ve had for years that is full of all kinds of handwritten notes and underlined passages. What I read there just gave me a peace about this particular window in time. I thought about calling a friend to get prayer… but 1am doesn’t seem kosher even if they say it’s ok. It dawned on me that the one friend who is always going to be there and always understand what I’m going through is Jesus. And that realization opened my mouth to pray.

“Thank you Lord.”

I’m telling you… at 2am, my thoughts are just not that profound. “I love you Lord.” One good thing about God is that he doesn’t demand profound. He just wants me to want to spend time with him.

My pains are still there and it’s going on 3am. I’m going to try to go back to sleep. I’m not disappointed or wondering why God is allowing more pain into my life. It’s happening. I accept it. The good thing is that I’m not freaking out and sliding into depression. My head is clear and there’s no way to put a value on that. My soul is not troubled and I know it’s because I had a  late night appointment with the Lord that he neglected to tell me about when I went to bed. Sure, I wish the invite didn’t come in the form of a rock solid mass in my gut and rotator cuff pain, but maybe I’ll be more alert to future invitations. Ok. Time to log off and try to get some sleep.

It’s 3:01am and all is STILL well.

Kazaam!

I think I’m one of the few adults on the planet who will admit to watching the movie “Kazaam.” The fact that it starred Shaquille O’neal as a giant black genie trapped in a boom box should have been enough of a warning that the movie was going to wreak badly, but I found myself watching it with my housemate’s daughter who ended up having more discerning tastes than I do because she actually asked me to turn it off.  The one wish he granted before I hit the stop button was pretty far out there but was not fantastic enough to cover up all the bad acting. Badly dressed black genies? What was I thinking?

Today after work (my last “last day”) I found myself driving to the beach. Moving from one box to another box did not appeal to me. That’s what the last assignment was for me: I worked in a big box with A/C and had to deal with all the other people in the box with me. It was gratifying to hear that the didn’t have such a great time with the woman who subbed for me. At lunch time they told me that they missed me already. Good.

The group of trainees I worked with today were, for the most part, well mannered, hard working, and just plain refreshing. It was a slow day. Good thing, because my night was more like a nightmare. When I finally rolled out of bed this morning I felt like I’d been run over backwards by a herd of elephants. I say “backwards” because I swear it felt like they dumped on me while they were running. My quiet time was a bit disquieting. I read something that I had to go back later after work and reread. I’m still trying to read through the gospel of John in the New Testament. For those of you who have never read it, it’s a page turner. Check it out on biblegateway.com

Jesus is talking to his disciples and he tells them that they can ask for whatever they want and he will give it to them. Seriously. He says it in verse 14: You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Then in chapter 15 he goes on to say, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” And finally he add,”Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” If somebody says something once, you need to hear them. If they say it again, you really need to pay attention. If they say it a third time they really mean it. So if taken on face value, Jesus has just told us to call him Kazaam.

Prayer has been a HUGE subject of interest for me. Mentally ill, suicidal, single women pray for all kinds of stuff. I venture to guess that under the right set of circumstances even the most devoted atheist has been known to offer up a prayer to God, just in case. But I can also tell you that a lot of the prayers I’ve prayed to Jesus have not resulted in me getting everything I want. I lost track of how many times I prayed in the past for him to take my Bipolar away. When I found out that I had Asperger’s Syndrome, I added that to my prayer request lists. I have prayed for small things like having a good day without mood swings to big ticket items like getting through my suicidal episodes. I guess since I’m still alive, the answer to those prayers was “yes,” but there are plenty of other things that I’ve prayed for and I haven’t gotten them. I have prayed about family members, jobs, living situations… and a lot of those prayers have come back to bite me in the butt.

So I find myself wondering what exactly did he mean when he said that we could ask for whatever we wanted and we’d get it. It’s not like I’m asking him to smote all my enemies or give me dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. I don’t even pray for world peace because I do not believe it’s possible in this world. I know the Lord can answer prayers with “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” but these verses don’t seem to leave any room for anything but “yes.” I don’t want to relegate Jesus to the role of my personal genie who gives me everything I ask for… but I do want to know what those verses mean. Right now I’m praying that I will be one of those women with Bipolar who have the hysterectomy and then come out on the other side with no visible symptoms of bipolar. Will the Lord answer that prayer in the affirmative? I can’t imagine a life without depression. What if the surgery curbs my sex drive? That would be answered prayer as far as the sexual addiction goes. The “what ifs” are endless.

When I pray, I don’t go all hyper-holy. I don’t toss “thee” and “thou” around when I pray. I generally don’t even close my eyes. I find that when I pray with my eyes closed I have explicit sexual thoughts… so what might be a holy, reverent act for most people is anything but for me. I don’t tack on “in Jesus’ name” at the end of ever prayer that I pray either as if it’s some kind of magic mojo inducer. People have adamantly tried to get me to believe that all I have to do is pray hard enough and my bipolar will go away “in Jesus name.” To which I ask… what exactly does praying “hard” look like? Brings to mind straining to have a bowel movement if you ask me and I do not like that visual.

Jesus is not my genie. I don’t want him to be because any God who will take directions from me is a puny god. I’m glad that Jesus reserves the right to say, “No” even though he makes those seemingly airtight statements about answered prayer in John 14 and 15.  I told a trainee today that I would pray that he pass this one test that he had to take. He looked at me as if I’d said that I would ask Kazaam to give him a good grade. For some people the idea of praying to Jesus for anything makes about as much sense as Shaq trying to play a giant black genie. Me? I believe in the power of prayer even though I don’t really get what Jesus said about it or how it works. But I don’t have to know how prayer works. It’s like my mom’s apple pie or electricity or gravity. I don’t have to know how any of those things work or how to make them myself — I’m just glad that they are there. I’m glad I can pray.

Prayer keeps me anchored to Jesus and he keeps me anchored to hope. I don’t have to cart all my cares around in my own head allowing them to slowly drive me mad. I can turn any and every instance of worry, fear, doubt, or anxiety over to Jesus and wait to see what he does. He’s not a genie who is going to give me everything I ask for and to be honest, I’m glad. Some of the stuff I’ve prayed for over the year is insane. Jesus calls himself something in the bible that reminds me that he is better than any old genie. It’s a name that encompasses his total character, nature, and being. It is the very essence of his presence with me on a daily, minute-by-minute basis and it runs circles around Shaq’s “Kazaam.” Simple, elegant, timeless, and powerful, Jesus calls himself, “I AM.”

I AM will answer my prayers as he sees fit and in his timing whether I understand how prayer works or not.

Do You Want to Get Well?

Seems like a rather stupid question. And yet, I got it from two different sides this morning. Like yesterday, I woke up sick. The uterus. The headache. Argh. I’d like to see the rapid end of both of those two impostors. I opened my Celebrate Recovery book. It’s a  Christian 12-step program minus a few steps. I think there’s only nine and they’re not “steps,” this book calls them “principles.” You say potato… evidently Christians say “po-tah-to.” I brought it along on this house sitting gig because I feel like I’ve been in a holding pattern ever since the last step.

The fearless moral inventory step/principle is a thing of the past. I did it back in February with that therapist at the local not-free clinic. She was a Christian and I saw her as the answer to five years of prayer. I wanted a trained profession who would also understand my faith. It was nice to do all that fearless and moral inventorying with somebody I would never have to see again, but without the accountability, I think I just cruised through the next step since there was no writing involved. I process better when I write… so not having to write anything was the same as not processing it. I plugged on to the next step… the one where you have to make amends to people you’ve hurt and I hit a wall.

In CR we also have to forgive people who have hurt us, which caused me to run into another wall. I still firmly believe that forgiveness is an event and a process. Old wounds can be jostled by new events drawing fresh blood. The wound needs to be clean and bandaged again, not left alone to fester. Denial does not equal forgiveness. I also still firmly believe that forgiveness does not equal reconciliation. You can’t reconcile with someone who refuses to admit that they did anything wrong. And this is the biggest wall of all for me. I have a lot of broken relationships with people who cannot or will not acknowledge that they hurt me. To stay in these relationships was just too unhealthy, so I made choices to leave. With few exceptions, I still stand by those choices. I did leave the door open to reconciliation should the other party choose to seek me out, but I’m done with being kicked when I’m down.

Do I regret the end of the relationships? I regret what they could have been, should have been if the relationship was healthy. I do not regret the loss of relationships where I had to lie in order to keep the peace or where I had to listen to people verbally abuse other people that I love. I don’t miss the relationships where people put me down because of my faith or made me feel bad for believing what I believe. But since I was an unhealthy person, I was drawn to unhealthy relationships. When I started cleaning house, a lot of relationships (even family) had to go thus making the halls in the bubble echo with loneliness. I have been slow to fill my life with healthy relationships because I just don’t know how. People want to get close to me… but I just don’t let them get past the initial perimeter.

And into the void, Jesus’ voice echos: Do you want to get well?

He said that to me in the CR book. In order to be healed I have to be ready to be healed. I have to stop making excuses. I was reading John chapter 5 this morning and it so confused me that I had to do multiple google searches. I ran across this one site that literally opened my eye. Wide. Do you want to get well? I have bipolar, Asperger’s Syndrome, and I’m having a hysterectomy. What do you think? Do you want to get well?

If we do, we must be willing to stop living in Excusiopolis, near the river of De’ Nial. We must open ourselves up to a new life, one that includes the power of God over our weakness, sickness, and sin.

And no, he’s not talking about the river in Egypt either. When Jesus asked the guy if he wanted to get well, his first response wasn’t to say, “Heck yeah!” He said that he had nobody to help him. As this article points out, he then focused on other people. Me? I focus on other people a lot. I’ve made a science and an art form out of it. But dwelling on past hurts is just as bad as denying them. Hiding them from other people is wrong, but trying to hide them from Jesus makes no sense. The one person who can truly heal all those old wounds wants me to trust that he can make me well.

Now how this all connects to my hysterectomy is a mystery even to me… but somewhere between the CR, John 5, and that website explaining John 5… I just had a moment of clarity where I just knew that I should stop resisting this surgery. I need to move beyond “having to have it” and progress to “wanting to have it.” And in an instant this morning I was there. Do I think that this hysterectomy is going to heal me of my bipolar, clear up my acne, straighten my teeth, and improve all of my dysfunctional relationships? Not hardly. I’ve got Bipolar, not terminal stupidity. But for whatever reason, Jesus wants me to walk this path towards healing the broken things in my life.

Principle 5 in CR is about voluntarily letting God remove character defects. I think glossing over this step was why I hit those walls with Principle 6 (the amends step). I acknowledged my character defects, but I only gave a glancing nod at wanting God to remove them. To do so means that I’ll have to face them and facing them is scary. Yet, I can’t face other people until I’ve learned to face myself. The big five character defects that I want God to remove: fear, worry, doubt, bitterness, and resentment. If I had to shoot for six… self-pity would be in there too. So much of what is going on in my life right now is about facing the funky five and if this surgery is somehow going to get me to the other side of denial… then strap me to the gurney and give me a paddle.

Do I want to get well?

Yes, Jesus. I do.

Not the River in Egypt

And the list goes something like this: my mother, my stepfather, my brother, four of my seven sisters, my former employers, former house mates, ex-boyfriends, other Christians… If you think long enough you’ve got your own list to reflect on.

Bipolar Girl  spends so much time “reflecting” and gazing at the lint in her belly button that none of her thoughts should surprise me anymore. Because I’m so open about my struggles with Bipolar and my addiction issues, people say that I’m transparent and real — and I take a weird pleasure in that. No masks for me. I’m the real deal. I’ve thought so often about the masks that people wear, that I didn’t think I had anymore behind which to hide. In fact, I tend to get really belligerent when I feel like people are trying to force me to wear a mask, to be something I’m not… or to act like they think I should. So when I sat on the lanai last night looking out at the ocean and trees I was surprised to find that the man in the mirror was wearing a mask.

A few months back I did a “fearless” moral inventory for a twelve step program. That’s the step where you look at all your regrets, mistakes, and anything else you’ve got crammed into your baggage and you share it with another person and with God. This program is Christian based… so there’s no question who my Highest Power is. Considering that God already knows all of my garbage one would think that I didn’t have to worry about sending him the memo, so I took the step and thought I was done. No more regrets or aching wounds. Right? Hardly. Why do I think that doing things like this step are going to magically change my life? By now I have totally clued in to the fact that it’s a process and as long as I’m breathing I’m going to be going through said process. So why do I expect a timer to go off announcing that I’m done??

To hammer that home, I recently started watching a show called “Being Erica.” It’s about a woman who meets up with this “therapist” who is able to help her travel back through time to correct various regrets that she listed on a steno pad on the first episode. Being recently fired and dumped by her boyfriend in the same day, Erica had A LOT of regrets. “Regrets” is just a code word for “Baggage.” This woman has about as much baggage as I do, so I totally appreciated the desire to go back to a specific regret and to somehow make it better by making better choices. I’ve watched both seasons on hulu.com in just under a week. It seemed like so many of her regrets were my regrets and while I know I can’t go back and fix anything, I could live vicariously through her in each 45 minute episode.

Of course, this sparked a lot of conversations with Jesus, who does not seem to want to oblige me by sending me back in time. He doesn’t work that way. He wants me to bring all of my problems, regrets, and broken toys to him and trust that he can repair all of it and me in the process. This is where wearing masks can stall the repairing process. You see, Jesus wants me to come to him transparent and real. He knows I’m broken. I know I’m broken. The problems come when I try to hide from other people so that they don’t see my brokenness or when I run from people because I’m afraid they will break something else. This all boils down to a case of denial. When it becomes easier for me to skim over the surface of life than actually live it, I’m existing in denial.

Of course, the hysterectomy was ground zero for the explosion of thoughts that ending up ripping my mask off last night. Explaining the actual connection to anybody outside of my own mind will be hard. Let’s just say I went from talking to the Lord about my hysterectomy to various situations that I regretted and people who I resented. Just when I think I’ve let go of all of my resentment and bitterness something hits another vein. This time that “something” was my uterus. What good little Christian girl has that much resentment and bitterness inside of her? How did all those completely unrelated people and situations all seem connected to my surgery? I realized that none of the situations or people involved were news to me. It’s all old baggage really. And while I do believe that I’ve forgiven them, there hasn’t been reconciliation because I feel forced to wear a mask. In all of the instances, I have extended my hand to that person even though some of them hurt me badly. I was willing to let by-gones be by-gones, but the other person won’t even acknowledge the hurt that they caused.

So if I want to be in relationship with them I have to grin and fake like nothing is wrong. Somehow, this does not jive with anything I know about Jesus. Lying in order to maintain a dysfunctional relationship doesn’t seem very godly to me. Pretending to be ok when I’m wounded and emotionally bleeding  isn’t inherently Christian.  It’s wearing a mask. And wearing a mask is lying. In one way or another the people on my list have tried to make me wear a mask and I can’t do it anymore. I won’t do it anymore. So they get to label me the bad guy for not wanting to wear the mask and play by their rules.

When I used to blog anonymously I said whatever I wanted to say and thought that I was coming out from behind the mask. Actually, I was still hiding behind the mask of anonymity. It’s easy to say what you want when nobody knows who you are. Of course, some of the things I used to blog about back in the day weren’t very nice. When wounded, I can sling my words like venom. Now, I have an accountability. People I know read this blog. And I’ve identified myself to people who don’t know me personally, as a Christian. What I say will reflect on what people think of Jesus. No pressure. Right? So where does that leave me?

How do you deal… how do I deal with septic old wounds without shoving them under a mask and still be true to Jesus and to myself? Jesus would say to speak the truth in love. Sounds easy… but there are some people on my list that I don’t love. Most of the people on that list I don’t even like. All contact with most of those people on my list has been severed… but just because I’m done with them doesn’t mean that  Jesus is. And that’s what we talked about on the lanai last night. In order to deal with all the aching emotional scabs tucked away in my baggage,  I had to admit, at least to Jesus, how I felt about the people on that list. When I did my step four I told the other person that I was ok with those people because I thought I was. All it took was the notion of a life changing surgery to have me singing a different tune.

Ok… friends just stopped by unannounced. Have to log off. I might continue this train of thought later.