Comfort Food: 2 Corinthians 1: 1-11

As I’ve tried to respond to life’s challenges, I’ve often gotten it wrong. I’ve often tried to “self-medicate” to feel better. I hate that word. People use that word to cover up all kinds of dysfunctional, hurtful, and sinful behavior. There is no medicine involved here.

For now, I’m not going to rehash what I did to “self-medicate” or “comfort” myself when life got overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hide from my past. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but I’m choosing not to camp there in this post. This post is about “comfort food.”

I’ve been hurt by well-meaning people who wanted to “comfort” me, but didn’t know how. You’ll often see me use the term “well-meaning, but soul-crushing advice.” I didn’t coin the term, but I like it. It was because I wanted to avoid this discomfort that I isolated myself and tried to do life alone. Just to be clear, when I say, “alone” I mean me and Jesus.

Accepting Jesus into my life on January 1, 1994 was the smartest thing I ever did. But it didn’t make all my problems go away. Life is full of problems. The only way not to have problems is to die… and my time isn’t up yet. Jesus wants to show me how to live life abundantly, so that the challenges of life can’t push me from being merely neurotic to being full-blown mentally ill. I’m actually ok with being neurotic. It’s part of my charm. I’m not ok with being mentally ill.

Walking with Jesus has meant that I’ve always had 24/7 access  — 367 days of the year  to the Source of all comfort. One scripture I learned early in my walk with Jesus has been a rock of truth upon which I stand. And the cool thing about truth… once it’s embedded in your heart, nobody can take in from you, no matter what happens in life. This truth is comfort food for me:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ( 2 Corinthians 1:1-11)

Not only is there comfort in knowing that God is just waiting to comfort me… but that he can bring beauty out of the ashes of my life by allowing my life to comfort others.

I would like to note that Christians need more discernment when it comes to trying to “comfort” people struggling with mental health issues. What might comfort somebody else may not comfort them. It might actually be a trigger. I’ve had to learn the hard way how to communicate to people what is and isn’t comforting… what is and isn’t helpful. Because of ignorance (my own and that of well-meaning people) I got hurt and retreated into  my “Bipolar Bubble” to avoid more pain.

Isolation is the absolute worst thing anybody can do whether you are neurotic or not. God never meant for man to live alone. Right now? God is comforting me by giving me the discernment to know who to invite into my adventure and how to ask them for help. It’s a communication issue.

Now…instead of drowning in the waves that crash upon my life, I am learning how to become a “wave walker” by using my voice to reach out to healthy community. And as God works through his body (the church), to address the external factors that cause me to morph from being neurotic to mentally ill… there is great comfort in that.

Day 17: All for HIS Glory

Today I was challenged to think about why I do what I do. I mean… this whole grad school thing is pretty surreal. It has been one long string of trials and challenges. And this last stretch of the race has been draining.  I’m tired right now… so this post… not going to get edited, but I want to remember this day.

Last night, I was working on the draft of the next final paper. It has been incredibly hard pulling my thoughts out of the haze that is my memory to craft a “coherent narrative.” I’ve had to deal with more computer and printer malfunctions and to be honest, I was over it. Yesterday my attitude needed adjusting. I just wanted to get it done and over with. I didn’t even care what it looked like as long as I was done.

Then there was a knock at my door. Nobody knocks on my door. I live off campus in a studio that’s in a quasi-group living situation. Everybody has their own studio with en suite bathroom and some small kitchenette setup. There’s a communal living room, kitchen-esque area (with all kinds of kitchen stuff except a refrigerator). We’ve even got a strip of a backyard area that has a small garden.

The landlord advertised it on craigslist and made it sound like it was a really cool community oriented living space. Since God had been speaking to me for the past two years about community and my need to start engaging with people, I decided to step out of my zone and apply for this place when the place that I REALLY wanted got away. The pictures on craigslist and the write up made it sound too good to be true. I even wondered if it was a scam, but I followed up on it because I felt God nudging me in that direction.

When I got here… I found out that it WAS too good to be true. It wasn’t really anything like the pictures and the community was almost non-existent. My disappointment was one of the triggers to the initial depression I felt when I got here. Then school started and I got buried under a mountain of work and anxiety. The idea of being social dropped off my radar.  I met a few of the other tenants, but nobody was really rushing up to embrace me into the fold. Since I was struggling with the transition to grad school, I really didn’t care about community all that much, so this semester has been lonely. I’m happy to say that it has gotten better since August, but I wouldn’t call any of the other residents here friends. Some of them have become friendly and so have I.

Still… for somebody to knock on my door was totally unexpected. Since I needed to take a break from my draft I welcomed the intrusion. It was my nearest neighbor wanting to show me a video of his musical performance the night before. He’s in an singing group and he practices a lot. The walls are thinner that whatever is a step below paper… so I hear him every times he sings. We’ve taken to talking about music since I sing. He’d invited me to his performance and while I wanted to go… I couldn’t go because I had to work on THE PAPER.

I told him that I just wanted to get it done and didn’t care what it ended up like. He’s working on his PhD, so he knows that feeling of just wanted to be done. He encouraged me not to look at it that way though, that I should dig deep and give it my best. He left. I shut my door. I didn’t give it much thought. I knew my attitude needed adjusting, but I told Jesus that I really didn’t care.

I finished the draft later that evening but I knew that it would need more work. The PLAN was to stay home from church to finish it. When woke up this morning, I read Luke 15 and spent time just being still. Then I turned my attention to my paper. But you know how it is… if I’m on the computer, I will eventually take a break and end up on Facebook. There was a memory from a year ago. I love those memories that Facebook calls up. It’s like having an external hard drive for my memory. The stuff that I post is stuff that I’m going to want to remember. This particular memory couldn’t have been more timely.

A year ago today I post a video by King and Country. It was “The Little Drummer Boy.” In the post I wrote that I am not a fan of Christmas music. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Christmas. I love me my Jesus, but the hype of the holiday gets to me. In the post, I noted that I didn’t even know what a “pa rum pa pum pum” is and what a stupid lyric that was… but that THIS version of the song changed my mind. It has drums. I LOVE drums.

So this morning as I procrastinated on starting the paper that I just wanted to be over, I listened to a Christmas song with a stupid chorus and the intensity of the drums got to me. Then it dawned on me that I didn’t even really know any of the lyrics for the song aside from the objectionable chorus. When I looked them up… I started to cry. I got the attitude adjustment I so badly needed! It’s a song about a little boy who stands before the new born King with nothing to give to him except a song on his drum. He wanted to give his very best to Jesus and when he did, the baby King smiled at him.

Overlooking the fact that there is no mention on a drum in the Christmas story, the point of it stopped me in my tracks. Why am I here? Why am I doing the grad school thing at my age?? Why am I writing this paper?

Not so I can slap something together and call it a day. I’m in graduate school because God called me to do it and I love him. “IF you love me, obey my commands.” All semester long I have struggled with my writing assignments, but with each one I got real with God because I wanted my writing to honor him. I wanted each paper to be my absolute very best and that actually took all the pressure off me as I wrote. I wasn’t writing for the professors. I was writing for Jesus.

My attitude has been so bad about this final paper. God doesn’t need me to do him any favors. It is a privilege and a gift that I even get to be here. For years I’ve been asking God about mental illness and he sent me to a place where I could get answers. Writing this paper should be my gift to Jesus. I have always wanted my writing to be a gift to him. The song reminded me of that. It was with a new set of eyes and ears that I approached the draft today. I held a copy of it in my hands and just KNEW that I needed to make changes because what I held in my hands wasn’t my very best.

As I started to work on revising it, the pieces just started to fall into place. I wasn’t writing it to please my professors or to just “get ‘er done.” It was the equivalent of my drum. When I finally finished the second draft my heart was bursting. I still have another revision to do… but in my hands, I held something that reflected all the things that I have learned this semester and all the hard work that I have done. I could not have made it this far were it not for the grace of God. This paper is the fruit of this semester. My paper is called, “Intellectual Oppress: When Acute Distress Gets Misattributed to Mental Illness.” It is born out of my struggles with mental health. By the time I’m finished with it, it will be my very best. And to think God used a Christmas song that I used to ridicule to inspire me to give him my best as I finish up this semester.

Go figure. God seriously does work in mysterious ways. First by sending my atheist neighbor to encourage me to do my best and then the song. I will take whatever inspiration he sends me.

Today is Day 17 and I am doing what I do for my King and His Kingdom.

 

 

 

Day 54: Please Stop Telling Me, “You GOT This!” (Part II)

Here’s some information on “Growth Mindset.”

My abilities have been growing SO much since I got here.
I have developed and am developing a growth mindset.
When I went to UC Berkeley… my first failure devastated me.
I was at one of the best universities in the nation…
and I wasn’t adequately prepared.
I became depressed.
I started drinking.
I did a whole bunch of
things to “self-medicate.”

I’m facing the same kinds of conditions now
that I faced then…
but rather than fall into depression,
I am falling forward.
I am admitting what I don’t know
and actively seeking help to learn it.
I’m starting to see successes.
I’m totally open to people praising my effort
because I’m working hard.
But I also know that I couldn’t be doing
ANY OF THIS
without God and the love
and support of the church and friends
who are like family.

I will be sharing more about growth mindset
and the importance of learning to embrace failure
and change… and what perseverance means to me.
As I share these things pray that God would continue to
grow in me a growth mindset. Pray for the renewing of my mind.
I end this post with a question…

Today is Day 54… what kind of mindset do you have??

Day 61: Counseling

Today I met with my therapist.
It was my third visit  and it went really well.
Today went really well for the most part.
I’m tired so there’s no editing in this post.
What you see is all I’m capable of giving.

Why counseling? Why now?
IF it was left up to me… I wouldn’t be doing counseling.

Counseling wasn’t part of my plan for college…
but God made it abundantly clear that I needed it…
so I opted to defer to God’s Plan G which is better
than ALL of the plans that I might come up with put together.

Since God was gracious enough to lead me to a counselor
who is a professing Christian… and the visits are
covered by my registrations fees…
any arguments I might’ve thrown at Him in protest
were pretty much silenced after our first visit.

The only reason I resumed counseling back on Maui
back in February was because my work environment
had become so toxic, that it became a safety issue.

I did not feel emotionally or psychologically safe there,
and when cornered, my thoughts go into scary territory.
It bears repeating that my bosses were not evil.
I have to make sure I say that because some of my
former students read my blog. I’m not saying any of
this to get back at my bosses or to cause trouble.
It is part of my story and it is impacting me now.

They weren’t trying to hurt me…
But they did… badly… and I sought help
at the time… I did NOT seek medication because
while I was dealing with acute distress,
I refused to medicate myself when it was
the environment that was dysfunctional.

I didn’t want to crack under
the pressure and make an emotional decision
from which there was no coming back,
so I asked God to open a door to get
mental health interventions… and he did.

I know when I’m being triggered.
I know when I’m being pushed beyond
my limits and my job was pushing me to an edge.

And because I knew this…
because I knew
the kinds of corners I can
back myself into,
I sought help and
God opened a door
for me to get it.

When God opens doors,
it would behoove us to walk through them.
SO it bears repeating:

IF you need help
GET IT!
There is NO
shame in that.

It was supposed to be short-term, though.
Only for the last three months of my job —
Crisis intervention to help me navigate
those last difficult months — which it did.

I finished  my job as a peacemaker…and then walked away
from it feeling better than I could’ve possibly
have imagined.

As a result of the counseling back on Maui,
I even had the unexpected bonus of having
the Bipolar Disorder diagnosis removed from my
medical history! I thought I was done.
It should’ve been the end of counseling.

College was supposed to be a new chapter in the adventure…
but even before I left Maui fear started to rear its ugly head.
I was afraid that I would get here and be unable to hack
the pressure and end up suicidal.

I was actually terrified of leaving Maui…
because I fearfully thought
that I was going to end up dead…
but God made it clear that it was time to go
and that I could choose to step out in trust
or step out in fear…
either way… I would be stepping out
because staying on Maui wasn’t an option.

Two months before I left Maui,
Suicide crossed my mind.
I lined up all the pills in my house
and contemplated taking them.

SO it bears repeating: I do not and have NEVER
wanted to die. I don’t think most people who contemplate
suicide actually want to die. I think they want the pain their heads to stop.
I think they are so tired of living with the pain that the only way
to shut it off is to silence themselves.
I have just wanted to pain that crowds my mind,
but I refuse to give up because I KNOW that God
loves me and forgives me.

Yet… this is where I do believe in spiritual attack.
We DO have an enemy of our soul who is alive and well.
I don’t know that I credit him with as much action as some
believers I know do… but scripture tells us that he’s a liar, a thief, and a killer.

Any time somebody thinks that ending their life is the only answer… I believe
Satan is right there egging them on. I do believe
that when somebody gets pushed into a dark corner
where death seems to be their best and only option, that Satan is at work.
Is it purely demonic? Or it it purely chemical? Are there psychosocial triggers?

Smarter people than I debate that… so I’m not going to go there tonight.

After everything that I’ve experienced since I got here… I believe God
is restoring my mind, will, and emotions one class assignment at a time,
one challenge, one trial, one obstacle at a time and I just need to keep
following him and submitting my life to him. I haven’t had any suicidal
since Maui. All my triggers are external. As I press through these triggers
I need someone to hold this space with me… and God sent my  counselor.

That I now have a counselor who believes in Jesus with whom I can unpack
all the stuff in my head and not just label it demonic as if that solves EVERYTHING
is giving me a peace that I haven’t ever known. Yes, I’ve had to walk
through a lot of sh*ft since I got here, but God is turning it into fertilizer
that is growing my faith exponentially. How can I regret an of this??

When this is all over and done with… God IS going to restore my mind.
I am going to be mentally stable with all the coping skills and healthy relationships
to prove it.

This feeling that I’ve had my entire life…
that I never fit in or belonged anywhere? I am not the only
one who ever felt that way. The things that I used to think
were unique to me… have names… which means that I’m NOT
the only one. We talked about that and a bunch of theories
that help explain that… and counseling was good.

No, counseling didn’t solve all of my problems today.
I don’t actually think counseling solves problems…
it just gives people a space to air their pain and somebody
to stand in that space with them as they explore the answers
that God has deposited on their path for them to find.

God gave me a gift in that session today.
He gave me the gift of time.
God IS going to heal my spirit and my mind…
but it’s going to be in his timing,
not mine and I’m ok with that.
I have seen God’s fingerprints ALL
over this adventure, so I KNOW
that I am not alone.
He WILL strengthen and help me.
I don’t have to be afraid.

I am choosing to trust God and counseling is a part of that trust. Going to counseling doesn’t mean that I am not trusting God. When I first started counseling this guy I knew from Maui told me that I didn’t need to do some “mental health class.” He dismissively said that all I needed to do was “cast out those demons.”

And it is because of ignorant, but well-meaning comments like THAT that I have to write posts like this. I would really rather NOT be posting this tonight because it’s just rambling stream of consciousness… but since I believe that counseling CAN be helpful and because I believe that I’m NOT the only one who struggles with ANY of the things I struggle with… then hopefully… by continuing to add my voice to the conversation about mental health…somebody who needs to read this will and it will make a difference.

Today is Day 61 and God is moving me through this “liminal space.” As always… please pray!

Day 38: Where He Leads…

Last night the most intense pain woke me up from a sound sleep. The first one in nearly two months. The pain was coursing up from my feet, past my ankles, up the front of my shins and flashing directly like white light in my eyes. The muscles in my ankles and feet were knotting so badly that my feet were twisted outwards at odd angles. I leaped out of bed and into action. I knew from past experience that I needed to try to walk it off no matter how painful it felt.

I hobbled around the living room in the dark wanting to cry.

I couldn’t put my feet flat on the ground so every step felt as if the veins in my ankles were going to burst. I could feel the tight, rock hard knot at the point where my foot should’ve been able to flex. Massaging the area helped a bit… but I had to keep walking. I do not know how long I walked. I only remember falling into an exhausted heap on my bed in a really awkward position because moving my feet the wrong way… would cause the pain to flare up.

The first time this happened to me years ago… anxiety overwhelmed me. I felt certain that I had some kind of air bubble in my veins that would travel to my brain… like an embolism that would mean immediate death. Mine. I was so terrified. I thought I’d have to ask my housemate to call 911.

When I didn’t immediately die, I turned to the internet for answers and possible causes. A little bit of information went a LONG way towards stopping fear and anxiety in their tracks:

Dehydration. Potassium deficiency. Malnourishment. Sedentary lifestyle.

At the time, I was guilty of all of that. Living in a western country… I’m not the poster child for vitamin deficiencies or malnourishment, but I was. I was fifty pounds heavier. I was CLEARLY fed, but I wasn’t being well-fed. My diet was very lopsided. Because of food allergies and sensitivities, I had eliminated a lot of things from my diet including most fruit. I only ate a handful of vegetables. My doctor confirmed some nutrient deficiencies and referred me to a nutritionist.

As I started to take better care of myself in the past few years, those spasms became a thing of my past — until last night. Instead of letting anxiety and fear drive me, I literally walked in the wisdom I’d gained from past experience. I knew what to do.  I think God was telling me it was time to “step up my game,” but he was also giving me a warning. I am letting stress make me ill again.

The stress of the past few months compounded with the stress of the past year has been impacting me emotionally and physically. I’m not sleeping properly. I haven’t been exercising because I feel claustrophobic at the Y after a long day at work. I haven’t been eating properly because most of the foods I’ve been eating have been causing flareups with my abdominal adhesions. I’ve been having painful bloating and inflammation. I’ve been stress eating (which looks A LOT cleaner than it USED to look)… but I’ve been letting things slide in terms of taking care of my health.

The 5 Point Plan hasn’t even been helping me… because I’ve been alternating between defense mode, survival mode, and crisis mode since mid-March. I’ve been daily realizing Steps 1 through 3. There is no point in seeing my doctor on this. I’m not going to throw pills at this. You cannot medicate what God wants to eradicate. I’ve traveled down this road before. Surgery isn’t going to help. Therapy isn’t going to help. Deliverance isn’t going to help. I need to be a better steward of this body that God has given me. Stress has been tempting me to abuse my body by not taking care of it and I am beginning to suffer the consequences.

If this season of blogging is supposed to be (in part) about accountability — I need to come clean: I’m not ok. I’m in crisis and I need prayer. There are too many conflicts; too many unknowns; too many things that need addressing that I don’t have the energy to address. God is telling me to stop putting the cart before the horse. He keeps telling me to wait on him and stop being so impatient. He’s telling me that I am not a Lone Ranger and I need the body of Christ.

Crisis looks A LOT different to me these days, though. It no longer means that I’m suicidal or depressed… I’m not.

But I am CLEARLY being dysfunctional outside of work and not in an quirky acceptable way. My level of dysfunctional at home has reached embarrassing proportions. More mornings than I care to admit, I sit in my car crying before going to work.  I’ve grown weary of people trying to fix me, so I’m avoiding people. I believe that I am in the center of God’s will for me right now. There is no unconfessed sin in my life. I haven’t backslidden. While I do believe that there is a lot of spiritual warfare going on around me, I believe that God is pruning me in preparation for the next season in my life… so that I might bear more fruit. He’s asking me to submit to this and stop trying to wriggle out of it sooner than he intends.

I am still maintaing accountability with real live people, and they agree that I’m being dysfunctional… but we all know that this season is going to end soon. OF COURSE, all the unknowns of the NEXT season are also pushing my buttons, but God wants to deal with one Amalekite at a time.

I did go to church on Easter Sunday…. but not my church.

I am committed to my church and when June 3 rolls around, I WILL return to my church, but there are so many triggers inherent in going to church for me that, as much as I wanted to go to church on Easter, I knew that I couldn’t go to my church. In tears, I begged God to tell me where to go to church on Easter. I was driving home when I asked him. Should I go to one of the five churches where I write to the pastors??? I’ve been communicating with five of my old pastors for about two years now. In their own way, each of those churches has been a safe place for me… but, in their own way, each of those churches also had a lot of different triggers that caused me to avoid them when I was in crisis.

God gave me his answer the minute I got home. When I pulled into my driveway, I checked the mail as I normally do. I was shocked to find that there was a large invitation from a large local church inviting me to their Easter weekend services. It was a large cardboard flier which they probably put in every mailbox in a 50 mile radius, but it didn’t matter. God had answered me THAT day.

When I went there on Sunday I was expecting God to do something… I don’t know what… I just knew that he was going to do SOMETHING. And my God who loves me so well… saw me and he caught me as only a loving father and an omnipotent God could.

After June 3, I’m going to take time to be still and to write. God wastes nothing — not even my pain. I am NOT the only person who struggles with ANY of the things that I contend with on a daily basis. I have an understanding and a perspective about mental illness that many people in the church do not have because of all the trials and challenges that Jesus has walked me through.

A well-meaning woman I know keeps telling me that I need to go to church without asking me why I’m NOT going. God showed me that I did the same thing to a friend of mine a few months back. I meant well… but I had NO idea how badly I was crushing her soul. I do now. There are a LOT of people who don’t go to church who actually would if people took the time to find out what was stopping them and what they could do to help.

When I walked into that large church, I only felt marginally alone. I felt absolutely NO fear or anxiety. My Father had sent me an invitation. There was nothing to fear. I didn’t know anybody, but I was in my Father’s house. I didn’t actually want to run into anybody that I knew becuase it meant I didn’t have to field any questions about where I’d been or what I’ve been doing. I can’t talk about what I’ve been going through and don’t have the social skills to know how to answer casual questions without falling apart in tears. Having a meltdown was NOT how I wanted to spend my Easter Sunday. Better to go to a church where I could sit in silence and be undistured. It didn’t bother me that I didn’t know anybody.

I knew HIM and that was enough… but God had a different plan. He had the most wonderful woman come introduce herself to me and then ask if she could sit with me. I don’t like ANYBODY sitting by me in church or anywhere else. It makes me feel REALLY claustrophobic. I start to feel like the air is being sucked out of the room and I can’t breathe. My chest gets tight and my heart starts pounding. I cannot focus on anything other than trying to escape that feeling. I’ve taken to sitting on the floor at church for that very reason. Nobody sits next to you if you sit on the floor.

She made me feel like we were old friends. She looked into my eyes and actually cared. She didn’t need to ask awkward questions because she could read my eyes. She saw that I wasn’t ok and didn’t insist that I put on a mask. She asked if she could pray for me. I told her to pray as she felt led. Her prayer spoke into the depths of my sorrow and pain. She knew what to pray because the Holy Spirit told her what to say. I started to cry. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t speak. El Roi, the God Who SEES Me, sent that beautiful woman to me at 7am on an Easter Sunday to help me carry my burden which had become too heavy for me to bear.

God touched me in that service.

God is with me. He is for me. He goes before me and behind me. This season I’m in is to be endured not evaded.

And I accept that. In doing so, I am not diminishing God’s power. The God that I serve could deliver me from all of this in the blink of an eye IF he wanted to. That he hasn’t??? Isn’t an indicator that I’m doing something wrong or that I don’t have enough faith… or that I’m not rebuking the right demon loud enough.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

She thought that I was looking for a new church home and went way out of her way to make me know that I’d be welcomed there. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already HAVE a church home. I made a commitment to my church and I don’t make commitments lightly. I’m going through 1 Corithians 12 type growing pains, but I know that even this, is part of God’s plan. Lots of people leave churches and never look back. I don’t agree with this. When it’s time to go… you need to get blessed out… but until such a time as THAT, I believe you need to be still and see what God is working out through you in the body of whatever church he’s placed you in.

I’ve been open with my pastors, I do not feel like I belong in that church and I’ve told them some of the reasons why… but I also told them that I believe (WITHOUT DOUBT) that God sent me to this church and I am supposed to be there, so until God says otherwise, I’m not church hopping or shopping…

I pray for my church and my church prays for me. I am currently one of the “weaker members” of the body that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 12. My absence from church all these months falls under the “needing special treatment” category.

Right now I couldn’t go to my church if you paid me because I believe (WITHOUT DOUBT) that God has said to wait until this current assignment is done. I’ve got 37 more days. This chapter in the adventure will be over. I will have run the race… but I cannot run alone.

I’ve asked some folks for prayer. I’ve asked other folks for help. Some have stepped forward to help me. Some haven’t. The help that I need is practical. Some of it is logistical. Still some of it is financial, but most importantly, I need people to care enough to reach into the hole that I’m in and talk to me. I am feeling alone. I am scared. I do not know how to navigate this part of the journey. God is telling me to stop trying to do it alone.

I’m going to message some of my friends and ask them will the commit to making time for a daily 15 minute phone conversation with me until June 3. I’m going to ask specific friends to commit to calling me on specific days just to check in and pray. I don’t want to get into toxic dumping hence the time limit. I don’t expect anybody to fix me or have answers to any of my problems… hence the praying…. but the weight that I am carrying is too much for me to carry alone anymore.

PRAISE God that I do NOT have to try to fake like I’m ok. PRAISE GOD that I know how to set healthy boundaries as well as how to ask for help in appropriate ways. God’s also been upgrading my discernment so that I know WHO to approach and who NOT to approach. He’s helping me learn to set boundaries with “Well-meaning, but soul crushing” people who want to help… but don’t know how.

Today is Day 38 and I am in crisis…. but PRAISE GOD… Jesus is NOT content to leave me there.

Day 71: Do You See What I See??

At the end of the day… a good day… on all accounts, a student came to me and asked me if I’d be her formal mentor. I’ve been her informal mentor for months… but now she wanted to make it official. We had to sign papers and everything. We ended up  talking for quire a while. We prayed together. That memory was a gift from God. The young woman is seriously trying to press in to God and I got to be for her what I WISHED someone had done for me when I was her age. I offered to come alongside her and walk with her. I didn’t promise to fix all her problems or have all her answers.  She wants to grow in her relationship with Jesus and she wants to know how. I promised to be there.

Mentorship is so important.

Discipleship is even more so. I told her that it was important for our growth as Christians to seek out discipleship relationships where we are either being discipled, discipling someone else, or both. She had tears in her eyes as we talked. I wanted to cry and sing at the same time when she left. The teacher in me lives for moments like that.

This young woman is a peacemaker in training who cannot understand why so much drama keeps seeking her out. I felt like I was talking to “Dear Younger Me.” Since I’ve been known to mentor students long after they leave our school… I know that this relationship is going to last perhaps years to come and bear much fruit in her life and in my own. What a loverly thing to remember at the end of a long, busy day.

Tonight I find myself  feeling emotional. Again… NOT IN CRISIS.

Because of the nature of my work, I cannot go into details about anything really. And that which I COULD disclose because it effects me, God is telling me through Ecclesiastiesthat that now is the time to remain silent. There is so much going on right now that I cannot talk about and while it weighs heavily on me, I know that this season is going to be over soon… and given my memory…with time… much of the things that cause me so much stress, anxiety, and grief are all going to pass away life wildflowers.

In the midst of all of this… my faith is growing stronger. My hope is getting bigger. My vision of what God is preparing to do is expanding. God is calling me to step up my game in so many areas and I am becoming more capable and more functional. My ability to process, cope with, and navigate through things that I could not do even six months ago is ASTOUNDING me. God is well and truly restoring my soul one trial and challenge at a time as I continue to trust him and press in to him.

Even with so many things to be done, so many plans to make, and so many details still up in the air… I am not feeling the need to retreat into the Bipolar Bubble. When I started typing this post I had to pause. I couldn’t remember what had happened today. Memory deficits are still a big issue for me. Some days are better than others… and I do believe God is renewing my mind and restoring my memory… but it threw me that I couldn’t remember most of my day until I got intentional about looking back to see what God had done. Then the memories started coming back to me.

Today was a GOOD day. One of the most heartwarming memories that I JUST had as I am typing this was that two of the students who were recently terminated from our program contacted a student in my class over the weekend. She asked them who was their favorite teacher on the whole campus. She said they both said that I was their favorite teacher. I didn’t even think one of them liked me. He never said much in class and I never thought that I was getting through to him. Getting him to participate in class was like pulling teeth — MY OWN! To know that I had somehow managed to become the “favorite” of this hard to reach young man almost made me cry in front of the student when she told me. I held it in until just now… and I can’t stop crying.

As difficult as teaching has been and can still be for me… knowing that I have had even a small impact on so many young lives matters to me. Even the ones that I can’t reach. ESPECIALLY the ones that I can’t reach because those are the one who keep me up at night. Yes, I’m literally counting the days until I’m done…but that’s because I want to make every one of my last days in the classroom count. I’m not just going to coast until I’m done. I’m giving it EVERYTHING I GOT!!! Why? Because I work for a Jewish carpenter and I’m not done until he says that I am.

Please pray for my students and the staff… that God would still use me right up to my last day to impact them for him!

Today is Day 71 and when I paused to look closely at today… I saw God’s fingerprints ALL over it!!

Day 72: What a Difference a DAY Makes…

After typing that last post, I was too wired for sound to sleep. I didn’t go to bed until 1am. I figured I’d sleep until 5:30 or 6am. That would be acceptable to me.

No such luck. I woke up at THREE a.m!

I have not idea what woke me, but I couldn’t go back to sleep… so… God and I, we talked. He gave me my assignments for today and we spent a companionable day doing life together. By 9:30 I was exhausted… but I had done all the things that had been piling up the last few weeks while I was “getting my inner Mary on.” I call days like today my “Proverbs 31 Days” where I take care of my house and put it in order. Most Saturdays I pray and fast. I spend my day reading my bible, researching things that I find, and inquiring of God. The week tends to drain me dry so I use Saturday to drink deep of the living water.

On week days after a long overstimulating day of teaching, I generally cannot handle “must do” things like laundry or grocery shopping or cooking. I avoid places like WalMart like the plague. Recently, I did a bit of online shopping for some necessities because I couldn’t cope with WalMart, and not ONE of them fit me. Braving the post office to mail them back wasn’t an option. It’s closed by the time I make it to town.

So…the packages have been sitting in the trunk of my car waiting to be returned for a few weeks now. If I didn’t return them, I was going to own them whether they fit or not. I also needed to go to the bank to link up my newly opened “College Fund” to my checking account so I could transfer my tax refunds into it. I needed to activate my new ATM card as well. I’ve had the card for about a month now and never had time to get to the bank before it closed.

Then I needed to buy some real food for the week because last week I’d bought prepared foods from Whole Foods and I, unfortunately, gravitated towards salty. This always leads to water retention and I wake up with pain and stiffness in my hands and feet as a result. I needed to control my salt intake by cooking my own food. I also needed to eat something that looked like a fresh vegetable, so I had to do a real shopping trip. All of these errands would require driving.

Driving is always a challenge for me. I am no longer afraid to drive… but it still makes me tense because of my vision challenges. I always feel claustrophibic in my car. The unpredictability of the other drivers makes me hypervigilant. I grip the wheel so tightly my wrists and hands hurt. That’s how I got tendonitis in my wrists and why I have to wear special gloves to drive.

I do not drive on the weekends unless I have to and when I do, I try to do it early in the morning because there are fewer cars… so on two hours of sleep, I went to Target circa 7:30 this morning. It was a quiet drive and an even quieter store. I got all kinds of things that I have needed, but never had time to go buy. I could’ve gotten groceries at Target. That’s where I had to return the clothes, but  I went to Whole Foods instead because it’s where I learned to eat cleaner. I feel like I make better food choices there. Though I no longer live exclusively off of their salad bar and prepared foods section, I still prefer to shop there instead of Safeway or Sac ‘N’ Save. After Whole Foods, I still needed to go to Safeway because that’s where my bank is.

By the time I got home at 9am, I was ready for a nap, but I still had a lot of catching up to do. That laundry wasn’t going to fold itself. Those groceries and other things that I bought weren’t going to put themselves away.

My garbage cans haven’t been emptied in over a week. Things in my fridge needed to be thrown away. And all that  healthy food will sit in my fridge and rot if I do not do meal prep and portion things out into neat little baggies for easy eating. That took me about 3 hours because I also tried making a new healthy recipe from Arbonne that was easier to prepare on paper than in real life. But when I was done, I had food prepared for most of the week in nice little containers in my fridge.

And if all I did was shop and clean up today, I would’ve been tired… but I also needed to catch up on overdue writing projects, correspondence, and my budgeting. I needed to do a bit of online research and I wrote to the Department Chair of the School of Communications about my upcoming trip to visit the college.

Today was NOT the day of rest I thought it would be where I could finally reflect back on what God dowloaded the last three nights and last weekend. My inner Martha had to come out to make sure my inner Mary didn’t starve this week and walk around wearing dirty underwear.

Eating on the fly like I did last week makes me feel sluggish. It contributed to the stomache upsets that hung around much of last week. I did not have food to take for lunch most of last week. I called it fasting, but what it really was was poor planning. I ended up hungry and light headed most days.

Yes, I was able to “sit at the feet of Jesus” the past two weekends, but today I needed to take care of business. I still didn’t finish everything that I felt needed to be done. I didn’t clean the bathroom or mop my floor. I didn’t clean my car or transfer those plants to bigger pots. The lease on my car is about to expire and I still don’t know what I need to do about the insurance or registration… or any of the end of lease procedures. I need brain cells to process all of that info and mine weren’t all firing today. I didn’t get to all of my writing projects. I didn’t get to look up the scriptures that resonated with me from the last three nights. I wanted to email the ladies from the retreat last weekend… but that didn’t happen either. I still don’t have my travel arrangements made for my UH visit… so I’m pushing it back a few weeks though I REALLY wanted to go THIS week.

I’m so Type A that I tend to discount all that I WAS able to accomplish today because I focus on what I DIDN’T do. A year ago, I couldn’t have gotten half of this done. Two years ago, just going to the three stores would’ve worn me out. Back in 2014, I was still using the disabled scooters to do my shopping. God has TRULY brought me a LONG way!!!

SO… as I settle down into my evening, my house is reasonably clean. I’ve got clean clothes for the next two weeks. I’ve got a casserole in the fridge that looks questionable… but it’s healthy. Who knew that Molokini Sweet Potatoes are PURPLE and not the traditional orange yam-my looking color? Shepherd’s Pie with purple potatoes is going to take some getting used to.

I’m really tired… but I’m NOT going to bed before 11:30pm. The Zolpidem that I got to help me sleep ISN’T working. It was supposed to help me get 7-8 hours sleep. The other night I only got three. I see no point in taking medication if it doesn’t actually help. I felt pressured to get so much done today because last week at work was rough. And Mondays are especially stressful at work. My prayer is that the fact that I’m so tired will cause me to sleep until 5:30 tomorrow morning because being sleep deprived at work is never a good thing.

So why is all this blog worthy? Because this is what life looks like for people struggling with mental health issues. I’m NOT IN CRISIS, but I am still dealing with a lot of people who are and it impacts my mental health, though not like it used to because I’m healthier now. Still… my Saturdays are not spent at the beach or hanging out with friends. My Sundays are not spent in church.

Mental illness makes you tired. You don’t have the energy to do any of all of that after a long day at work and it all piles up. There are not enough hours in the day to do all the things that most people need to do add mental health issues and you have less productivity. I used to let my emotions drive the bus… and that usually meant I’d just want to sleep all weekend to compensate from the constant war between my flight or fight responses.

Today required discipline (self-control) which is a fruit of the Spirit. That self-control is often translated to “sound mind” in that famous verse in Timothy. This week I will be able to have a “sounder” mind because I’m not worrying about all the things that I needed to do but didn’t, because I was able to knock a bunch of things of my “Round To-IT” list.

Honestly? I didn’t want to do any of them. I would MUCH rather have stayed home in my pajamas resting and processing my notes from the past three nights… but that would’ve contributed to me having the opposite of a sound mind. So as tired as I am… today was necessary.

One really COOL thing that happened today… I realized that I had my days on my calendar wrong. I’d numbered the days on my calendar counting down until my last teaching day. Every day I’ve come home and X’ed the day off. I realized today that I’d miscalculated! I have fewer days than I originally thought! I went from Day 75 to Day 72 overnight!!!

73 days. That’s how many days it took God to wean me off the Lithium back in 2016. That was a truly AMAZING time for me… but something the guest pastor said last night is resonating with me. He said God is bigger than the last big thing he did for you and that we shouldn’t insist or even expect that he will show up the same way again. God changed the entire trajectory of my life in 2016 (or at least he changed my perspective of it). I am believing God is about to do the impossible and the improbable in my life and that requires me NOT putting him into the box of my preconceived expectations.

As awesome as coming off the Lithium was… and all the awesome things I saw God do at that time, he’s BIGGER than that. In the next few months, my entire life is going to change once again, but it won’t be about me coming out of the darkest dysfunction into the light. I will be about me going from a place of health and wellness into more healing and more growth. The countdown got reset today for a reason. I’m not sure why yet, but I trust Jesus. He’s taking me to the edge of where I am because he’s about to show me how to “soar on wings like eagles!!”

Today is Day 72 and I spent it being Martha with Jesus… some might object to that… but any day spent with Jesus makes ALL the difference!

Day 75: God’s BIGGER

For the past three days I’ve gone to a conference each night hosted by an awesome church in town. It’s their five year anniversary and they wanted to do it up RIGHT! I heard about it about a month ago and I KNEW that I was supposed to be there…. and I was not wrong!

I am still floating off the cloud God parked me on the past few nights. I’m tired, yet exhilirated. Overwhelmed… but not overcome. Filled to my capacity to comprehend what I’ve heard, but not filled to the limit of what God can and will do through with my yielded life…

And all that’s to say is that I have SO much that I would WANT to post tonight… but it’s 10:30 and I’m tired. If I stay up into the wee hours writing this… I’m going to be physically useless tomorrow. As incredible as the past three days have been… God didn’t pour all of that into ME just for me. He intends for me to write about it… to share testimony of the goodness, glory, and HUGE-ness of the God that I serve and love.

And to do that…. to write all that is in me to write… I NEED time. I need sleep.

Tomorrow I am not going to church again. I know that bothers some people. I know it doesn’t make sense to some people… because all “good Christians” go to church. I am a good Christian, but in this season of my life, God has called me to press into community, but I have needed to step back from formal church. I could keep trying to explain to people why I need to do this… or I can let them believe what they want to believe about me and my walk with Jesus.

I do feel led to say that I’m not in crisis. Last weekend I went to a woman’s retreat and an old friend got worried when she didn’t hear from me. She sounded the alarm via text asking a bunch of my other friends if I was ok.

Honestly? It was embarrassing… but when suicide and depression are a part of your testimony, people are going to wonder if they don’t hear from you. My Friday and Saturday were so amazing… I had no time to reach out and by Sunday, I had no energy. I was trying to process all that God had sown into me. I had to send a text apologizing for alarming anybody. That made me angry because I am tired of apologizing for having mental health issues that make me different. Different… however is NOT bad. Unity does NOT mean conformity. And God’s telling me that in this season, I need to be still on Sundays. He’s telling me through Ecclesiastes that NOW is a season to write.

Hopefully, I will get to a place in my life where I no longer have to say that I’m not in crisis. But knowing that people who have walked these waves WITH me have had cause in the past to fear for my safety, I will glady rejoice in the fact that I AM NOT IN CRISIS and tell as many people as I can so that I can share testimony of what Jesus did to lead me out of the dark valley that I used to inhabit.

I used to hate that suicidal ideation and depression were a part of my testimony… but because they ARE a part of my wheelhouse, I am going to be able to minister to other “good Christians” like me who struggle with going to church but want with all their hearts to be able to do so. Going to church because you’ve been pressured or guilted out? How does this glorify Jesus? How is God magnified? When I am able to go to church, I go for one reason only: to love the Lord.

For so many years (up until the very recent present), walking through the doors of formal church was like stepping on to a minefield. Mindfield is more like it because the battle that I was caught up in couldn’t been seen by anybody else in the room but me. Formal church still has so many triggers that when I AM in crisis, it’s the last place I want to be because it is impossible to try to “embrace” all of those triggers simultaneously because it would be the emotional equivalent of being hit by mutliple rounds of an active shooter.

On Sundays like that… I’d limp out of church feeling worse than I did when I went it and that made it that much easier for Satan to attack me. What kind of “good Christian” goes to church and struggles with all the stuff that I would struggle with?? SURELY… that meant I wasn’t a “good Christian!” And once THAT lie was planted in the fertile soil of my mind… it was that much easier to make me question if I was even saved at all. This is NOT how I feel now, but it IS how I thought for a lot of years and the well-meaning but soul crushing words of believers who kept trying to guilt me into going to church didn’t help.

I’m not big on talking about Satan’s motives because I do not want to minimize God by maximizing him… but God wants his people to go to church. He wants his body to be unified. He wants his bride to be a reflection of his love to a fallen world… so with all THAT riding on the line… might it be possible that Satan isn’t going to camp outside the doors of the church to keep the hurting seekers out? Might it be possible that he will actually come right in the front doors and then launch a full scale attack on the unsuspecting once they find a comfortablea  seat? Some of the worst attacks on my mind and my spirit didn’t happen at home. They happened in church which only made me feel like I was some sort of demon spawn.

Getting to church isn’t always easy for me. STAYING in church has been harder. There are few things worse than being in a church full of people while getting attacked in your spirit by Satan… and having nobody notice. There have been times when I went to church and felt like I was drowning and because my walls used to be so thick… nobody even knew that there was a problem. I have lost track of the number of times that I ran out of churches in a hysterical fit of blind panic because I thought I was having a “bipolar meltdown.” I now suspect that most of that was really bad anxiety attacks brought on by the fact that I’m claustrophobic.

Whatever the cause… that feeling like the walls were closing in on me felt real. Feeling like I couldn’t breathe in church when God IS the air that I breathe… is a horrible feeling. Not knowing what would trigger it or when it might happen made the THOUGHT of going to church full of anxiety.

This doesn’t make sense to some people. And as verbal and as eloquent as I am… I cannot convince people that mental illness in the church needs something that the church doesn’t always know how to provide. Yet. There are people who have mental health struggles greater than mine… who desperately need to be in a church, but until the church gets a revelation on how to care for these walking wounded… I’m going to be the LAST person to make a blanket statement that EVERYBODY ALWAYS needs to be in church.

People like me… who have struggled with depression and suicidal ideation need to stop being ashamed of what’s in our wheelhouse. Jesus didn’t come to heal the healthy. He came to heal the sick… and I used to be REALLY sick. That Jesus has transformed my life from the place of darkness that I used to live in is cause for celebration and I aim to celebrate… when this current battle is over. I have 75 more days until I leave the emotional battle field that is teaching… and God has given me my orders: lean into community. I have been obedient to that.

The past two weekends God has drawn me into amazing community. I was surrounded by other believers from many different church denominations in worship of our Lord and though a lot of my triggers were activated… I was able to embrace the crap outta’ them. All three nights were AMAZING… and tonight God moved me. He changed my mind about the barriers in my life that seem so looming.

He’s also stress accountability. There are NO Lone Rangers in the faith. I’m not trying to be one. I’m not hiding from people just because I’m not going to church. When people point out that they haven’t seen me, I want to say, “I haven’t been hiding. Did you bother to look?” I’ve made myself accountable to people who have been a part of my life for the long haul. I’ve made myself accountable to my pastors. I have NEVER felt LESS alone in my life.

There will be people who “open the book of my life to the middle” and try to tell me how to live. There will be people who take exception to my blunt way of speaking and try to correct me. That is part of what it means for me to be a writer who teaches. People are always going to read my words and try to tell me how to be me.

Ok… it’s now 11:19 and THIS is me being too tired to write. I could say more — it’s pretty obvious that I’m on a role, but I still need to go to sleep. And I’m STILL to wired to do so. I need to start powering down. THAT’S the one downside to all this external stimulation — I’m to overwhelmed to sleep. If I get three hours of sleep tonight, I’ll be lucky. If I get five, I’ll be happy. If, by some miracle, I sleep seven hours… it will be an act of God.

My final thought… the message tonight??? I needed to hear it: God is BIGGER.

I intend to unpack that and all the other stuff God downloaded over the past two weeks that is meant to be shared… but I really DO need to be still now. Editing? Not gonna happen! Good night and God bless!!

Day 78: It’s the End of the World As We Know It…

… and I FEEL FINE!
(To quote the song.)

I submitted my official resignation today from the job I’ve worked for nearly a decade. My OFFICIAL last day of work will be June 3rd, Lord willing. There is so much I wish I could say, but due to confidentiality, I cannot… but God has made it abundantly clear that the cloud is moving.

The light at the end of this liminal space is NOT a train. Gone are the days of dismal foreboding where I expect bad things to happen to me because so many bad things have happened to me before. I no longer believe that I am a captive or a victim to my past. Yes, a lot of bad things have happened to me…. but in the past month I found out that I DON’T have cancer and that I DID get accepted to graduate school to get a MA in COMMUNICATION!!!

My future is in God’s hands and I finally believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. I cannot explain why bad things happen to good people… I wish they didn’t. I can’t change the bad things that have happened to me… but I can learn from them and press in to Jesus who IS the way, the truth and the life. I am nothing if not a Truth seeker… so I’m open to however God wants to reward me in this life and the next!

Sending the email to HR was gratifying. It was the end of an era. I’ve been teaching for 20 years! They have been 20 long hard years for the most part. When I hit, “Send…”

I felt free.

I now OFFICIALLY have 77 days left before I take off my lanyard, lay down my chalk, and walk out of the classroom as a teacher. Fear is what kept me in teaching well past my “expiration date.” I should’ve quit back in 2000. I knew it wasn’t my passion. I knew it triggered depression. But because I struggled with mental illness, I didn’t think I could do anything else. I’m a good teacher, at times, I have even been a great teacher… but I hate classroom teaching with an intense passion. It mashes too many of my mental health buttons, but still I persevered trying to serve Jesus in education to the best of my ability. I have grown in my faith and as a person.

I have no regrets.

But now it’s time to get the hell outta’ Dodge.

Going back to school at my age, however… is not without its fears. And knowing Jesus the way that I do… I’m sure he will call me to confront a lot of those fears in the upcoming days and weeks and blog about them because he wastes NOTHING. There are other people out there who struggle with a lot of the things I have who just might be encouraged to persevere in their faith after reading my story. It just might inspire them to tell their own story… and who knows where those stories will end or what fruit they will yield?

God is calling me out to do new things and for the first time in my life… I’m not going to let fear or anything else stop me. I’ve got 77 days left… and I FEEL FINE!!

Day 81: Bipolar Girl and… Liminal Space?

Having friends who care is SO important when you struggle with mental health issues. They may not always get you… but they don’t always have to. They just have to be safe and they have to love you. When I was weaned off the lithium in 2016, I made a commitment to my friends to blog every day so that if I did start to become manic… it’d show up in my writing and my friends knew to be on the alert for eratic behavior. That would be their cue to step in and do an intervention. The doctor kept warning me that if I came off the lithium without going on something else… I could become manic and end up in the psych word or dead. She ACTUALLY told me this. Way to insure paranoia… but she was contractually obligated to make sure I understood the risks.

All I knew was that God (and a whole cadre of doctors) was telling me that I had to get off the lithium. I found myself in a liminal space where I had to trust God with my life in a way I never had before. If you want to know how that liminal space adventure unfurled… check out my posts from the end of October 2016.

Right now, I am in another “liminal space” where pretty much everything in my life is about to change. There are so many question marks where I wish there were periods. My faith is being stretched, tested, pruned, refined… and attacked, ambushed, and aggrivated on a daily basis. It’s exhausting and exhilirating at the same time.

Not being one to see a demon behind every bush… though I have now learned not to disregard things in the spiritual realm… I’m still inclined to for look inwards and then upwards to see if God just might be trying to take me to a deeper level of faith by revealing “character defects” that he wants to address.

I got that term from Celebrate Recovery. I like it because not everything negative in my character is sin. Those overt sins in my life that God wants to address? The Holy Spirit convicts me of the sin and I have a choice: confess and repent OR continue to wallow in it.

But I’m not taking about overt sin. I’m talking about those defects in my character that hinder me walking fully in the abundant life that Jesus promised. After I’ve looked inward and upward… then and only then… do I ask God if what I’m experiencig is the result of spiritual attack from the enemy of my soul. I do not go into spiritual warfare mode just because I don’t like the way my life is going….

Accept the way God does things,
for who can straighten what he has made crooked?
Enjoy prosperity while you can,
but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God.
Remember that nothing is certain in this life. Ecc. 7:14

2018 was one of those “best of times/worst of times” years and 2019 is looking to be much of the same… but God has assured me that this season is almost over. This “liminal space” that I have been in the past few years??? The finish line is in sight. I got accepted to graduate school to get my MA in Communication from the University of Hawaii. School starts in August. This chapter is ending… the door is ’bout ready to close…

The word liminal comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold – any point or place of entering or beginning. A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.

I think liminal space feels a lot like “the valley of the shadow of death” because you are in a place where you need to die to yourself… who you are… who you thought you were…. who you thought you would be… in order to take hold of that which God has for you. Good thing that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who is able to lead you safely through whatever liminal space you find yourself in… because scripture says, “even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

This liminal space that I’m in is painful. Dying to self is never easy…but surrending my will to Jesus??? Why would I want to chose any path but the one he has carved out for me?? My Shepherd goes ahead of me through the liminal spaces so that he can walk beside me.