Thursday, April 29, 2021
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Sudden Loss
Dr. H. Norman Wright says, "Sudden death is a shock to the system. It can often plunge a person into a crisis state. It's the suddenness of it that's just overwhelming. You don't have the resources. It stops you from your walk through life." [emphasis added]
The sovereign Lord will remain by your side and will keep you from being destroyed by your emotions and circumstances. Claim His words in the Bible, and stand on the truth of His promises, regardless of what you feel and see. Cling to God with all you have. He will preserve your life.
This is actually how my life has been for the past eight years or more.
We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. -- 2 Cor 4:8-9
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Friday, April 16, 2021
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
I've always struggled with depression, ever since my parents' divorce when I was six. When I was living alone with my father and stepmother, after my brother went to live with our mother, around 11-14, I had serious suicidal thoughts--to the point of making plans. But I turned away from it because of my faith, and though I've had the feeling at other times that I wished for death, I never seriously considered it--because I just didn't consider it as a possibility. Until now.
This is not a cry for help, or a bid for attention and sympathy. I'm not planning on doing it. If anyone reads this, and sends the police to my door to "check on me" or "make sure I'm alright," which means "forcibly locking me up and taking away all my rights and freedom," I will never forgive you, and never speak to you again. In fact, if you send the police to my door, all you'll be doing is providing me a way to do it without actually doing it. I won't go with them. I WILL NOT. Except for one way. You know what I mean.
And it wouldn't do any good anyway. I've done a lot of reading and listening to accounts of NDEs from people who committed suicide, and they're pretty much universal in agreeing that they were shown or told that, if they stayed there (on the other side) that they would continue to suffer until their allotted time was up, or until some other condition was met. Even people who aren't Catholic and didn't believe in purgatory. It's not a way out.
This is just me talking about what's going on in my heart and mind, because I have nowhere else and no one else to talk about it. They always say "Talk to someone about it." And yeah, they're right: the only way to relieve the pressure is to talk to somebody about it. And I've got nobody to talk to about it but you. So that's what I'm doing. "What about your family?" I can't do that. My mother is mentally ill, and my brother is way too busy--a working lawyer with two kids at home--he barely has time to sleep. And my kids are going through enough on their own, dealing with it, and I'm not going to put this on them too--not going to add to their burdens, "Now we've got to worry about Dad." Luckily, none of them read my blog. And that's my entire circle. I've mostly lost, in recent months, the two friends with whom I was closest. So again, that leaves you.
What I am saying is that, for the first time in my adult life, not counting that time that it was induced by that ill-advised medication they tried on me, I have been having the actual thoughts and inclinations toward it. I am in a place where there seems absolutely no hope left for happiness or peace. Every minute of my existence is purgatorial. I pray constantly, day and night, for relief, for an end to my suffering, either some change in my life, some ray of hope and light and love, or for an end to it, once and for all. But no answer comes. I used to be able to find peace, even amidst my suffering, in His presence. I used to be able to find his love and light, and rest there, no matter what else was happening in my life and my heart. But I no longer can.
Nor can I find any relief in the less spiritual things that I used to use to distract myself. No activity, no hobby, no pastime, no interest, holds any appeal to me any longer. I try. I try to read, to write, to study, to do things around the house, to engage in time-wasting distractions, but none of it diverts me from the soul-wrenching agony I live in day and night, night and day. Even sleep, which used to be the thing which sustained me, where I had beautiful dreams and encounters with God, holds little or no relief for me anymore.
I've thought about checking myself into a facility, or calling a helpline, but then I run into that same problem: it will lead to me losing my freedom, to forced medication, forced therapy, the loss of my rights--to forever being labeled "at risk," to have a "note in my file," and to them being able to "intervene" however and whenever they see fit. To hell with that. I may have to get back on medication if this doesn't lift soon, but if so it will be because I choose to, not because someone imposes it on me. I have been trying to avoid it, because it will put me back in that place where I can't lose weight again, and that will send me, in the long run, further down the road of no life, no hope. The heavier I am, the more my physical ailments afflict me and limit me, and the worse the social isolation and ostracization becomes. But I may have to do it anyway, in the short-term.
Always before, I've come up with a plan. I'm going to do this with my life, change that in my life, regroup, refocus, redirect, and get my life back on track. But it always gets derailed somehow. And it's just reached the point where I can't see any hope of any new direction that's going to end any differently. Every time this happens, I end up having wasted years of my life on something that leads to nothing except back to the same place. I've lost the will to keep fighting.
What I really need is an answer to my prayers. For something. Someone. Anything. Anyone. To come into my life and give me some modicum of hope and love. When I reached what I thought was the low point last time, the point at which I couldn't go on along the road I was on, God sent me Carolina. I screwed that up. Or life screwed it up for me. Or we did it together. But I need some kind of help like that again. I need another miracle. I know I don't deserve it, because I didn't embrace and appreciate enough the miracle he already sent me. But I really didn't do it out of willful disobedience or obstinacy: I just failed to see clearly. I really did the best I could. I just ask for forgiveness and another chance.