Inner turmoil

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud.

Occasionally, a single storm produces multiple tornadoes.

Tornadoes can strike in an instant and can cause intense, irreversable damage.

Sometimes bipolar strikes like a tornado.

A violently rotating column of thoughts, in contact with nothing, and not visible to anyone but the sufferer.

Occasionally a single episode will be followed by multiple tornadoes.

Episodes can strike in an instant and can result in intense, intractable pain.

INSOMNIA

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep."

Stopped by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

A bad night lies ahead

And a new day beyond that--

A simple sequence, but hard

To remember in the right order.

Psalm, The New Day

by Mark Jarman

What is my birthright?

In a conversation with my doctor yesterday, he was talking about 'my birthright' - in the context that it is my birthright to expect wellness, healing, happiness.

But of course, this is not my birthright.

Since the fall I have lost my birthright and am under the same curse as Eve "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (Genesis 3:16).

My birthright as a result of the fall is pain, suffering and death.

I have never been so struck by the difference between the secular world and Christian world and our approach to our 'entitlements'.

Pain and Hope

I have often drawn comfort in verses which refer to God bringing hope in the morning.

Psalm 30 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Psalm 130 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Lamentations 3 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

There is a hope. A hope to cling to. The hope of newness and rejoicing the the morning.

And I give thanks that God gives me the strength to await the morning, to make it through the night.

However, I can't downplay how long and how dark the night can be.

And maybe I shouldn't.

If I downplay the suffering, I minimise how much God is glorified.

In keeping with my preceding post, if I am going to honor God by the day to day struggle of my illness, I'm going to stop feeling guilty about the fact that the nights are dark and long and hard and lonely.

And I will still hope for the morning.

Thorn in the side

I have been struggling once again, with the 'realities' of praying for healing. Some months ago I made the decision to stop praying for healing and instead to pray for God’s grace in submitting to His will (whatever that may be). But that’s proving to be hard. It's very hard.

I have been conflicted - should I return to praying for restoration and pray harder for God to heal me or should I just keep praying for the grace to go on day by day.

With thanks to Jason R. I have been looking at 2 passages: the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) and Paul's thorn (2 Corinthians 12).

I find it so weird that Paul only prayed 3 times for his thorn to be removed. Maybe being an apostle he received a special word from God, or maybe he was just able to 'get on with it'.

Anyway, with many tears, I will aim to follow Paul's lead and will continue to pray for the strength to get through each day and will pray that in some way through my brokenness, God's power will be shown.

My Big Black Dog

My Black Dog of Depression is howling tonight - he seems huge, he snarles and bares his teeth. He sits back on his haunches, as if ready to pounch and devour me.
But my Black Dog doesn't know that I am armed.
I am prepared.
My weapon will reduce him to a newborn pup - helpless and defenceless.

My weapon is the full armor of God.

Psalm 42: 5-6 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God.

2 Corinthians 4: 8 -9, 16-18. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

The girl in the photo

"The girl in the photo, it's me. I remember her but she seems like someone I loved, but lost, and now grieve for. I want to write in the second or third person, to isolate myself from the 'Black Dog', to give the Dog its own entity, to show depression and me as two separates, living in parallel, occupying the same single, inseparable unity, greedily possessing and devouring each other..... I stopped being me a long time ago, and I grieve for the things the Black Dog has taken from me and buried like a bone in the dirt."

This is from a book called ' Journeys with the Black Dog'. The book comprises a variety of contributions from sufferers of Bipolar Disorder, working with the Black Dog Research Institute at UNSW. I had the opportunity to partake in a 12 month study with the Institute. They do great work there in raising awareness of Bipolar Disorder and in and researching effective treatment for this illness.

People Going Back to Church

?Coincidence?

'Coincidence = a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance'.
I prefer to believie in a sovereign God who ordains and organises every moment for His glory.

Case in point:
Yesterday I wasn't feeling great - had a doctor's appointment and decided to take rest of day off. After my appointment, went for coffee in Leichhardt. Ordered my Latte and grabbed a book to browse through.

At a nearby table I overheard 2 guys talking about the topic of suffering. Suffering in the Christian context. I tried not to eavesdrop, but it was really hard, given my interest in the subject matter.

Anyway it turns out that one of the guys was Byron Smith, whose blog "Nothing New Under the Sun" I regularly read. Byron went to college with one of my close friends. So I decided to sms this friend to tell him the weirdness of sitting in the coffee shop listening to this conversation.
My friend immediately sent an sms to Byron, drawing his attention to my presence.

So I pretty much had to introduce myself. We had a brief chat and I left feeling very much better and very encouraged.

For those of you who are interested, I think the main message is that whilst there are many hypotheses regarding why suffering exists, the answer to suffering is the good news of Jesus Christ.

Touched by Luke 8

Before the whole kitten thing, I started to write a post on Luke 8 - the Dead Girl and the Sick Woman. I have been working on this passage for bible study tonight. It's the first time I have led biblestudy, and in our group we prepare our own questions.

Most of the difficulty I'm having with the passage, is that I keep crying and have to stop.

There are a number of things in this passage that make me weep:

First the sick woman

• The state of the woman - whatever her condition she had clearly exhausted all medical efforts to gain healing, spending all she had on doctors (Mark 5:26)
• She was 'unclean'. This means she would have been shunned by her community. For if anyone touched her, they too would have been made unclean.
• Because of her 'unclean' status, she would not have been able to worship in the Synagogue. Even her relationship with God was somehow cut off.
• Then, with trembling hands, she reaches out to touch Jesus' garments - a tiny act of faith. She believes and is instantly healed.
• Here's the most beautiful part of the story for me.... Jesus calls her daughter. Apparently this tender address is used nowhere else in Jesus' recorded words. Oh what an amazing thing for Jesus to address her as daughter.
• And of course, rather than Jesus being made unclean by her, she is made clean by his touch.
• She is physically healed and spiritually freed. Alleluia!!!

Then Jairus and his daughter

• I can understand that allowing the daughter to die, provided Jesus with the opportunity to resurrect her. And it may have shown Jairus of the need for a patient, trusting faith, but the pain Jairus and his family must have gone through in those moments, is indescribable.

What did I learn

• That God is sovereign and Jesus has power over all things including sickness and death
• That I am not in the driver's seat (no matter how much I wish that were so).
• Ultimately trusting God means accepting his timing for events (and his sovereign outcomes).
• My faith must be vibrant and active in my day to day life but also patient. I must wait on the Lord, my Father, who knows best.

Australian Mist Kitten

I am currently thinking about getting a kitten. This little 2 week old will be up for adoption when he's 12 weeks old. He is an Australian Mist - apparently a good cat for indoors.

The other picture is his dad (Lord Purino Curtis) - gives you a better idea of what he'll look like when he grows up.