Beautiful in Time

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

I battle depression. There are some mornings when it takes everything inside of me to walk the few yards to my office at the opposite end of the house, where I remain imprisoned until I schedule periods of freedom. I travel most of the time, almost every day. These times are the better parts of my day, because I am actively helping someone, energetically involved in doing what I do best - problem solving and advocating for people's rights to receive the health and personal care they need to live viable and productive lifestyles and receive the respect and dignity they deserve. I am actually doing what I was born to do, because God has given me His love and a passion for serving others. I am compelled by His love, driven by His passion. But it does come with a high price.

For everything we know about God's love is 

summed up in a single sentence: 

Love others as you love yourself. 

That's an act of true love.

Galatians 5:14

Most days I feel free, act free, spiritually I am free! The feelings of brokenness do not come from a lack of faith, but as a test of my faith. My response to these trials and challenges is witnessed by everyone in whom I come in contact, and my actions will either teach them to overcome or be overwhelmed. Hopefully, I show others how to live victorious lives in Jesus rather than the other, but then everyone becomes overwhelmed in life today. Everything is so fast-paced with seconds to decide things, so we all get caught up in the cycle at times. But on a daily basis if we choose to focus on doing the best with what we have, we can overcome anything. 

My true test of faith to which I alluded in the first paragraph is regarding the answers to my prayers. I have asked God for two specific things. First, I want to be unoffendable, and second, I want my heart to be broken for what breaks His. So, God's just allowing some things to pass my way...a few fires, floods, and sifting. This time it happens to be health.

May you have the power to understand, as all God's

people should, how wide, how long, how

high, and how deep His love is.

Ephesians 3:18

I do know and understand His love for me, as much as possible with a finite mind and a limited ability to comprehend. I realize He is pursuing me with a passionate and possessive desire, because He has a plan for my life that extends into a realm I am unable to imagine. Just as God pursues me so does the enemy who is obsessively and voraciously seeking to steal my joy and rob me of my peace. I must endure the hardships before I can continue on the next leg of the journey. God is patient, yet I know the urgency of the hour.

"Today, see if you can stretch your heart and

expand your love so that it touches not only

to those to whom you can give it easily,

 but also to those who need it so much."

Daphne Rose Kingma

As an adolescent I suffered from severe, chronic migraine headaches almost on a daily basis. I became a guinea pig for modern medicine. I remember being prescribed Serotonin re-uptake inhibitors in an effort to help control the headaches. Today researchers have seen a correlation between this neurotransmitter and depression. Back in the day, my day, research was not as diagnostic as today with all the advanced technology. So I learned to cope. I learned to live normally. I also had my mother as the driving force behind my not giving up, no matter how sick I became. Consequently, I rarely missed school due to illness. I have taken this resolve with me through my entire life, up to this moment. It has been quite the ride, and it's not over, as I struggle through the ongoing pursuit of my enemy. Loving people who are on a path of self-destruction can be difficult as test subjects in my training, especially one who is the cause of my daily struggle with chronic pain. Brain injuries are not fun at any level of the damage, because you become a person with conflicted reactions. Because of my training and God's slowly, cautiously reminding me of events I chose to forget and apply them to people I help, I am beginning to understand causes and effects of this injury and the cumulative effects of the other head injuries sustained in my life. I think knowing helps, but it is an emotional time for me, and it involves facing things in my past that my mind blocked out so I could survive.

Going back to my previous thought, showing and feeling love for certain people can seem impossible on days the job is particularly stressful and draining, yet I do pray, and I take things one step at a time, one moment at a time. I keep lots of reminders and a daily calendar, so I will not forget. I also set tasks, goals and interventions. It works for me. I likewise remind myself that my age is of little relevance in my plight. I will fly free of prejudice. Again, cause and effect has the upper hand, but only as a point of reference.

Do not set your mind on high things, but associate

with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion....

If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live

peaceably with all men.

Romans 12:16, 18

Satan knows our Achilles heel, our place of vulnerability, and he uses it in ways I never dreamed possible. This is the place I find more challenging and rightly so. "Do you trust Me?," He asks me again. "Yes, I know You are trustworthy. I know You love me. Yes, I trust You." This is enough for

Him. He's just that way, you know. So off we go on the next path down the rocky road of healing. Perhaps you struggle with trusting Him. We all flounder, but He loves us still. This gives me pause to remind myself again of Brennan Manning's words:

"In the thirty-three years since I was first ambushed by Jesus in a little chapel in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania, and the literally thousands of hours of prayer and meditation, silence, solitude in those years, I am now utterly convinced that on judgment day the Lord Jesus will ask one question and only one question, "Did you believe that I loved you. That I desired you. That I waited for you day after day. That I longed to hear the sound of your voice." The real believers will respond and say,

"I believe in your love, and I tried to shape my life as a response to it." But many of us who are so faithful in our ministry, our practice, church going will answer, "Well frankly, no Sir, I never really believed it." And there is the difference between the real believers and the nominal Christians that abound in our churches across the land. No one can measure like a believer the depth and intensity of God's love. But then again no one can measure like a believer the effectiveness of our gloom, our pessimism, our low self-esteem, our self-hatred and despair that block God's way to us. And you see now why it is so important to lay hold of this basic truth of our faith? Because you're only going to be as big as your own concept of God. We make God in our own image, and He winds up being as fussy and rude and narrow-minded, judgmental and legalistic, and unloving and unforgiving as we are. I've been in churches in Bangor, Maine, Miami, Seattle, San Diego and St Louis, and honest to God of so many Christians I meet is too small for me, because He is not the God of the word, He is not the God who is revealed in and by Jesus Christ who at this moment comes to your seat and says, "I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin and shame, dishonesty and degraded love that darken your past, and right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship, and my word for you is this: I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are, not as you should be, because none of us are as we should be."

Today I've set the standard high, yet I am already sapped of any energy I had on reserve, and all I really want to do is sleep. Escape into my dreams...and yet, He calls me back to awareness. I see His smile, feel His touch, and He gets me going. Always.

"Love is a great thing, an altogether good gift, the only thing

that makes burdens light and bears all that is hard with ease.

It carries a weight without feeling it, and makes all

that is bitter sweet and pleasant to the taste."

Thomas A Kempis