Coping or Trusting

And God took Elijah up.

I was amazed how gentle God was with Elijah in restoring him from his depression.  He fed him, gave him rest and showed him to care for others.  Elijah was proclaiming that he was the one who was faithful to God.  God showed him there were many.  But God was kind in restoring Elijah as he was fearful and self-righteous.

I have been interested in mental health beyond just accepting that is what the doctors diagnose me as. Where do these thoughts come from.  What is going on in my heart and mind as I drift beyond being in the present.


Lately I began to think about my childhood.  What a wonderful time that was in my life.  My relationship with my parents and my role in our time together.

Then marriage and my husband and children.  I adored my children and loved my husband so.  I thought life was perfect.  As we all know nothing nor no one in this life is perfect.

The world collapsed and I could not handle all that was going on so I escaped for the next many years into another world that did not exist.  Then I would spend my time in the computer world, writing and reading.


After many relapse I began to read what Gods word said about what was going on in my life.  I began to live in the present.  I was responsible.  I did have a time of illusions but I stayed mostly in life.


There was a time in the hospital to adjust my meds.  While there I had to stop my habits of smoking and wine at night so the med could be monitored.  I didn't realize how I had used these to cope.  With them gone I noticed sleeping because of the med and depression.  

The ways I had coped with life were gone.  Fear set in as I felt responsible for everything and everyone.  I was not conscious of these patterns and what they did for me.  I started to pay attention to what I did and thought when things did not go as I thought they should.  Maybe people were not doing what I thought they should.  What did I do.  Where did I turn.  How was my peace and joy and response.  Did I know I had power.  There were things I could do trusting God and not just turn inward or to something to escape.

There are so many ways we escape without even realizing it.  Work, tv, telephones, computers, shopping, gossiping, worry, sleep...the list could go on and on.

I read our children are not put here to make us look good.  We go from one thing to another to give us identity and ways of coping with this out of control life.  Full of pain and sin that we can not manage to our desire.  Or that we even cause.  We either shut the world out or we are god to a fault.

It is not the people that are on display but Jesus.  Sometimes I think the more messed up we are the more Jesus shines.  I know without my struggles I would not have turned to Jesus in the desperation that I have had.  I have not had the assurance of my Fathers love and pleasure in me, His child.



Relying on Christ and trusting Him has come over the last several years, about 5.  I have loved and talked to God as long as I can remember.  But actually resting in His goodness and love for me has been a process He has brought me through on His own by His Spirit.


I am so thankful for the illness and the work the Lord has mercifully done.  I am humbled by HIs patience and faithfulness.  I don't believe this would have been as beautifully done any other way.  The beauty I see is Jesus and His heart.   He is beyond my comprehension or imagination how He is so grand, mighty and glorious.  I mean He worked many days with me asleep lol.  I would wake and the things He would reveal to me about Him and my own heart stunned me.  Left me amazed.  Only God!

He keeps me weak just enough that I have to lean.