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.

The gospel for the child at heart

This has been an amazing year.

A friend reminded me today of something we use to teach our children when they were under her teaching at church.  It brought freedom to my soul again today.

It is surprising to me how God takes old truths and shows you what it means to apply that truth in new and deeper ways.

It hit me today that Paul not only had to die to his badness but he had to die to his goodness.  God had revealed so much to Paul he was prone to pride.  So God also showed him his self righteousness and how even his good deeds were but filthy rags to show Paul his depravity.

I tried so long to live the good christian life.  Just tell me what to do and it fed my flesh and pride to please you and God.  The truth is I can do nothing apart from Christ.

My role is to surrender to the will of God daily.  To die to myself or flesh and live to Christ.  Even that it is His surrender.   He will do the work in my heart and no matter how hard I try it is not the life of Christ living in me. It is my independence.  Christ in me is the new creation.  My role is to yield to Him and let the life of Jesus be lived by me with my gifts, my body.

Corrie ten Boone said we are like a glove and the hand in the glove is like the Holy Spirit.  We work together but it is His power, His will, His life lived through me to do the things I cannot.  The glove cannot do anything apart from the hand in it.  We have the very spirit of Jesus living in and through us.

When we are living in union with Jesus, we know how to love as only Jesus can.  It is not a trying harder to do better.  It is a heart given to the Lord for His glory and His purpose.  It will attract the unbeliever, the rebellious, the hard heart in a way that you could not do on your own.  It is a gift a fruit.  It is an amazement to the wondrous glory of Jesus.   It is my Lord living life through me.  We are living life together. Partnership.

The Change Maker

For all you do guard your heart, for all you do flows from it.

Is your heart so close to the Lords that you sense what is flowing from your heart.

He is the heart changer, the feelings, the attitudes, the attitudes, the needs, the inner most being of your heart is and can be changed by Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Not that I should be an inward looking person but my heart is my connection with Jesus.  It should be before me.  I should be aware of my hearts condition.  Laying my heart before God and asking for repentance is a daily keeping that is a joy of the Lord.  The Spirit delights to bring glory to Jesus by pointing us to Him and His love for us.  It is His love that changes us.  It is His love that brings us to repentance.

So when you get down...when you have a sinful attitude.  When you sense your spirit is not one with the Holy Spirit remember who you are, the child of God.  His beloved.  He adores you and you will be renewed and strengthen by the joy that brings to you.  It brings you to renewal and wholeness.

Gratitude will flow from within you.  It maybe the smallest of things that brings joy.  But that joy brings strength in the weakness of your broken wayward heart.

As you pray in faith trusting God will change you and give you a heart of love of His...You
experience His sweetness

Do not neglect to return and praise Him and give Him thanks and see the gratitude flow from Him to you to others.  This is His strength to you poured out in love.

His Glory!

When you are in His presence and He has washed your feet.  You have touched the hem of His garment.  He gazes into your eyes.  You sense His heart beat. Scripture speaks to your heart. You are clean in His righteousness and changed with the joy and gratitude for your Savior.  Your song cannot be contained.  This is the gospel.  Christ died for sinners and they rise with Him.

No one just plans to have a bad day.

No one wakes up and says I believe I will have a bad day!


Meeting with my sisters in Christ and sharing my heart was a place to start to get out of the pit.  Depression was the enemy that had blinded me.  I did not just decide to fall into this darkness.  It came behind me and I was blinded by the many unusual circumstances.

Seeing my friends whom I had not visited with for awhile was like getting a cool drink from my aunts well years ago.

How we kept laughing in the midst of elderly parents, divorces, hospital, depression, family issues, kids problems, jobs lost, found. The list goes on and on but our burdens were shared.  Our load was lighter.  When you have relationships you can talk though it is like you saw each other just yesterday even if it was weeks ago.

That morning, visiting with my husband, it hit me that my depression, med issues was hurting my family.  That no matter how difficult it was...no matter how hard the pull I had to get up out of my bed.

I had not planned the depression.  No one just says I believe I will just fall into a dark depression.  As a matter of fact I didn't even know that was a problem for me.  I had enjoyed family.  But my activity had gotten less and less.  A new med was given to me 6 months ago.  I had blamed the sleeping on it.  It did start that way.

Depression was not new to me.  I knew how to battle it and how God would walk with me through it. I could do it now.  My heart broke over it all.   I wasn't assured it would go away but my life would improve and my family would be assured that I was better.

I told my friend I didn't want to end up in a nursing home.  My other friend said yes I have heard people say I don't want to be out of my mind and cursing.  My friend said if I do I just do. LOL You see we have the righteousness of Christ.  Oh to know that freedom and love of God.  Even if I cannot move for weeks He loves me still and He is good.  The brokenness I went through during this time was like loosing good friends.  Sometimes it is just too hard and you have to know when it is time just to give it up.  I had to surrender to Gods plan for my life.  It was for Him to be enough to go through the pain of getting on with my life.  It had been so silent I hadn't noticed my pride and selfishness.

Have you been in an ocean and the waves knock you to and fro.  God stripped me of things I had wrestled with for years and redirected me and I was amazed.  It was very painful but He was with me.  I was not assured the depression would leave me but I knew God was present with me through it all.

Silence hurts, rejection hurts, others sin hurts, your own sin hurts others.  So Jesus, more and more I can identify with your pain and today joy.  Jesus is more than enough.  Take captive your thoughts and through His presence settle where He would have you.  I can say at this time I know what it is to give Jesus my whole love and heart.  Until next time we go through surrender to His plan, knowing He is oh so good.

Why had I not seem the symptoms.  Isolation, change of eating, no energy.  I would go back to my Jesus.  Get busy and fight the pull with the power of the cross.  Not just once today but over and over. The wall would be broken and fall down each day as it got easier and easier. Gratitude would swallow up the darkness.  Love would come from within.  The determination and fight would be mine in Him.   I would need help. Draw from Christ.  Others were by my side.  Six months was a long time to break through but with Christ with me life would come.

So if I want to know God more than I did before this whole process...If I want to worship Him...Make Him known to the world around me...Give hope to the faint hearted...May God be praised and glorified just a little bit more from this beggar who adores Him.  It is about my God and His beauty and glory that will not be defeated.

This one makes me forget I am having a bad day.  Just try lol.

LOVE DOES NOT FAIL

As this valentines closes I decided to repost John Lynch New Testament Gamble as one of my favorites.

the new testament gamble by john lynch

What if I tell them who they are?

What if I take away any element of fear, condemnation, judgment or rejection?

What if I tell them that I love them and I’ll always love them and I love them right now, no matter what they’ve done, as much as I love my only son?

What if I told them that there’s nothing they can do to make my love go away?

What if I told them that there are no lists?

What if I told them that they were righteous with my righteousness right now?

What if I told them they could stop being so formal and jumpy and stiff around me?

What if I told them that I was absolutely crazy about them?

What if I told them that even if they ran to the ends of the earth and did the most unthinkable horrible things, when they came back I’d receive them with tears and a party?

What if I told them that I don’t keep a log of past offenses, of how little they pray, how often they’ve let me down, or made promises they don’t keep?

What if I told them that they don’t have to be owned by men’s religions, traditions or additions?

What if I told them I’m their Savior, they’re going to heaven no matter what, it’s a done deal?

What if I told them that they had a new nature; that they were saints not just saved sinners who should now buck up and be better if your any kind of Christian after all He’s done for you?

What if I told them I actually live in them now; that I put my love and power and nature inside them at their disposal?

What if I told them that they didn’t have to put on a mask, that it was really OK to be exactly who they are at this moment with all their junk, and not have to pretend about how close we are, how much they pray or don’t, how much Bible they read or don’t?

What if they didn’t have to look over their shoulder for fear if things got too good the other shoe was going to drop?

What if they knew that I would never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, use the word punish in relation to them?

What if they knew when they mess up I never get back at them?

What if they were convinced the bad circumstances are not my way of evening the score for taking advantage of me?

What if they knew the basis of our friendship was not on how little they sin but on how much they let me love them?

What if they had permission to stop trying to impress me in any way?

What if told them that they could hurt my heart but I would never hurt theirs?

What if I told them that they could open their eyes when they pray and still they will go to heaven?

What if I told them there was no secret agenda, no trap door?

What if I told them it wasn’t about their self effort but allowing me to live my life through them?

What if they actually believed that??!!

That’s the New Testament gamble and it’s being lived out in you and me right now.

As I sit back and reflect the love of my husband and family over this lifetime...it is so vast what the Father has taught me about His love for me through Christ.

For so long I looked to my husband to meet my needs and to give me my worth and validate me.  I looked to Him to make me happy.  To say that I was right.  I looked to Him to make my world worth living when only Jesus could do that for me.  He is what filled the void in my heart.  My husband could not be my god.  He could not fill me and make me whole and heal my brokenness that we all have from a fallen world.

Now if something is wrong with my peace and joy I don't look to my husband to make me happy but look to Jesus and my relationship with Him.  Knowing He loves me just as I am.  That my loneliness is through His presence and acceptance and love that can never fade.  I look in and not out to a world to give me only what Christ can.  Himself.   The Love that will never leave me nor let me go even when I sleep or struggle or fail.  He meets me in my fears and unbeliefs.  He gives me my prayers even before they are on my lips.  He is...My first Love!

When my worship to God is my heart as first in my life, then my love will be overflowing to the world around me.  God is love, living in me.  He is the very Spirits gift that keeps giving.  Love that is never quenched.  He uncovers a love that keeps being poured out that is His love undone.  It is the love showered from the Trinity that keeps on and on and on.  It is Christ in me and His love that just can't be stopped.  It is the kiss from the Father to the Son in us.  It is the love that pours out of a repentant broken heart touched by God's Love that made it worth it all to Him.

That is the "Love" that never fails.  The love of Jesus poured out at the cross and then throughout eternity in such sincerity and humidity that cost Him it all.  Only then, by a broken heart surrendered to its Savior can it taste the honey that can free us and those we love.  It is the very heart of God.  It, He, never fails.