I just posted a depressing poem, because that is sometimes where my thoughts go. At those times I cry out to God, and ask him to sustain me. Maybe I just need that reminder sometimes that he really is my only source of peace.
When I look back on my years of journals and poems, I can see that this low place is where I spent most of my time. The few poems and writings that I can find from the happy times are brief, because at those times I was participating in life instead of observing it from the sidelines.
I’ve been labeled as having so many mental illness diagnoses that I feel like a walking textbook of crazy. From what I have read, and what I know of my own experience, those labels all fit. That is just the mental health issues; I have a slew of physical issues as well. My local pharmacist loves me – at present I take 13 different prescription pills a day, in addition to 3 inhalers for my lousy lungs.
This is the reality of my life. I am broken, and deteriorating more day by day. Walking across the room is a challenge many days, even with several extra liters of oxygen flowing through a tube up my nose.
But just as real as all of that is the hope I have in Christ, and the joy that fills my life. God has blessed me with a wonderful husband and five terrific sons. I have friends who love me ‘warts and all’, I am safe, and secure in the knowledge that God will never forsake me, no matter how unpredictable or uncooperative my mind and body may be. He has saved me from eternal misery, and is right now preparing a place for me. I sense God’s presence with me even on the darkest days; I experience His Holy Spirit as my comforter in the very core of my being.
Today I have a choice. Which reality will I embrace? Will I give up because I am such a wreck, or will I live a life of gratitude for all that I’ve been given? I choose joy.
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