Living Room times - healing times

I'm healing. Feeling rather quiet and not carefree yet, but healing. This morning I talked to the person who I had hurt and his response to my apology was comforting. I knew he would forgive, yet I did need to talk to him personally and hear him say he would. I needed to hear we were okay.

Our Living Room meeting was such a blessing. God so very much there. The person giving the devotional spoke from his heart, asking the question, "What has your mood disorder taught you?" After a bit, I spoke from my heart, telling them all I had been through this week - how I couldn't live with what I had done. How badly I felt about what my bipolar depression had caused me to do. I opened my broken and contrite heart and poured everything out, comforted to know that there were compassionate souls there to listen.

And others spoke from the heart. We shared from the depths of our being. No fear of judgment. Full acceptance and love for each other. What a special meeting it was! And how the Holy Spirit worked in each of us, healing us!

Thank you, God, for Living Room.

Healing love

My biggest aim as a facilitator of the Living Room mood disorders support group is to help participants learn about and experience the love of God. It's when hurting people understand how much God loves them that healing can best occur. I know this, because this has been my experience.

It was when I was in the depths of depression that a person who I held in great esteem told me she loved me and that she would always love me, no matter what I said or did. This person is a very godly person and I knew that what she said came from God and that God was expressing Himself through her. And what a difference it made to me!

Now, when I help others through tough times, I remember what my friend did for me and I try to do this for others. I ask God to fill me with His love and to help me share that love with the people I meet. This is one prayer I can be confident that God will answer.

1 John 4:12 says, "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." It's through those of us who love God that God reveals Himself.

But God's love is unfathomable; it's beyond measure. We can only show a part of it, but we can do it with abandon. We need to accept others as Jesus did, using Him as our example, following in His footsteps. Jesus loved everyone - the poor, the sinners, the sick. He touched the untouchables and His loving touch made them well.

God's commandments that sum up all commandments given in the Bible is to love God with all our heart and soul and strength and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. God IS love. If only the whole world could share in this love! What a better place this planet would be!

But we each have a little corner of the world - a little sphere of influence - people surrounding us who we can love - people whom we can help to heal. Let us ask God to help us share His love with them...with abandon.

"Do you want to get well?"

There's a story in the Bible about a man who has been crippled for a long time. Before Jesus heals him, he asks the man, "Do you want to get well?" Today I ask myself that question. I've so grasped onto this idea that I am now depressed that I'm not letting it go. I've so adjusted my thoughts to trying to do battle with this that I'm now focusing too much on it. I need to free myself from this and live as though it doesn't exist - as though it has no right to exist.

Susan gave a suggestion in her comment to my last post. She said, "My latest technique, brainswitching, also works for me. Whenever I think I'm feeling low, I don't use the word "depressed" and don't worry about being depressed. Rather I come up with a childhood word, for me it's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, from the film Mary Poppins. It makes me smile and doesn't allow the brain kindling to happen."

I like your term "brain kindling", Susan. That is indeed what seems to have happened within me. And "brainswitching"... that is indeed what I need to do. I need to act as though I'm not depressed. I need to think I'm not depressed. I should not talk about being depressed. Instead I'm trying to color my world by making pictures.

I will try to accept God's healing touch and move forward.

By the way, please check out my new article on how Christians can support people with depression. It just went online yesterday.

Belief in demons still rampant (part two)

I guess I need to continue this discussion, though I'd rather leave it alone. Talking about these things that upset me is not good for my mood. I'd rather talk about positive things. The Bible says:

"...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." (Philippians 4:8)

That's excellent advice. I'd much rather do that. But when Christians say things that hurt other Christians, we need to speak up. We should not hide our head in the ground. So I must say just a few more things--things I read in Neil Anderson's The Bondage Breaker that I think are harmful and dangerous to many people suffering from mental illnesses.

The subtitle of the book describes in short what the book promises to help the reader do: Overcoming Negative Thoughts, Irrational Feelings, Habitual Sins. According to the book, the entire answer lies in our spirituality. There is no suggestion that these negative thoughts or irrational feelings could be due to medical causes requiring a doctor's care and medications. Anderson, and too many other evangelists, are in the dark about the cause of mental illnesses. Too many spiritualize all problems involving the mind.

According to Anderson, when we have emotional pain it is because--a person loses his freedom from Satan--"because you have failed to stand firm in the faith or you have disobeyed God" and "it is your responsibility to do whatever is necessary to establish a right relationship with God." He gives us seven steps to follow to recover freedom from Satan and demons.

I studied these steps with an open mind, very much wanting to find something to help my friend with the depression doctors had not been able to cure. I even mailed her the first two steps to try to follow. Over the phone I had her pray out loud one of the prayers he recommended. It did not feel good. I was sorry I'd done it. It felt too regimented--negative in its approach and not at all from the heart.

The book claims that "...if anyone in your family was involved (in cults, false religions, etc.)" you need to renounce them, just in case you unknowingly gave Satan a foothold. One young woman I counseled had simply ridden along while her mother visited a psychic, and the daughter walked out with her own spirit guide. (or demon)" This seems so far fetched to me. According to Anderson, this could be the reason for a person's emotional problems.

Yet he doesn't talk about the medical. He does not even touch on it. That's a very dangerous omission. A person reading this book would not even think about going for medical help and might think that doing so would be showing lack of faith. Christian friends encourage their depressed friends to throw away their pills...all they need is Jesus.

For a Christian to refuse medications for a mental illness is as bad as a Jehovah's witness turning down a blood transfusion. Lack of either of these treatments could cost a person his life.

Too many uninformed evangelists like Anderson--some quite influential--do not seem to understand that our minds are housed in an organ of the body, the brain. And when something goes wrong with this organ--in the same way things sometimes go wrong with other organs of our body--our thinking, moods, feelings, and behavior will be affected.

But Anderson believes this dysfunction is caused by demons, by Satan, by not being right with God.

This approach has hurt many mentally ill people, keeping them from going for medical help. They feel evil and ashamed. (Am I starting to repeat myself?)

I abandoned trying to help my friend using Anderson's seven steps. They felt ugly and counter-productive. I ended up praying with her that God's spirit would fill her so much that there would be no room left for evil. Praying for God's love to permeate us is so much simpler.

I realize there can be spiritual triggers for depression and other mental illnesses and spiritual ways of coping with them, but we need to balance treatment by looking at all the facets that make us what we are. We need to have a wholistic approach to our health. Focusing on Jesus and his love seems to me a far better way to fight Satan than to focus on what Satan is doing in our lives.

I want to share a story that Jumpinginpuddles wrote in her blog back in November. She tells of how the effort to exorcise demons from her to treat her multiple personality disorder affected her. This powerful story is an example of how a purely spiritual approach can harm rather than heal.

Now this is all the negative stuff I want to focus on for now. My next post will be on happier topics, I promise. Because the Bible tells us to "think about such things." And God IS good, and I'd rather talk about that.

Belief in demons still rampant (part one)

Are we fighting a losing battle? When are people going to get educated and understand truth...the truth as we understand it in this 21st century? When are "loving" Christians going to realize how much they are even further harming the hurting brothers and sisters in their midst? When are they going to seriously look to Christ as their example?

A couple of years ago someone tried to help me by giving me Neil Anderson's Victory Over the Darkness to read. Anderson is probably one of the most popular deliverance ministers today. Many Christians--including some from my own church--look up to him and listen to what he says about counseling people with emotional problems by delivering them from demonic influences. Deliverance ministers believe that it is demons that are behind our inability to stop certain sins. If we are to be emotionally well, we need to cast these demons out.

I read this book with great reservation. And the more I read, the angrier I became. Anderson blames all emotional problems on spiritual problems - on not being right with God. As I read, I thought of the many people with mental health issues who might have been given this book to read. There was nothing there to suggest that such illness might be caused by medical problems. If I was reading this before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I would for certain think that my symptoms were caused by demons.

Think of the damage this book may be causing people! Think of the number of people who would as a result not go to a doctor for help! Not only are these individuals suffering painful symptoms, they are also made to live thinking their unconfessed sins are making them sick or that they're possessed by demons.

I have a friend who has been deeply depressed for five years. Medications don't help and ECT's haven't helped. She often feels tormented. She tells me she feels like there is something evil inside her. She feels under attack.

With no other avenue open, and in an effort to help her, I decided to re-visit Neil Anderson's writing. "Perhaps there is something there that is true for her," I thought. "He's a Christian. Surely some of what he says might be useful." I decided to read another popular book of his: The Bondage Breaker: Overcoming Negative Thoughts, Irrational Feelings, Habitual Sins.

(to be continued)

"Do you want to get well?"

I've almost finished reading a great book by Mark Buchanan called The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath. Something he said hit me very hard and made me look at something I've never considered before. He said, "It's the most natural thing to befriend your sickness, even, after long association, to depend upon it." Buchanan carries on by talking about some of the people Jesus healed, "Their entire lives...have taken shape around their injuries or diseases."

In John 5:6 Jesus asks a crippled man, "Do you want to get well?" That seems to be an odd thing to ask a person and, to think that a person doesn't really want to get well, might make us think ill of him. We might think of him as feeling sorry for himself or wanting pity. But, when you think of it, this man had been crippled all of his life - 38 years. No one had ever expected anything from him. He had never had responsibilities. To suddenly be well would mean a drastic new way of living, a way of living that would be hard to adjust to.

And this made me think that perhaps I'm a bit like that. To be perfectly honest, having lived with bipolar disorder for my entire 40 years of adult life, my illness does - in large part - define me, even though I do a wide variety of things. The major part of my current life involves raising awareness about mental health issues and supporting others who live with mood disorders. My BP is responsible for the kind of person I've become. When I become hypomanic, which often happens, I become super creative. I value that in myself. My moods are what makes me who I am. ...though I would love to get rid of those depressions.

If Jesus asked me, "Do you want to get well?" would I say yes?

I'm sure that if he had offered to make me well when I was twenty or thirty, or forty, I would have gladly said yes. I would then have been able to go back to school perhaps and start a career. My illness has kept me from that, the stress being too great. I've tried. I might have been able to make photography a full-time career. But now, at sixty-one, I have learned to turn the bipolar - the bad - into something good. I've learned how to help others cope with their illness. I've learned to build awareness. That has become my life. I could not do these things the way I do, without experiencing the disorder myself.

But you know, although I still have bipolar disorder, I think Jesus has made me well. In helping others, I am helping myself. The work I do gives me great joy. I love the life I live.

Time to play

A few days ago - in one of my negative moods - I questioned whether it was worthwhile spending time on photography. I didn't think my work had much benefit for others. It seemed like such an insignificant thing to do when my whole focus had been to change the way society thinks about mental illness. My husband calls me a bore. I've had a one track mind too long I guess. Yet it was hard to get up the desire to play with photography again.

But over the past few days my feelings about this have been changing. A friend has asked me to hang some photos in her coffee shop, Pegster's on Lonsdale in North Vancouver. Today a friend and I went there for lunch and to check out the wall space. Although I'd been in the shop before, I hadn't been there during business hours. What a thriving place it is! And what a warm and friendly ambience! It occurred to me that by hanging my pictures there I would have an opportunity to contribute to that. My photography would be very worthwhile. I don't care if they don't sell or if I don't get business out of it. I'm not interested in that right now. I just want people to get enjoyment from my work.

I've decided to work on the theme of "We All Are Children." It would include mostly pictures of children, but also a few of older people. The wall space is small, only room for about five prints. But I plan to hang six large ones in one of the windows: three facing out and three facing in. The ones facing out could include pictures of children engaged in eating or drinking - fun shots, pictures that make you want to take a second look. I'll attach a couple here. The large ones facing inside could be of a more serious nature. The wall will include small but happy pictures.

So tonight I will play my music loud (thank goodness my husband is out) and I will play with pictures. Photography has the power to heal, as writing does. And I can always use some healing.